Experiential Learning
To be equipped adequately to serve
the Lord Jesus Christ,
we need to learn from experience.
Here's Gene to explain:
It's no secret that throughout the Gospels, Jesus really taught that we need to have more
than head knowledge.
We need to have heart knowledge.
And when we have heart knowledge, we normally really learn a lot of that from experience.
And we see this in relationship to the way the Lord Jesus equipped these men.
Particularly the twelve apostles.
Now one of the interesting things you'll find in the Life Essential Study Bible is that I call
attention to the fact that there's repetition in some of these stories in the Gospels.
There are four Gospels.
And here Matthew addresses this particular story and situation. He records it.
But the focus in Matthew in that principle-- it relates to the importance of equipping others.
But here in Mark--in the same story with a little different twist or spin or additional detail--
gives us a focus on how to equip others.
That's a marvelous thing. Even in the repetitious stories in the Gospels, you'll find unique principles.
They come from each of these stories.
Now some of them are the same and identical.
But here you do have--same story, two principles.
In Mark 6 the focus is learning by experience:
He was going around the villages teaching. [That is Jesus.]
He summoned the Twelve and
began to send them out in pairs...
In other words, for mutual encouragement.
I think that's a very important principle as well.
We need each other in this process.
And by the way, one of the things that's done today that we've really learned in missions
is to send out teams of people.
Because we need each other in some of those situations that are very difficult.
Jesus sets the stage for that.
He...gave them authority over unclean spirits.
So they went out and preached that people should repent.
And they drove out many demons, anointing many sick people with oil and healed them.
Now this was just one of the various experiences that Jesus gave the apostles
when he was teaching them these biblical truths.
And that really paid off in terms
of the lives of the apostles.
And if you project ahead to the ministry of the apostles after Jesus went back to heaven,
you have an interesting reflection of that here in Acts chapter 4, verse 13:
When they observed the boldness
of Peter and John and realized that they
were uneducated and untrained men
they were amazed and recognized
they had been with Jesus.
And what they saw in the lives of
Peter and John and the other apostles.
What they had learned. Not just from what they heard.
But what they experienced in these
situations throughout the time that
they spent with Jesus. Experiential learning.
Now this doesn't put a premium on ignorance.
That's not what this principle is teaching.
This is not negating the importance of seminaries and Bible colleges and classes and higher education.
We need that.
But the fact still remains that one of the most dynamic ways we learn is through experience.
And I think one of the unfortunate things is that when we moved into the area of academic training,
we moved away from giving people experience. To learn by experience.
And it became sort of a transmission-head-knowledge kind of situation rather than learning by experience.
And we need to look at that, I believe, in terms of how we can give experience to people
as well as head knowledge.
It's interesting--go back to the time when Dale Moody started Moody Bible Institute back
in the late 1800s.
They set up the curriculum so the students were in class in the morning.
And then they were out ministering all afternoon-- practicing what they had learned in the morning.
And that was the basic approach to learning at that particular time.
And that's really based upon the way Jesus taught. The principle that Jesus taught in
terms of the fact that we need to learn from experience.
When I became pastor. Left the halls of sacred learning--
which I love very much--
and got into church planting.
One of the most important things for me was to set up a program that we called church-based training.
Where we set up opportunities for people to learn by experience, rather than just head knowledge.
And some of the great learning experiences that people shared with us were people who
were going to seminary.
But the same time, involved in this experiential learning:
where we assigned them to pastors
and leaders out at the local church level-- was that they really began to learn and apply
what they were learning academically.
We need to learn by experience because that's what we really remember and that's what really impacts our life.
And so the question basically is:
As you reflect on your most significant learning experiences, what characterized these events?
And as I look back on my own experience. My own academic experience. As well as all the
other learning experiences. What I really remember is not what I learned in a classroom,
but what I learned from experience.
Either in applying that. Or trying to apply that. Or just events and experiences that God
brought into my life. Where I had to draw on what I had learned. That was not very meaningful
until I faced an experience.
Where I really begin to understand what this really means. And it becomes a part of my heart
rather than just my head.
I often say, somewhat with tongue-in-cheek, but with some meaning.
I spent 20 years equipping people to do ministry.
Showing them, teaching them how to do ministry.
And then after 20 years of teaching at the academic level, I went out to learn how.
Because I became a church-planting pastor.
And that's where we really, really learn-- is out there in the trenches.
That's where we begin to really understand how to apply principle rather than just repeat it
and share it verbally.
And that has been for me a very life-changing experience.
And I believe that we need that experience in order to grow.
And we need each other. Because we
read in Ephesians chapter 4 ,verse 12:
That God has given some to be apostles
and some prophets, evangelists,
pastors, and teachers to equip the
saints for the work of ministry.
All of us need to be equipped.
And one of the greatest ways is through experience.
So let me just repeat that Principle to Live By:
To be equipped adequately to serve
the Lord Jesus Christ,
we need to learn from experience.