Over the mid-April 2023 weekend, I was privileged to have been involved supporting a few talks on Creation at a few churches. In the weeks leading up to these few talks, I had also been involved in the planning and coordination for the talks. One of the things which I kept hearing was that “speaking slots are full for the year”.

I am not exactly familiar with church circles, so that set me thinking. Are churches supposed to have “syllabi” or “curricula” for the year or five years or for whatever time period? What on Earth for, for Heaven’s sake? Does that “syllabus” or “curriculum” meet the needs of each and every person, young and old, who is expected to check in every Sunday or Saturday or whichever day of the week you meet? If you run a company or an organization, do you afflict your people with the same thing? Are you enamoured of “Personnel Development” roadmaps or whatever you call them? Oh, everyone I meet assures me that these “syllabi”, “curricula” or “roadmaps” are “tweaked” in order to ensure that individuals within the system can be served efficaciously so that each person is “developed” to each person’s “fullest potential”. Really.

Genghis Khan had his “Great Law” to which he himself was subject. That “Great Law” was expressed in terms of universal, non-negotiable principles and included some case law such as the death penalty if you found something belonging to someone else and did not return it to the rightful owner pronto. Provinces within the Mongol Empire were expected to govern according to their own set of laws, provided those provincial laws were in line with the Great Law. The United States has a similar organizing concept called “Federalism”. There is also something from which the term “Unit Formation Order” comes from, and that is the Constitution of whatever nation crafts one to justify its existence. Do you think all members of a State, Province, Church, Organization, Company and so forth ought to be conversant with what’s written in their respective “Constitutions”? How about syllabi and curricula? Do you think those under instruction also ought to know what those writings describe how they are going to be developed? Is being conversant with “Holy Writ” essential for the successful prosecution of an enterprise in the long term?

We need to maintain and sustain Pedagogy, but we need to expand into Andragogy and Heutagogy as well. People need to read their “Holy Writ” daily in order to be at least familiar with it, so that when facing the viccissitudes of life, people know how to respond and grow appropriately and well. We need to stop treating our people as “Homo Numbskullo” and start treating them like the Homo Sapiens they are supposed to be. That means teaching and learning TOGETHER and not placing ourselves on the high pedestal of personal erudition looking down at our minions who ought to be grateful that we are there to help them grow.

Did I just insult you? Great! Come and insult me back over tea and biscuits. Or you can pay me for a one-hour session and grind me into the dust for my impertinence.

You’re welcome!