The teacher of the teen Sunday School class was a little self-conscious with a stranger sitting in on his class, especially a veteran youth worker. Nevertheless, he soldiered on. He referenced a previous lesson, which had obviously gone well at the time. That one all teachers remember, when the kids were engaged and just “got it.” Invoking that lesson from no more than a few weeks ago, he said, “Remember when we talked about that?” The silence and blank looks thudded painfully into him while the air went out of him. He smiled weakly and again marched on. I, the visitor, smiled inwardly because I knew what that moment felt like.

I was teaching my eighth-grade boys. I’d put a lot of work into planning a lesson that was interesting, engaging, meaningful, and educational. It worked! The boys engaged, had fun, and responded well. At evening church later that day, I bumped into one of my students. “What’d you think of today’s class?” I asked eagerly. His face blanked as he tried unsuccessfully to recall that morning’s lesson. Looking back at me desperately, wanting to give me a good answer but unable to recall, he lamely replied, “Oh, it was good.” It didn’t matter. I was already crushed. Clearly, he had forgotten it.

I was a Bible College student when that happened, and I was learning educational philosophy and teaching techniques while sharpening my teaching skills. Was I a failure? Years later, as I watched this other teacher go through that same moment, I was full of sympathy for the feelings of inadequacy and futility that he was experiencing.

Facing these feelings sent me back to my own time as a youth when I was growing up in church, Sunday School, youth group, and summer camp. I had a succession of pastors and teachers, speakers and counselors who taught me lessons, presented Bible truths, and sought to build my faith in a small country church in Steep Falls, Maine. I remember them clearly. Mrs. Todd, Mr. & Mrs. Clarke, and Mrs. Towle, just to name a few. As an older teen, my Sunday School teacher was Arthur. Each week he labored to teach us teenagers the Bible. I don’t remember even one of those lessons. I have no recollection of anything he said any given week. Thirty-five years later, I still remember HIM. I remember that he cared about us, and he longed for us to know Jesus and his Word. I remember that he was a Gideon, and I still have the little Bible he gave me as a gift, a little note written in the front.

In fact, when it comes to each of my childhood teachers, with a couple of exceptions of momentary memories, I don’t remember the specific lessons they taught me. I did learn, and their instruction formed the foundation of all that I have learned since. The work and effort they put into those lessons mattered no matter what I remember. However, the most enduring thing I received did not come from the content of their teaching but the content of their person.

When we begin to talk about teaching, preaching, and Biblical fidelity, we spend a lot of effort and produce a lot of resources aimed at helping pastors and teachers “rightly divide the Word of truth.” Pastors can labor long hours each week in a painstaking effort of textual study and presentation preparation. Many pastors struggle with the fear that they are not compelling speakers, especially as the internet has allowed people to regularly access talented and dynamic speakers whose talents have afforded them popularity and reach. When our people can listen to Tim Keller or John McArthur, why would they listen to us?

Most of us know this is an unfair comparison, and we may point to the difference between a speaker who knows you vs. a speaker who doesn’t. We embrace the idea that our messages may not be superior in style but are more targeted because we are the local shepherd that knows our people and their needs. This is true and can be very comforting, but in the end, I think even this thought leads us away to one of the most important things we should keep in mind as preachers and teachers of the Word.

No matter how interesting or boring our presentation may be, no matter the depths of our insight and skill of our exegesis, in the end, the vast majority of those who listen to our preaching & teaching will not remember what we say even mere hours after finishing listening. Obviously, there are exceptions, both among different individuals and groups, but on the whole, our lessons will be forgotten.

My homiletics professor in college, who had multiple earned doctorates and a long history of faithful service, delighted in quizzing us on Monday morning. He would challenge us to recall the sermon we had heard the day before, including what the pastor’s points had been and what the application was. We were not allowed to refresh our memories by consulting notes we might have taken. Invariably, we found the task challenging. He repeatedly reminded us that if we, who were training as pastors ourselves and students of the Word, didn’t remember the sermon, the average layperson who got up and went to work on Monday probably didn’t either.  His point was that we needed to say less in each sermon, striving to make one big point that had a better chance of being remembered. This wisdom has shaped my own preaching more than anything else. 

Apart from the implications of educational philosophy, and the limitations of memory, we must constantly realize that the most memorable part of our efforts will always be who we are. This in no way means we should not strive for clarity, fidelity, and rigorous adherence to the truth. These things are vital, and “rightly dividing the Word of truth” is essential, but we must constantly bear in mind that our spirit, our conduct, our passion, and our character will be remembered for decades while the content of our teaching may last only hours.

It is sad to see pastors who are poor with people. They mean well, but their temper, insecurity, or ego shows too clearly. Perhaps they have become so focused on elements of Biblical truth that, like the Pharisees, they have lost sight of people’s real lives. In Jesus’ day, it was common to invite a teacher or speaker to dinner so as to hear them, and the Pharisees did this a couple of times. On at least one occasion, they attempted to set Jesus up by also bringing someone who was sick or disabled. Jesus had a tendency to heal whomever they brought. The Pharisees used people as props to further their teaching, while Jesus cared for the individual. When the man born blind is healed by Jesus, he is called before the leaders and then rebuked. In all the theological sparing of those leaders, those supposed shepherds of Israel, they show no concern for his previous blindness or any joy over the fact that this man has been healed. They don’t care about him.

When we say that Jesus was a friend of sinners, it is more than a throw-away line about being nice to people. The manner in which He interacted with people was His embodiment of John 3:16. Many of the uneducated people of his time likely didn’t remember all His lessons, as good a teacher as He was, but they knew He was nice to them. He sat with them, ate with them, healed them, and took the time to speak to them.

If you are a teacher or pastor, do you put as much effort, attention, and focus into who you are to people as you do into what you will say to them? Have you put as much time into you, the message, that the kids and teens of the church will carry with them over the next few decades?  When they can’t remember what you said, will their memory of you continue to draw them toward Jesus and His Word?

Just a few years ago, Arthur and his wife showed up at my church out of the blue. I was so excited to see them. It gave me an opportunity to thank him for the profound influence that he had on my life and ministry. It wasn’t because he was a dynamic teacher. He often had expressed concern that he wasn’t good at teaching. I don’t remember any specific lesson. I still remember that he cared deeply for us as teens and that he never gave up trying, even when it didn’t work well. I remember his passion for us to know God’s Word & that he tried to teach us each week because He loved Jesus. I remember his love for Jesus and for us. Thirty-five years later, that memory is still pointing me in the right direction. That makes Arthur one of the best teachers of my life.

May I strive for a legacy like his.