The Class Is Not the Pulpit

Eight chapters ago you were standing in a fellowship hall while a man folded a chair, and the question was what you are. Priest by baptism, teacher by entrustment, not the pastor. That settled the categories.

This chapter is about the wiring — what actually has to be agreed, with whom, and when. Because a distinction that lives only in a book is not protection. It becomes protection when two people have talked about it on a Tuesday, before anything went wrong.

Here is what it looks like when nobody has.

A composite. Suppose you have been leading the adult class for two years. You are good at it; attendance has grown; people ask you things. The pastor has never sat in — not from indifference but because Sunday morning is Sunday morning, and the class runs itself, and there has never been a reason.

Then a member mentions to the pastor, casually, something the class learned last month. And it is wrong. Not scandalously — a distortion of one doctrine, taught confidently for six weeks, now settled in the minds of nineteen people.

Now consider what the pastor has to do. He has to correct a volunteer he likes, who was never told what the standard was, who has never had a conversation with him about the class in two years, and who will reasonably experience this as an ambush. You will feel accused. He will feel like an inspector. Both of you will be right, and the reason is that neither of you ever agreed to anything.

The doctrinal error is the small problem in that story. The large problem is that there was no relationship in which correction could be ordinary.

What the class is not

Start with what the last several chapters have been circling.

The class is not the pulpit. That is not a statement about importance — a Sunday morning Bible class may be where more actual learning happens in a congregation than anywhere else. It is a statement about kind.

Preaching is the public proclamation of the Word by a man the congregation has called to do it. The Confession ties this together deliberately: the ministry of teaching the gospel and administering the sacraments is instituted so that we may obtain faith, and no one is to teach publicly in the church or administer the sacraments without a proper call.

Publicly teach, in that article, means the public office — preaching and administering the sacraments. It is not a rule about who may open a Bible in a church building.

So the class sits in a real space, and the space has a shape. Four things belong to the office and do not transfer:

• Public preaching in the assembly.
• Administering the sacraments.
• Private absolution spoken as from God to a person confessing.
• Public doctrinal adjudication — declaring on the congregation’s behalf that this teaching is right and that one is not.

The fourth is the one that matters most in a classroom, and it is the least obvious. A teacher may say what he understands a text to mean. He may say what the Confessions say. What he may not do is settle a disputed question for the congregation, in a way that binds anyone. When a class arrives at a genuine dispute, the honest sentence is: the Confessions say this much; beyond that, I’ll ask Pastor.

And notice the second claim of this chapter, which is the positive form of all this: a good teacher makes his students value the pastoral office more, not less. If a class becomes the place people go for what they are not getting on Sunday, something has gone wrong even if every word taught in it was true. The class exists to send people back — to the sermon with sharper ears, to the rail, to the pastor with the question that outgrew the hour. A teacher who has become an alternative magisterium has not been promoted. He has been quietly separated from the church he thought he was serving.

The teaching agreement

Now the practical center of this chapter, and the thing I most want you to actually do.

Before a term begins, have one conversation. Not a policy document — a conversation, and then a short note recording what was said. Five things need to be in it.

1. What is being taught, and who chose it. Which text, which curriculum, how many weeks. Who selects it — the pastor, a board, the teacher with approval? Say it out loud, because the assumption is usually unexamined and the two of you may not share it.

2. Where the doctrinal standard sits. In an AFLC congregation this is unusually clean. The constitution names the three ecumenical creeds, the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, and Luther’s Small Catechism — and then adds that all preaching and teaching in the congregation shall conform to them.

Bring that sentence to the conversation. It settles the question before it can become personal: the standard is not the pastor’s preference and not your reading, and neither of you invented it. It is short, it is public, and you already own most of it.

3. Who carries oversight of teaching. In some congregations the pastor alone. In others he shares it with a board of deacons or elders; in the congregation this book is written from, the deacons carry doctrinal oversight of teaching as an extension of the pastoral office, so a teaching matter may go to either. Find out which it is where you are, and find out before you need to know. Pastors take sabbaticals. Congregations go through vacancies. An arrangement that only works when a particular man is in the building is not an arrangement.

And ask a second question that most teachers never think to ask: is there more than one body? In many congregations there is. One handles curriculum, scheduling, and who teaches which class; another handles doctrine and spiritual concern. They are frequently different people, they are both legitimate, and they answer different questions. A teacher who takes a curriculum question to the doctrinal board, or a doctrinal problem to the scheduling board, will get a polite answer and no help. Find out which is which now, while nothing is wrong.

4. How questions get handed over. What happens when the class asks something you cannot answer, and what happens when the question stops being about the text and becomes about a marriage or a deathbed. Agree the route in advance so that using it is ordinary rather than an admission of failure.

5. How correction happens. This is the one everybody skips, and it is the one that saves the friendship. Agree now — while nothing is wrong — that if you teach something off, the pastor will tell you directly and promptly, and that you would rather hear it from him than have it discussed around you. Agree the reverse too: that if you think something is off, you will say so to him rather than to the class.

That is the whole agreement. Twenty minutes, once a term. Write down what was said and keep it, because in eighteen months neither of you will remember it the same way.

What it actually sounds like

Teachers stall on this because they picture something formal. It is not. A composite, in a church office on a Tuesday:

“I wanted to ask you about the fall class before I start. Am I doing James, or is that still open?”

“James is what I had in mind. Ten weeks, and you’d finish before Advent.”

“Good. Then the practical one — when somebody asks me something I can’t answer, what do you want me to do with it?”

“Tell them you’ll find out, and then bring it to me. I’d rather have five of those a month than have you guessing.”

“That’s what I hoped you’d say. Last one, and it’s the awkward one. If I teach something wrong — not if, when — how do you want to handle it?”

“I’ll tell you. Directly, that week, not through anybody else.”

“Please do. And I’d rather hear it from you than find out the class has been talking about it.”

Four minutes. Nothing in it was uncomfortable except the last question, and the last question is the one that will matter most in eighteen months. Notice who asked it: the teacher, not the pastor. A pastor cannot easily open that subject without it sounding like a warning. A teacher can open it in a sentence, and doing so is the single most useful thing in the conversation.

Correction, in both directions

Two things follow from that fifth item, and they deserve their own paragraphs because both are hard.

When the pastor corrects you. He is not questioning your intelligence or your faith. He is doing the thing his office exists to do, and the fact that he does it means the class is being watched over rather than left alone. The right response is to say thank you and then to correct it in front of the class — plainly, without drama and without groveling: I told you something last week that wasn’t right, and here’s what’s right. A class that watches a teacher do this learns more about Christian life in ninety seconds than they will get from a month of lessons.

When you think the pastor is wrong. This happens, and a book that pretended otherwise would be useless. Three rules.

Take it to him, not to the class. A teacher who signals disagreement from the front — by tone, by a raised eyebrow, by well, some would say — is doing real damage and doing it dishonestly.

Ask before you conclude. Most apparent disagreements are the pastor having a reason you have not heard yet.

And if a real disagreement remains, know what kind it is. A difference over emphasis or method is yours to live with. A difference over what the Confessions actually teach is a matter for the congregation’s order, and it goes through the process the congregation has, not through the Bible class. If it is grave enough that you cannot teach under it, the honest thing is to stop teaching that class — not to keep teaching while quietly working against it.

That last sentence is unpleasant and I am leaving it in, because a teacher who has never considered it will handle the situation badly the first time it arises.

And there is a third party in that disagreement who is easy to forget: the class.

They are not spectators to it, and they are not resources for it. Whatever you owe the pastor, you owe them something separate — and it is more than silence.

You owe them the church’s teaching rather than yours. On the disputed point, teach what the congregation confesses; that is what they came for and what you were entrusted to give.

You owe them no hint. Not a tone, not a raised eyebrow, not well, some would say, not a pause in the wrong place. Adults read those instantly, and a class that senses its teacher is quietly at odds with its pastor has been handed something it has no way to resolve and no authority to act on. You have made nineteen people carry a disagreement that belongs to two.

You owe them an honest answer if they ask you directly. Not a performance of agreement you do not have. Something like: the pastor and I have talked about that, and it’s his call, and I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt. That is true, it does not lie, and it does not recruit.

And you owe them the knowledge that the disagreement is being handled somewhere. Not the contents. That there is a process, that it is being used, and that nobody is sulking. A congregation whose members believe that disagreements go somewhere is a healthier place than one where everything is either public or buried.

The practice, and how far it reaches

Chapter two stated something flatly and promised the reasoning here. This is where the promise gets kept.

The practice is this: women teach women and children; mixed adult classes are taught by men; the line between a children’s class and an adult class is confirmation.

Where does that come from? Not from the Augsburg Confession, which does not address it. Not from the creeds or the Catechism, which do not either. And — this is the part that surprises people — not from the AFLC.

It cannot come from the AFLC, and the reason is structural rather than accidental. The Fundamental Principles say that a congregation directs its own affairs under the authority of the Word and the Spirit of God and acknowledges no other ecclesiastical authority above itself. They say free congregations have no right to demand that other congregations submit to their opinion, will, judgment, or decision. They say the association’s conferences, committees, and officers cannot impose obligations or restrictions on a congregation, but may only recommend and request.

And the association locked that in. The Rules for Work may be amended, but every amendment must agree with the Fundamental Principles — and the rule names two of them specifically: 5 and 10. The two principles most protective of a congregation’s independence are the two the amendment procedure singles out for protection. This is not a polity that drifted into congregational freedom. It is one built to keep from drifting out of it.

So there is no body in this association with the authority to rule on how a congregation arranges its teaching, and any that tried would be acting against the documents every member congregation has subscribed to.

Which means the practice is the congregation’s own — not by concession, but because in this polity there is nowhere else for it to live.

Does it contradict the confessional standard? No, and the demonstration is short. The creeds do not touch it. The Catechism assumes catechesis in the household and restricts no one from a congregational class. The Augustana’s one relevant article governs the public office of preaching and administering the sacraments, which is not what a Bible class is. The standard is silent on the question, and silence is not contradiction.

And the affirmative half is not a leftover. Women teaching women and children is commanded work with apostolic warrant. Paul tells Titus that the older women are to teach what is good and train the younger. He reminds Timothy of the faith that lived first in his grandmother and his mother, and that Timothy had known the sacred writings from infancy. A man who would spend his life in the ministry was catechized by two women before he could read, and the apostle names them both. That is a mandate, not a residue.

Now the part that is easy to mistake for modesty. Congregations applying this same polity draw this line differently, and this book will not tell them they are wrong.

That is not authorial diffidence, and the reason is in the same constitution that authorizes the arrangement in the first place.

Read the article again. This congregation directs its own affairs, subject to the authority of the Word and Spirit of God, and acknowledges no ecclesiastical authority of government above itself.

Now notice that the sentence cuts both ways. A congregation that acknowledges no authority above itself cannot coherently claim authority over another. The independence it asserts for itself is the same independence it owes its neighbors. And the association’s own Fundamental Principles say so explicitly — free congregations have no right to demand that others submit to their opinion, will, judgment, or decision, and the association’s conferences and committees may only recommend, never impose.

So a book written from inside one congregation, presenting that congregation’s arrangement as binding on others, would contradict the very article that establishes its freedom to have an arrangement at all.

So the practice is stated with confidence and its reach is stated honestly, and those two are not in tension. They are the same commitment. What is confessed, the book asserts. What is judged locally, the book describes. A reader elsewhere should take the doctrine and go ask his own congregation about the arrangement.

When there is no pastor

One case remains, and most books on lay teaching skip it — which is strange, because it is the case in which lay teaching carries the most weight.

Congregations go without pastors. Calls take time. Pastors take sabbaticals, get sick, and leave. During those months the Bible class does not stop, and the teacher who has been told take it to the pastor now has nobody to take it to.

Two things hold.

Oversight does not evaporate; it relocates. The congregation still has responsibility for what is taught in its rooms, and it has some body that carries it — deacons, elders, a board, a neighboring pastor serving as vacancy pastor. Find out who, and use them exactly as you would use the pastor for anything that is a teaching matter.

But some things do not relocate. Confession and absolution belong to the office. A deacon board is not a substitute for it, and neither are you. When someone needs absolution and there is no pastor in the building, the answer is not to improvise a replacement — it is to find one. Vacancy pastors exist. Neighboring congregations exist. And in the meantime you may still say the gospel to that person freely, because that has been yours since your baptism, and it is not nothing. It is, in fact, the main thing.

A teacher who understands that distinction can serve a congregation through a vacancy without either abandoning people or overstepping. A teacher who has never thought about it will do one or the other.

The next faithful step

Have the conversation.

Not eventually. Before the next term, twenty minutes, five questions: what am I teaching and who chose it; what is the doctrinal standard here; who carries oversight of teaching; how do I hand over what exceeds me; how will you correct me. Write down the answers.

Do it while nothing is wrong. That is the entire point. An agreement made in calm weather is a gift to both of you when the weather changes — and it will, because you will teach something wrong eventually, and someone will eventually stay after class with something you cannot carry.

And when you have written it down, notice what you are holding. It is not a set of restrictions on your teaching. It is the reason you can teach freely: someone knows what you are doing, someone is responsible for it with you, and there is a place to put what is too heavy. The man in the empty fellowship hall got the gospel from you and a route to the office from you, and neither of those cost the other anything.

That is what good order is for. Not to make the class smaller. To make it safe enough to be useful.