But blogging? For many, blogging seems like something else entirely. It’s more like a hobby. Professors don’t blog because it contributes to their work as a professor. They blog because…well, why do they blog? Wouldn’t they be better off writing in peer-reviewed academic journals or publishing lengthy and career-advancing scholarly monographs?

I’m sure everyone who blogs does so for different reasons. So I won’t claim to know why other teachers blog. But at least one reason worth considering is that blogging can make you a better teacher.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about whether blogging is worth it. In my last post, I explained why I think blogging has made me a better writer. Today our focus shifts to five ways that I think blogging has helped me be a better teacher.

1. Developing communication skills

Scholarly books and academic journal articles are great for working out complex issues and sharing the results of your research with other academics. But they’re not necessarily great for developing your skills as a teacher. The problem is that unless you’re teaching in a doctoral program somewhere, you’re not writing for your students. You’re writing for other academics.

And you can certainly approach blogging this way as well. But I’ve decided that I want this blog to be accessible to non-specialists – people who are interested in biblical/theological issues, but who have not studied them at the doctoral or post-doctoral level. And coincidentally, that’s precisely where my students are.

So, for me, blogging is an extension of teaching. It’s about taking what I’m thinking about as a specialist and coming up with good ways of communicating that information to non-specialists. And, since that’s exactly what I do in the classroom, blogging helps me develop as a teacher who can communicate effectively with a diverse range of people.

2. Staying sharp

One of the things I enjoyed the most about my doctoral program was the constant interaction with other doctoral students. Discussion, debate, dialog – it was great. You’d think that would just get better when you become a professor. It doesn’t. The professorial life can be so demanding that it’s often difficult to find opportunities to interact with your colleagues in the same way that you used to with your fellow doctoral students.

For me, blogging has been a great resource for this kind of interaction. Rather than relying solely on the occasional conference or water cooler conversation, blogging provides a regular opportunity to share my ideas and hear what others think about them. That can prove frustrating when the occasional troll ventures forth from under his bridge and begins swinging his comment club at everyone in sight. But normally the interaction is cordial and challenging, offering me a regular opportunity to sharpen myself.

3. Finding good resources

This one is largely a function of my regular Flotsam & Jetsam posts. Since I began that feature on the blog, I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping an eye out for good resources that I can pass along. I’d hoped that this would be a good resource for my readers. I didn’t realize that it would also improve my teaching.

Maps, charts, infographics, news stories, pictures, controversial issues, videos – the list is endless. And they can all be used as good resources in the classroom. There’s enough out there that we have to be careful how we use them. Too many of these can overwhelm a class and become a distraction. But sprinkle them in at the right moment, and you have an effective tool for engaging the class and helping them connect with your material.

4. Fostering creativity

Over time, teaching grows stale. Like yesterday’s bread, the nutrients are still there, but it’s not very appealing. And, unless they’re made desperate by an impending exam, students won’t eat it.

That’s always a danger when you teach the same classes repeatedly. There’s a temptation to rely on what you did last time, allowing your lectures and discussions to grow a bit stale. That’s why the best professors are always reading new books and talking with other teachers, looking for new ways of connecting with students and helping them engage with the material.

For me, blogging has been a great resource for fostering this kind of pedagogical creativity. Writing the blog forces me to come up with new and creative ways of conveying my thoughts, which directly contributes to creativity in the classroom. And reading the blogs of other creative communicators has been an incredible benefit as well. I’m sure my students still get bored on a fairly regular basis, but I’m trying.

5. Writing for the classroom

One benefit that I hadn’t considered when I started blogging was that the blog itself would end up being a resource for the classroom. But, now that I’ve been writing for a couple of years, I’ve accumulated quite a list of articles across a broad range of topics. That means that I’m now able to refer students on occasion to my own blog posts when they ask what I think about certain issues. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m requiring students to read my blog posts, though I have required students to write blog posts for a class, but I have referred students to them as supplemental resources when it seemed helpful.

Every good teacher needs to find ways of staying sharp and improving as an educator. And there are many different ways of doings this: books, seminars, conferences, other teachers, and so on. So blogging certainly isn’t the only resource for helping you grow as a teacher. But it is a great one.

The internet revolution has placed knowledge and power in the hands of the people. But this seismic shift has not empowered equally – America’s disadvantaged have been abandoned, further deepening social divides.

None Shall Pass!

Good Reads

• Six Reasons Young People Are Leaving the Church: Six in 10 young people will leave the church permanently or for an extended period starting at age 15….For church leaders, the question is, what will we do about it?

• What I Wish My Pastor Knew About…The Life of a Scientist: Like many of the most complex human endeavors — parenting, farming, becoming a Christian — the life of a scientist is not just an “occupation,” something that occupies us for a while and might then be followed by something entirely different. Being a scientist is as much about being as doing, as much about a particular way of being formed as a person as it is a set of activities or even skills.

• We Can’t Go Back to the Garden: Critiquing Evangelicals’ Over-Ruralized Eschatology: We have pictured heaven in these terms, rather than making room in our imagination for good (read: God-honoring) cultural developments and the beautiful complexities (read: shalom) of life in the society of others as the context of our future existence.

• 9 Academic Freedoms of Not Having Tenure: We all know the challenges of not being tenured or on the tenure track. Making a life of teaching or research outside of the tenure path is particularly difficult. But there are some great things about working in academia and being non-tenured.

Other Info

• The New York Times has a nice summary of the recent case regarding a counseling student kicked out of grad school for her concerns about counseling a homosexual client.

• Dan Wallace offers his own summary of his recent debate with Bart Ehrman.

• America’s Most Miserable Cities

• 15 Offbeat Holidays You Can Celebrate in February. Unfortunately, we already missed Ice Cream for Breakfast Day.

• The Key to Distraction-Free Writing

 Just for Fun     

• Check out this amazing video of an owl in flight.

This week we’re going to tackle a slightly more contentious issue: gender in the church. And I’m going to return to the stark either/or approach that Forced Choices is supposed to be about. So there’s no nuance in this particular vote. Pick one or the other. Either you believe that there are no gender-specific qualifications for any ministry roles in the church (egalitarianism) or you believe that there are gender qualifications for one or more ministry roles in the church (complementarianism). We’re not going to complicate things by trying to differentiate between different kinds of complementrianism and egalitarianism. It’s either/or today.

So, what do you think? Are you a complementarian or an egalitarian? (Use the poll in the sidebar to vote.)

“Who am I?”

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a Squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equally, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

Good Reads

• Leading from a Distance: We all work from home. It’s our lifestyle choice. Everyone works the way they want, at the time they want. It gives us all lots of freedom, but it also requires a tremendous amount of focus—and great leadership skills from me. I’m learning as I go.

• I Could Be a Great Leader if It Weren’t for the People: Every leader knows frustration. Every leader has been discouraged. All leaders have moments where they wish they could change the circumstances in which they find themselves. And many of those desired changes involve people.

• Back to (a Theology) of Work We Go…: Why the church must talk about “vocation” and not just “mission” if it hopes to engage young adults.

• 5 Reasons Teenagers Act the Way They Do: For everyone who is or was a teen, here are some scientific explanations for why they behave that way

Other Info

• 11 brilliant writing commandments from Henry Miller

• How do you preach a one time sermon?

• Andreas Kostenberger offers his summary of the debate between Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace.

• How To Prepare an Annual Preaching Plan

  Just for Fun     

• 11 Animals Who Think They’re in Star Wars

Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from the Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin.

Karl Barth, in a letter to Thurneysen, dated 8 June 1922 (Revolutionary Theology in the Making: The Barth-Thurneysen Correspondence, 1914-1925 [London: Epworth, 1964], p. 101). Quoted in Julie Canlis Calvin’s Ladder (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 1.

So every Thursday, I’m announcing a new book giveaway. And this week’s book is Rodney Reeves’ Spirituality According to Paul: Imitating the Apostle of Christ.

Spirituality often evokes images of quiet centeredness, meditative serenity and freedom from life’s pressures. It’s become a chic
commodity, with its benefits evoked by images of sunrises and secluded retreats.

Contrast the apostle Paul, who promotes a cross-shaped spirituality for fools making their way though life’s trials. Paul realized that images of crucifixion, burial and resurrection would never be popular images of the spiritual life. So he encourages his fellow travelers, who are spiritually united with Christ, to “follow me as I follow Christ.”

As he explores this ancient spiritual path, Rodney Reeves probes our understanding of what Christian spirituality should be. And to illuminate its transformative power, he gives us living illustrations of what it means to follow Paul as he followed Christ. Here is a book that joins a deep understanding of Paul with a pastoral and spiritual wisdom born of experience.

Entering is simple. Just do one or more of the following. And, as usual, the more of these you do, the better your chances of winning. (To make my life easier, please leave one comment for everything that you do. So, for example, if you “like” the post on Facebook and also Tweet about it, leave two comments – one for each.)

Congratulations Russell. Send me an email and we can make arrangements for me to get the book to you.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another great giveaway courtesy of IVP. And, as always, thanks to IVP for sponsoring these giveaways.