The one who gets the learning

A theme in studies of student learning in higher education is that the one who does the work is the one who gets the learning. This is the main impetus behind the push away from lectures and toward interactive engagement: If the professor is the one who creates the outline, completes the sample problem, and derives the important conclusions, then the professor gets the learning, and the students get to watch. If the students are to learn, they must be the ones to do the work that leads to understanding.

I am convinced that the same is true in the setting of Sunday morning at church. If the pastor spends all week outlining and cross-referencing the text, examining applications, and drawing the important conclusions, then the pastor has received the learning, not the congregation.

This is not to say there is no place for lectures. Lectures can (and I emphasize "can") be motivating and can lead to initiative on the learners' part. But to have lecture be the only mode of learning that takes place is to fall short of setting up the learners for success.