Teaching
“Reduce teaching to intellect, and it becomes a cold abstraction; reduce it to emotions, and it becomes narcissistic; reduce it to the spiritual, and it loses its anchor in the world.” – Parker Palmer
Effective teachers strive to reach the head, the heart and the spirit…
Palmer posits, “intellect, emotion and spirit depend on one another for wholeness in education at its best.” That’s why I take a holistic approach to the teaching ministry of faith formation. To love God with our minds is to think critically about the life-giving, life-changing Word of God, as well as the lives we live, the problems we solve, the people we serve, the world we inhabit, the actions we take and the plans we make.
It’s impossible to share knowledge without shared learning taking place and energy being exchanged. Serious attention must be paid to my own feelings as well as the feelings of the students in the room. This soul-work requires humility and vulnerability. I count it a joy and a privilege to be a pastor and a teacher called to equip the saints for the work of ministry, (Ephesians 4:12).
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