More on Montessori

I've been home sick today with some kind of nasty cough / cold thing. The kids have been sick the last week so I guess I've finally caught whatever they have.

I'm very excited and hopeful for what I see happening here locally. Next month (on June 3rd) will be our fourth anniversary of moving to South Florida. I feel like in the past few months the foundational work we've been doing all this time is finally starting to show some dividends.

One of the areas I've been getting more and more comfortable with (and found some peace in) is with leadership in this context. Greg's post on Montessori that Amber referenced also resonated with me, but not just related to our kids' education or how Jesus is leading me personally. The Montessori educational method is a wonderful picture of sacrificial, respectful leadership in action. Great care is given to designing an environment where learning happens naturally and with each child's individual temperament in mind. The classroom is not filled with flashy, plastic toys you might be used to seeing at the toy store. All the manipulatives are real world objects and are geared towards helping the children become formed in their real lives. The children choose a "work" (manipulatives are never called "toys") and engage with that activity until they show mastery. The teachers are there to do things like encourage participation, answer questions, and help explain how each activity works. However, since there are many more students than teachers, much of the "training" on how to actually do the activities occurs on a peer-to-peer basis. So, in a very real sense, "leadership" happens in a Montessori environment on many levels.

Imagine a church environment where that kind of leadership is in action. Great care and patience would be given to fostering an environment where people are naturally drawn into the kingdom of God. However, the church would not see itself as simply a "spiritual" outpost providing for the spiritual needs of people's busy and all-consuming lives. It would not attempt to be flashy and spectacular in order to distract people from the reality of their lives. Rather, it would seek to minister in the midst of those lives and recognize the incarnate Christ woven through the ordinary and unspectacular. Individuals within the church would be allowed to explore their relationship with God in the context of others doing the same. But their pursuit would not be individualized and segregated or dictated by a generalized program. A few in the church would be particularly identified to facilitate this process by encouraging participation, answering (and posing) questions, and helping with specific issues related to each person's formation - call them teachers, elders, pastors, coaches, spiritual directors, abbots or abbotesses, whatever you want. I really don't think it matters that much. However, those people would be acutely aware of the limitations of their role. Leadership would happen, primarily, amongst peers as they work out their salvation as the people of God with the Holy Spirit's guidance.

Does this sound idealistic? Does it seem impossible to implement given the current situation most churches find themselves in? I don't think so. In fact, I don't think most churches are far off from realizing an environment such as this. In most churches I've known, discipleship to Jesus is largely up to the individual. Since the leadership is usually consumed with things like trying to build a bigger Sunday service, provide better programs for families, increase the building fund, and provide counseling to the "hard cases", discipleship to Jesus is mostly a side pursuit for the real "spiritual" people. One of my favorite quotes from Willard's The Divine Conspiracy is, "When do you suppose was the last time any group of believers or church of any kind or level had a meeting of its officials in which the topic for discussion and action was how they were going to teach their people actually to do the specific things Jesus said?" Wouldn't it seem natural that if people actually started doing this - giving thought and prayer to actually helping people become students of Jesus - that the environment in a church would gradually begin to change?

In our community we have chosen some simple structures that enable us to continually place the focus of our activity on Jesus and his action in our real lives. Often, however, it is necessary to hold those structures up to the light to see where the holes are. For example, yesterday we discussed the use of Scripture within our community and what would be helpful individually and corporately. It was a lively conversation and one that had the danger of quickly turning into a platform for everyone to voice their preferred way of dealing with the Bible. T did a great job of facilitating the conversation and said something at the beginning that I later reiterated as we were ending. The idea that our one weekly gathering could provide all the necessary content for a life of discipleship is a dangerous one. It is a temptation to try and cram in as much content as possible because, after all, this is our one chance to be together as "the church" every week. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. There are countless opportunities to be the church together that do not require a set time or place or even agenda. Beyond those instances, there is the great reality that Jesus desires to be intimately involved with us in solitude and silence or in activity among co-workers or family.

As Amber mentioned below, Montessori is becoming for her a way of life. I believe that we as the people of God can learn a lot from Montessori and other movements like Alcoholics Anonymous. Is it necessary to perform some kind of one-to-one transference of principles from these sources or assume we have nothing to learn from other expressions of the church? Of course not. But if we're looking for metaphors of good leadership, servant structures, and avenues of the Spirit that allow him to be the Leader we want him to be, I suggest AA and Montessori as good places to look.