Three Is Enough

This past Thursday thru Saturday, teaching an intensive course on Leadership in the Emerging Culture at Wheaton College Graduate School, I was acting in my role of “Dr. Todd the Adjunct Professor” of evangelism, spiritual formation and leadership. I always say that teaching is a favorite hobby of mine. I think this is so because I love the intersection of leaders-in-training and important ideas. I love being around bright, motivated people—usually people younger than I. I love teaching because the old axiom is true: no one learns more than the teacher.  

I try to make sure that the truism about the connection between teaching and learning spreads to my students. I do this by making space in my courses for students to become expert on a topic and then to teach me and their classmates what they have learned. We did this in an especially fun way at Wheaton. Our classroom was in the Bill Graham Center—the building which houses the Billy Graham Museum.

The first room in the museum is a rotunda featuring ten key historic leaders who were instrumental in spreading the Gospel. They were: The Apostle Paul, Justin Martyr, Gregory the Great, St. Francis, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, Blaise Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, Pandita Ramabai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandita_Ramabai) and Oswald Chambers. It just so happened that I had ten students in this graduate class—one for each featured person. Because our theme for the course was “Anchored to the Rock…Geared to the Times” (the historic motto for Youth For Christ and thus the early Graham Crusades with YFC), midday on Friday I sent my students to the library or to their search engines to do a quick inquiry on one of these luminaries, asking: What did they do in their times that was innovative for the sake of the Gospel?

For the last part of our day we went down to the rotunda and stood around in front of the beautiful banners as the ten students gave their report. With each story, our hypothesis came to life: all attempts at evangelism and discipleship are contextual. There is no such thing as a de-contextualized evangelism or spiritual formation.

This morning as write this blog entry I think back on this lovely time because in a humble and small way I hope Three Is Enough Groups can fit this pattern of contextualized ministry for our times. I know it is far from comprehensive, and I hope to write more on it in the future, but check out the page on the right called “Sociological Rationale”. There I give a quick snapshot of how TiE Groups might be a great way to contextualize kingdom and Spirit ministry in the actual affairs of our real lives.

I also hope the connection between teaching and learning can spread to this site. As you start or participate in TiE Groups, I hope that on this site you, the real practitioner experts, will tell us what you are learning.

Peace,

Todd