One of the real joys of my pastoral vocation is that reading and learning is an ongoing part of my weekly “work.” At a bare minimum I am reading commentaries on the sermon text for the upcoming Sunday. When possible I am also doing some reading and research for upcoming sermons and sermon series. Then, when time allows, I also read books, listen to podcasts, and take various classes that will help me grow as a pastor and church leader. Sometimes these are theological and church-focused, sometimes they are very practical, and sometimes they are simply for personal growth and becoming conversant with a wider breadth of literature and thought. I love that Eugene Peterson scheduled time every week to have a “meeting” with Fyodor Dostoevsky – by which he meant take time to read one of Dostoevsky’s works of fiction. I have had mixed success with scheduling my own weekly meetings with both Eugene Peterson and John Steinbeck.
Added to these more traditional forms of learning, I believe that any good preacher needs to be able to actually “exegete” and “exposit” the text (this is the act of understanding what the text means and then applying that meaning to our place/time). Most would agree that to do this well one also needs to be a student of culture and well-informed of current events in both one’s community and the world. So taking time to read news, journals, and listening to podcasts are also part of my weekly diet (I don’t find cable news to be beneficial and it has long since disappeared from my media intake).
The Bible Project “Classroom”
And while I enjoy learning, obviously all of this takes significant time. Therefore I put a premium on any content that makes the learning process more efficient and is of high quality. And this is why the Bible Project’s “classroom” content has been blowing my mind! I’ve long made use of their videos and been a fan of their podcast, but their classroom content is next-level! So far I’ve taken their Intro to the Hebrew Bible, Heaven and Earth, and Adam to Noah classes. I’m currently working through the Noah to Abraham course. I’m telling you: these classes are better than most of the classes that I took in seminary! And that is not to disparage my seminary classes – many of them were excellent. It is simply to say that these are that good! For these classes in the Hebrew Bible, if you have learned Biblical Hebrew then you will really appreciate the instruction and get a lot more out of them. But I’m amazed at how much Hebrew Tim Mackie actually teaches as he goes along. Absolutely brilliant! Did I mention that all of the classes are COMPLETELY FREE! Are you kidding me!? What a gift to the Church!
Now I know that online classes learning isn’t for everyone, but that also might be because online learning is often done so poorly. These are well-crafted, thoughtfully designed and edited classes. The new classes are optimized for the phone and they way it is all presented is native to how things are viewed on a phone. It’s so well done! And yet, even though it is an online class, they invite small groups of “students” to sit in on the instruction and give feedback and ask questions. Participating in one of these classes online makes you feel like you are part of the conversation and that you get to know the other students. And once again, I find that the discussions are often much richer than some of the foolish debates that often developed in my seminary classes. Of course, the real limitation here is that you cannot actually interact with either the teacher or students in these prerecorded classes. While I’m not sure how they select the “students,” my brother was recently invited to participate. They really put a lot of thought into the process. They do the filming for many hours over a number of days for each class. The students bring clothing options matching the recommended color scheme and then get the clothes approved and wear them over the entire filming for continuity. They really put excellence into their work!
I’m taking time to write about this because, even though I always enjoy learning, I’m having so much fun right now as I work through my preaching series in Genesis. The combination of the Bible Project and some of the books and other tools that I have picked up for the series has opened my eyes to so many new things in scripture. I haven’t had this much fun learning about the Bible since I was at Whitworth College (now University) studying theology. So a huge “thank you” to Dr. Tim Mackie and the Bible Project. I will definitely be one of their financial supporters going forward.
Beadle Bailey's Babblings 