How Do You Know You're Effective?
Howard Hendricks
Experience in teaching doesn't tend to sharpen my abilities; rather it dulls them. It is evaluated experience that improves my skills.
—Howard Hendricks
Most people think experience is the name of the game, that the longer a person teaches, the better he or she gets. Nonsense. Just as ripping through wood dulls the teeth of a carpenter's saw, so experience tends to wear away my edge. I have found only evaluated experience sharpens my skills. Evaluation hones the edge.
Teaching without evaluation can erode my effectiveness in many ways. Poor methods become ingrained habits. I can assume I'm doing better than I really am and become complacent. I can conclude something works when it actually doesn't. I can lose touch with my audience, teaching in a vacuum. Also, time exaggerates my idiosyncrasies rather than lessening them. And without anything to keep me on my toes, I can get sloppy.
That's why, like the carpenter who painstakingly files each tooth on his crosscut saw, I evaluate every session I teach. And I invite others to critique me in various ways. The longer I go, the more I feel the need. But I find that many pastors and teachers have serious reservations about evaluation.
Overcoming Our Hesitancy
Some may fear evaluation undermines their authority: "If I encourage people to take a critical look at me, they will take it on as their role in life. I'm opening Pandora's box. They will assume I'm more interested in their opinions and preferences than God's. It may suggest that I'm merely giving a performance. Would Jeremiah ask the Jews to evaluate his prophecy?"
I have found, however, that inviting evaluation has precisely the opposite effect. A teacher who is vulnerable, realistic, and committed to excellence wins the respect ...
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