I have had a great week - I ate well, slept well, drove a nice car, and went to my favourite cafe, twice. Sadly, at the end of the week, my death was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Pastor dies under weight of many cushions.” Ah, death by comfort, I know it well. We can pretend the comfort is not killing us, but we all know it has a slow and dulling effect.
I want to relate this reality to the way we learn. We are, after all, about growth. We talk about ‘Learn Always’. We usually think we are doing lots of learning, but it’s often slow. Faster and more effective ways of growth are with in the classroom of Suffering, Disaster and Trouble - but most of us will take some more comfy ‘learning’ instead. Growth groups involve known people, in familiar places, on comfy lounges, and our preferred model of working is conversation. Very comfy!
Unfortunately, here is a fact - the best learning happens by discomfort! I am currently recommending to all our growth groups to break the normal comfy week of back and forth discussion on comfy lounges by turning the midweek growth group into a hands-on training experience.
Break into pairs
Give one person in each pair the leader role with a discipleship tool in hand (Uncover John, Just for Starters).
Give them 40 minutes or so to try and lead it. They don’t have to finish it. They just have to start it and follow the instructions for 40 mins. (The content is not the point. It’s the courage to lead a tool you are not already expert at that is.) Let them sink or swim. Let them DO. Then..
Help them REFLECT. Back in a big group, let’s share - what felt like a BLOCK to ever doing that again? What felt like a BOOST to doing it again? Action-reflection - a proven learning tool. Essential for growth.
Peter Bregman, one of gazillion leadership consultants wrote a 2019 Harvard Business Review article called ‘Learning is Supposed to Feel Uncomfortable’. He makes two good points.
Learn by discomfort by lowering the stakes
There has to be some stake of course. Some jeopardy. Risk! Learning is not effective when it is in the zone of familiar comfort. But as we learn in discomfort, let’s help each other know that we ain’t going to die while doing it. Letting people lead something with 1. a tool you give them permission to not be a legend at 2. with just one other person they already know and love 3. for a short time, and 4. not even asking for completion but just experience…..that is low-stakes discomfort. Some discomfort, but totally doable. Let’s do it!
BEAR DISCOMFORT BY EMOTIONAL COURAGE
If you are letting people learn by doing, and are doing something uncomfortable, then arm yourself with emotionally honesty. This is emotional courage - to name what is right in front of us. Let’s let group members respond with emotional courage. Let them say after doing it ‘I found that hard’. Or ‘I felt like I failed.’ Or 'I feel less than an expert’. Or ‘actually, I did OK’. Or, ‘actually, that was awesome.’ Let’s live with emotional courage. We’ll need it in bigger things in life than lounge-room learning.
LEARN ALWAYS?
One of our 5 values as a church is Learn Always. I am not sure we always believe it. Maybe we just believe in learning like we always have? But this is not always.
It hurts to learn. Most of us feel expert in something at work, and feel expert in some things at church. For this reason - we go back to the same tricks at work and the same things at church. But now we are worshipping our comfort, and doing some very low-grade learning.
We cannot afford this! And Jesus cannot enjoy it. Why? Because he can see what we can’t see that we are missing.
Let me show you what Jesus sees - 5 people in one of our church services on Sunday who are all ready to read the bible with someone. Some of them have been there for weeks. Some for months. They are all otherwise new to church! This was at just one service on Sunday. There were at least 8 people at both services in the ‘ready to ask questions’ boat. Their ears, hearts and minds are open. But who will open the bible with them? Most are not ready for the comfy lounge room. At first, that comfort zone is a scary step. Many people need a little 1-1 time.
So this is the training. Your training this term if you are in a growth group - which I want your leader to lead you into with all discomfort - is to try and lead something you just may feel silly doing. But I bet you won’t. I bet some of you will feel a bit silly, but also a bit of a success! Actually, I bet you feel a bit courageous. Maybe even….grown. Most of all, I bet you learn that it is not too scary to do it either way.
Then we can get busy reading the bible with 8 people. And that’s just this week!
The alternative is that we meet for 52 weeks this year and disciple no-one who isn’t already expert like us. Choose. Choose discomfort. Choose doing.
Yours in grace and peace, Pastor Jimmy