Peter Krol | Knowable Word

Why It’s Hard to Delegate Responsibility

January 29, 2016 By Peter Krol

Peter Rasmussen (2014), Creative Commons

In family life, we call them helicopter parents, because they hover close and swoop in when their wards need rescue. They keep younglings caged and well-padded. They argue over grades with college professors. They sit in on job interviews. They expect daily phone calls and pre-decision consultations.

And these “helicopter parents” run rampant also in Christian ministry. I confess: I am prone to be one of them. But by way of contrast, let me tell a few stories.

Eighteen Months

I know one guy who served the Lord in a previously unreached part of the world. This community tolerated monotheism, and some folks had been influenced by Jewish ideas. But they had never heard of Jesus or his saving work until this man arrived. His ministry got kicked out of its meeting place several times. He made a remarkable number of enemies. He was even abducted and brought before the local judge on charges of anarchy (thankfully, he was acquitted). But he stayed there for a total of 18 months, preaching and making disciples. When God called him elsewhere, he left a thriving church with regular worship services, a reputation for strong teaching, and a group of pastors and elders to shepherd them.

Did you hear that? This guy trained and launched leaders from unbelief, through conversion, and into competent shepherding in 18 months! If someone new came to my Bible study, I might not even let them lead a prayer time in 18 months. I care too much to allow such reckless indiscretion.

On-the-Job Training

Another fellow in my acquaintance focused on itinerant ministry. He gathered a few trainees about him and poured himself into them, while he hit the preaching circuit. I was amazed by his ability to turn absolutely anything into an object lesson. He coached, explained things, served people, and let his apprentices participate and practice. Within a few years, he began booking his apprentices to preach on his behalf.

While I appreciated the multiplying ministry, I also had significant concerns here. A few of these apprentices didn’t yet have a clear Christology (doctrine of Christ). They hadn’t gone to seminary or received any other formal theological training. But this missionary was convinced their syllabus for learning needed a good proportion of teaching to help them progress faster in their training. It was pretty risky and almost created a disaster.

What Holds Us Back

Why is it so hard for me (and perhaps for you) to let people go, to send them out and let them try their hand at ministry? Why do we hover, hang on to responsibility, and pass things off with stalwart reluctance?

Of course, there are many possible answers. But the main reason for me is that I fear failure. It’s the same reason I hated group projects as a student. It’s why I carry burdens I don’t need to carry. It’s why I find it easiest to do something myself.

Can you relate?

Do you ever feel like an unskilled apprentice would reflect negatively on your leadership?
Do you think the stakes are too high for the people you minister to, for a newbie to make mistakes in caring for them?
Do you believe you’re caring for weaker brothers or sisters when you cushion their fall?

One of the best ways people learn is by feeling the pain of their mistakes. If we are serious about training others to lead Bible studies (or do any other kind of ministry), we must take risks. We must launch apprentices quickly, bring them back to debrief, and send them out to try it again. We need to give them real authority to try things. We must be okay with imperfection. We have to make peace with some people’s needs going unmet while the apprentice figures out how to meet them. We can’t jump in and fix it.

We should be okay with mistakes in the Bible study, mistakes in the small group, mistakes in the pulpit. We should never hammer ministry apprentices for trying and failing, though we might need to admonish them for not really trying.

I was not ready to lead my first Bible study, but I needed that first one so the second one could be better. Someone trusted me enough to let me try it. If I were that leader, training up that younger me, I might not have taken the risk. But I praise God for the courageous leaders in my life, and I want to be more like them.

Postscript: I want my argument to be biblical and not merely anecdotal, so allow me to introduce my two missionary friends from the case studies above. You may find them in Acts 18:1-18 and Luke 10:1-24.

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The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy

January 27, 2016 By Peter Krol

Last week, Al Mohler wrote about “The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy,” where he proposes a connection between biblical illiteracy and moral decline. If we think Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, how will we learn from their destruction?

We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.

Mohler challenges us to recover vibrant Bible teaching at home and in church. We must know the word if we are to apply it to all of life. Though Mohler’s tone may be alarmist, he offers helpful insight. As you read, just remember that widespread biblical illiteracy provides some opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have: If people don’t even know what the Bible says, they may be less likely to presume what it means. And that means the truth must break through fewer defenses.

Check it out!

4 Ways an Apprentice Can Help with Your Small Group

January 22, 2016 By Peter Krol

Leo Reynolds (2005), Creative Commons

The second stage of training a new Bible study leader is “I do, you help.” When your apprentice is ready to help, will you have something for that person to do? Here are some areas to consider.

1. Help with Logistics

As you give your apprentices some responsibility for the group, they can feel more ownership and demonstrate faithfulness. And as they show faithfulness in small things, you can entrust even greater things to them. Helping with logistics may involve recruiting, hosting, communicating, advertising, bringing a snack, or planning a group activity.

2. Help with Shepherding

Your goal in training a new Bible study leader should ultimately be to raise up a new shepherd of God’s people. So apprentices will learn much by learning to help you shepherd people. Apprentices can help shepherd people during the meeting: Asking good questions, encouraging quiet people to speak, or following up with prayer requests from previous meetings. They can also help shepherd people between meetings: Calling folks in the group, meeting with them for lunch, or connecting with outreach contacts. Ministry experience will help apprentices learn to lead better Bible studies.

3. Help with Preparation

Include your apprentice in your Bible study preparation. Though you could get it done faster by yourself, apprentices won’t learn unless you let them in. Meet with them before the meeting to go over the passage. Show them how to observe and investigate the text. Give them a voice to help shape your main point and craft specific applications for the small group.

4. Help with Evaluation

After the meeting, ask your apprentice how it went. How clear was the study? What was helpful or unhelpful? How were people responding? What was good? What could be better? What could we do to follow up on things that were said?

When leading a group, it’s great to have some help from an apprentice. This means we have to ask for help. But sometimes we fail to think of how apprentices can help because we’re too busy keeping all the responsibility for ourselves. So the main idea is to give apprentices real responsibility. In the next post I’ll expand on why it’s often difficult for us to do this.

One Danger of Quiet Times

January 20, 2016 By Peter Krol

Unlocking the Bible has a stimulating reflection on “The Not-So-Quiet Quiet Time,” where Colin Smith warns we should spend more time listening to God than listening to our own hearts.

It has become common among Christians to think that listening to God means being quiet and listening to our own hearts. But here’s the problem with that:

God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).

If you believe that you listen to God by listening to your own heart, then what have you done? You have put your own heart in the place of God. If you make an idol of your heart, that will inevitably lead to a life of following the impulses of your own heart.

And who knows where that will lead you?

It’s worth considering: During your “quiet time,” whose voice do tend to listen to?

The rest of Smith’s article is worth reading. Check it out!

Mark’s Marvellous Book: A New Kind of Storybook Bible

January 15, 2016 By Peter Krol

While the children’s book market offers a number of beautiful, theologically rich, and gospel-centered volumes, Mark’s Marvellous Book by Alan Mann offers something I haven’t seen before: A children’s story Bible driven not by topic but by the text. Mann presents Bible stories from Mark’s Gospel with clarity, precision, and a simplicity worth imitating. If you want to learn how to teach Bible stories to your children, read this book to them and learn to do what Mann does.

Mark’s Marvellous Book has 18 chapters, each focusing on a single episode in the life of Jesus. Each chapter has:

a one-word title stating the main point
5 storybook pages, applying the story’s main point to a 4-6-year-old child
a single-page explanation of the Bible story and its main point
a memory verse from the story, again highlighting the main point

Perhaps you see where I’m going: Alan Mann gets the main points of these stories! And he centres his storytelling around those main points. (Dear fellow North Americans: Please don’t be put off by the anglicized spellings of words like centre and marvellous. This book will serve all English-speaking families.)

Since Mann doesn’t cover every episode from Mark, I felt a little misled by the advertisement labelling this book “A commentary on Mark for kids.” Yet the book still won over both me and my two young daughters. I could barely get the book away from them so I could finish reading it for this review.

The physical volume meets all my standard expectations for a children’s book: strong cover, good binding, shiny paper, sturdiness to take a beating. I’m grateful to Christian Focus Publications for providing a review copy.

I hope we see more books like this in the future. Mann has a great thing going here, and I would love to see similar storybook Bibles that expound texts with such skill.

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Too Much Bible?

January 13, 2016 By Peter Krol

The Proclamation Trust recently posted a short piece asking whether the average Christian receives too much Bible teaching these days. Author Tim Ward questions whether our distraction-prone culture has led us to move so quickly from one teaching event (or recording) to another, and whether we might benefit from more time to meditate on each passage before moving right to the next.

In this aspect of our lives we have probably been more deeply shaped and trained by the distracted and distracting culture of our day than we realise. If I’m going to help any other believers around me let any parts of God’s word sink deep into them rather than simply letting lots of God’s word just wet our skin, I’ve got to be fighting against this cultural habit in myself.

Some good questions, I think. Check out Ward’s full article. I’m curious to hear what you think of it.

Our 10 Favorite Posts to Write in 2015

January 8, 2016 By Peter Krol

public domain

Last week we shared the 10 most popular posts on Knowable Word from 2015. Today, we’re sharing the 10 posts of 2015 that were the most fun for us to write.

Ryan

5. How to Ruin a Small Group Discussion in 4 Easy Steps

I wrote this post tongue-in-cheek, which was a lot of fun. This post was part of my series on attending small group Bible studies, and I wrote most of it using examples from years of witnessing (and leading!) mediocre-to-bad discussions.

4. When Bible Study Meets Real Life

Who has the time to do all of this OIA Bible study? In this post I suggest looking at your devotional life through the lens of Bible intake, making sure not to neglect Bible study entirely.

3. How to Apply the Bible in Community

I taught a Sunday school class at my church this past year on how to study the Bible. While teaching, I was struck with how much Christians need each other to apply the Bible. This post offered the “how” portion of my answer.

2. Why We Need Community to Apply the Bible

See above. In this post, I tried to put my finger on why Christianity is not a solo venture. I love it when I can draw directly on the lessons God is teaching me for my posts.

1. Don’t Forget the Gospel During Bible Study

This was a post where I was preaching to myself. Whether I feel like a success or a failure after personal or group Bible study, I need to return again and again to the central message of the Bible—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Peter

5. 50 Observations of John 3:16

I could hardly contain my excitement when students from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania took my challenge (from page 42 of Knowable Word) to make 50 observations of John 3:16. They sent me a photo of an autographed white board as the fruit of their labor.

4. Top 10 Curses of Study Bibles

Study Bibles are like guns. They are dangerous and require extreme caution. We should have rules about how to use them safely.

3. (Almost) How the Bible was Meant to be Read

To date, my favorite book to review has been the ESV Reader’s Bible. This thing will change the way you read the Bible. Check it out.

2. Don’t Neglect the Lesser-Known Commands of God

My April Fool’s post for this year was full of fun and good cheer. To both celebrate April Fool’s Day and teach the importance of context, I could think of nothing better than ridiculously to rip Scripture from its context.

1. Why God Speaks to Job Twice

I really enjoyed all the posts I wrote on the book of Job this year. These posts came out of a sermon series at my church, and this one was my favorite of the bunch.

In severe suffering, Job has accused God of doing wrong and of remaining silent. But God arrives, speaking out of the whirlwind, to put Job in his place. Job 38:1-39:30 records God’s first speech, recounting the wildness, inscrutability, and uncontrollable power of God’s creation. Duly humbled, Job tries to slink away like an amateur diver whose loosely tied trunks slipped off at surface impact.

But God will have nothing of the sort. “Oh no, you don’t. I’m not done with you yet.”

Avoid Sloppy Bible Reading

January 6, 2016 By Peter Krol

John Starke has a good article about sloppy Bible reading.

What I mean by “sloppy reading” is that often I come to a text of Scripture thinking I’m reading in order to be informed about how I might believe and live, but actually I’m coming to Scripture for affirmation of what I already believe and how I already live. And so, I’m a sloppy reader who’s likely blind to my sloppiness. And it’s likely you are too.

He illustrates by showing what we should take away from Jesus’ statement that he came not for the healthy but for the sick. Starke exposes the ease with which we fail to see Christ—even in the Gospels—and he models grace-filled application for us.

Check it out!

7 Benefits of Memorizing Long Scripture Passages

December 30, 2015 By Peter Krol

Perhaps you’re not much of a reader, and this week’s contest announcement didn’t inspire you. Maybe you’re more interested in Scripture memory than Bible reading. If so, have you considered the benefits of memorizing long passages, even entire books, instead of select verses?

Chris Brauns suggests 7 benefits of systematic long-term Scripture memory, stretched over not only months but decades.

It allows you to follow the example of the ant.
Along with prayer, it offers the most immediate and intentional way to pursue sanctification.
It enables you to identify insights into Scripture that take years to see.
It teaches you what to pray.
It preserves memories of when God’s word was impressed on you.
It offers a tool for discipling others.
It makes you a more efficient reader of theology.

Brauns’s article explains these points with helpful examples. Check it out!

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