How did Yeshua teach His disciples?
In 2009, I attended a Family Integrated Church conference at Antioch Community Church in Elan, North Carolina. We had just planted a church, and a friend invited me to join him. At this point in my life, I had not visited many churches. And even to date, this church has been the most mature, well-organized, and well-run church I have seen. I was only there for a weekend, but I was thoroughly impressed with what I experienced. One element I borrowed from them and immediately implemented at our church was congregational sharing.
At Antioch, following the sermon, the microphone would be passed around for folks to share family updates, give praise reports, offer prayer requests, and make comments or ask questions about the sermon. At Front Range, our church in Colorado, I would field questions during my sermon. I didn’t mind the interruptions; in fact, I encouraged the questions as long as they were related to what I was teaching. The group was small, so treating the sermon as a discussion was manageable. After a while, I noticed it was the same people asking questions, and in most cases, the questions were off-topic or led us down a different path. Many times, because of my inexperience, I would take a question as I was building up to make a point, and I’d lose my train of thought or lose momentum. After the conference at Antioch, we decided to move the Q&A to the end of the service so I could deliver my sermons uninterrupted. This change made more sense, and it fit our needs.
I stumbled upon this House Church YouTube channel the other day, and I watched the episode beloe. I resonated with the thinking behind their conclusion that we should be “teaching” the same way that Yeshua taught. I have several books that examine Yeshua’s teaching methodologies and then encourage pastors to use these techniques in their own sermons. The most notable observation is that Yeshua asked questions to engage His followers. Helping a student come to the correct conclusion himself or herself is the best way to deliver a memorable teaching. However, this takes one-on-one time with the learner, which is not easily done in a church service. In this episode, they also mention that Yeshua gives monologue-type teachings (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7) in which He neither asks nor takes questions. This is because He was speaking to larger groups of people, not just His closest followers. So an argument can be made that the Bible supports both Sermon Monologues and Guided Discussions. If Yeshua did both then why can’t we?