The Day We Stopped Learning

Before settling into a career, we subject ourselves to steep learning curves. They're awkward and difficult but they lurch us forward in new understanding.

When you're young, humiliation is par for the course.

I remember showing up to a TV station every Saturday morning at 5 am during college to learn broadcast news writing from a tough producer... driving nervously from Ohio to Washington DC to be the only non-Ivy League intern at the White House... starting a church without a clue... It was all undignifying.

But then we settle into a career and all of our learning becomes incremental. We find dignity in being an "expert" in our field. We read books about management theory, how to make meetings more productive, and how not to eat alone.

But there's no true advancement about any of these things.

When we stop approaching learning curves... when we stop undignifying ourselves... we stop learning.

Comments

[Bill Streger]

So how do we continue to embrace steep learning curves and undignified pursuit of growth while at the same time residing within a particular vocation for an extended period of time?

Can someone remain a pastor or designer or manager or architect for decades without losing the learning curve you're talking about?

[Ben Arment]

Bill i want to handle your questions well. Are you asking about making the time to pursue other things? Or are you asking about the need to explore growth outside of your chosen field?

[Daniel Decker]

As I read this I picked it up as being about a sense of arrival and mediocrity.

Do we pursue knowledge to get us to something or somewhere and then rest in the fact that we're there? Or do we continue to push forward, learning more, despite what our learning has lead us too.

Do we settle or do we keep stepping out. Do we let our title and the "mask" that it often brings stop us from being real, taking risks and doing the things that others with the same title might consider beneath them?

[Bill Streger]

It seems like we are often forced into those learning curves by being thrust into new positions and roles. Is there a way for those who love their job to resist status quo and embrace the undignified, steep learning curve while staying in your current role?

Is it a matter of looking for fresh insight from outside your field? Or exploring how your role is changing due to changes in culture, technology, life stage, etc?

Not sure if that clarifies at all...

[Ben Arment]

i agree with hirsch who says that the mission has a church; the church doesn't have a mission.

so our expressions of church should be yielding fruit for the mission; otherwise we should be trying new initiatives

for those who are committed to solely being pastors, the learning curve comes about when they acknowledge that certain activities are not fruitful and they need to be trying something else