In an earlier post on the subject of communicating God’s Word in a way that leads to multiplication I mentioned the necessity of including practice of re-telling the Bible Story until everyone in the group feels competent to tell the story to someone else. Practice is key. You can ask people to go home and practice telling this story until they are competent doing so, but how many will do that? Most people have busy lives. If it is not a high priority for them, it won’t get done. And if they never get to the point where they are confident that they can retell the story, they won’t do it.
Years ago, I spoke to a leader who had trained everyone of the small group leaders in his church in a certain leadership skill. The training involved teaching and demonstration, but didn’t include any practice time. A year later he went back and surveyed that group of trainees and made a surprising discovery: only one in seven of the leaders he’d trained had even attempted to use the new skill they’d been taught. It was a sobering lesson for him on the weakness of teaching skills without including practice. While statistics vary, one study I’ve seen found that learners who practiced a skill retained 700% more than those who simply read about it. Reading or teaching can give us the conceptual knowledge to use a skill, but only practice and feedback provide the confidence most of us need to apply it in real life. (Leadership Coaching by Tony Stolzfus)