Today, two of my morning students showed up. That’s out of eight students. We have a HUGE problem with commitment in this class. It affects my ability to teach, and their ability to learn. Every day, half of the students are clueless about the lesson we are reviewing, because they were absent the last class. In addition, there are always people missing in the new lesson, which means the following class they are going to be clueless, too. Get a clue! Come to class regularly! Today I was really frustrated because I started to review what we learned Friday: talking about your job. One student had the material. I was lost as to how to proceed, because I couldn’t review when 50% of the class (i.e. one person) didn’t understand anything. And my next thought was, why should I teach new material when Wednesday I’m just going to face this same frustration again? I told them I couldn’t teach them with the best of my ability when they come and go as they please. I improvised and taught a small amount of new material, then ended the class 15 minutes early.
After the class, I started thinking about what we can do. I am considering canceling the morning class, depending on their availability to join the afternoon class. Maybe the suggestion will be all that is necessary for improvement. Or maybe we’ll cancel the class and focus on the divinely wonderful afternoon class. The afternooners are just amazing. I’ve gushed about them more than once, and today the class was no different. Our interaction is lively and fun, they attend consistently, are eager to learn, and are diverse and interesting.
Another ministry in need of change is Iglesia Peniel. I have talked in previous blogs about how the church is not growing. Finally this past weekend, we addressed the problems that exist and Pastor Luna laid out a plan to jumpstart this ministry. Coming from an American church background, I am familiar with the strategic planning that goes into all aspects of church ministries. Sometimes our ability to plan can choke the spiritual life out of a group of believers, but by the grace of God, the American church does have something to offer struggling churches like Peniel. With this background, my schooling and experience in Octane Ministry, I have been able to encourage the family to address the problems of the church. This is not easy, because I am afraid of disrespecting the family and being a Miss Know-It-All. It wouldn’t be the first time. In fifth grade, that’s what the kids called me. Obviously, God’s matured me since I was 10, but needless to say, the process isn’t easy. This is an evident prayer request! The plan is to evangelize in the neighborhood before the Thursday night service, inviting people to church. Then on Sundays, we will have a meal outside the church after the service, to make more of an impact on the neighborhood that we are really a community, and part of the church. After the meal we will again go out into the neighborhood and evangelize. On Saturday mornings at 8, we will all pray for an hour wherever we are. This will unite us as a community across the distance, as we commit to prayer together. These were all Pastor Luna’s ideas. Besides forming this plan, he said that simply acknowledging that there are problems and talking about them is part of the growth of the church. Amen!
2 Comments
March 11, 2009 at 11:42 pm
My goodness… this is amazing, and so are you!!!! I just spent two hours reading all of your posts. You are wondeful for doing this. I loved all the pictures, especially the ones of the baby and Jacquline (we were close). She found out she was pregnant when we were there last year. I can’t wait to see you and Pastor Lunas family!!!
March 12, 2009 at 6:22 pm
A thought– do you have time to offer private tutor sessions? If someone committed to that. Maybe you’d catch the well-intentioned ones who have difficulty with the time slot (i.e. you tailor time slot to their schedule). Announcing or threatening cancellation of the class as you suggest could also reveal the level of commitment of attendees. Maybe a contest between the am and pm group? with an incredibly awesome prize??? Done in a way that doesn’t matter that one class is smaller. Hmm. I’m glad that Pastor Luna has been pondering ways for the church ministry to be more effective and that there is openness to suggestion and discussion.
Much love,
Mom