I’m teaching a homiletics (preaching) course right now. I’m still trying to figure out how to be most helpful. In this version of the course, in addition to other course work, learners choose a Bible text (from a list) and prepare two talks. In the first one, they spend time with the text, reading, reflecting, studying. And then they talk for about 10 minutes. Some of us watch the recording and give them feedback. Then, a week later, they record a more structured, more organized talk, again 10 minutes. And we give feedback.

My goal is to make them talk, to make them study, to make them listen to feedback and revise.

After seven weeks of this kind of iteration, they are going to be more experienced and more effective than when we started.

With 17 learners, that’s a lot of listening and commenting.

What I realized the other day is that it’s not my role to make any of these people resemble me.

Some are more direct than I am. Some are more colloquial. Some are more intense. Some are more hesitant. Some will be talking to younger people (which is most people these days). Some use different theological language than I do.

And it’s likely that they are invited by God to talk in different ways and to different people and about different things than I am.

As I create assignments and offer feedback, I work on helping them with the tools and the values. I invite them to think about how they unpack texts and how they attend to the audience. I remind them of accuracy.

And then, sometimes, I lean forward and say, “I never thought about that. Thank you.”

I do everything I can to not think about grading. I do everything I can to think about growing.