I was out of town making the usual call home to catch up on all the happenings when in the background I could hear Anne Rachael chomping at the bit to talk. When she finally got on the phone she screamed, “I taught Eliot to swim!” This was welcome news because at least a couple of times I’ve pulled him up off the bottom of the pool. I can still see the look of terror in his eyes. I asked her, “How did you do it?” She began to describe how she got him some goggles and showed him how to move his arms and legs and so forth. But when she hung up the phone I wondered, “How does anyone really learn to swim?” She really couldn’t tell me.

Learning to swim is not so much telling as showing. You can no more learn to swim by reading an book, memorizing a formula or have someone explain it to you, than you can teach me to fly. It simply can’t be done. With age I have learned that there are laws of physics, buoyancy, thrust and things that can be formulaically calculated and put into equations that explain why you are actually swimming in the water and not sinking like a rock. But, the fact remains none of my children know anything about any of this and they can swim. In fact, since Anne Rachael joined a swim team, I have seen how she glides through the water like a fish achieving a form that looks beautiful, and I wonder how she does it. There is not one book of instructional swimming in our house. I know that when she goes to practice everyday, she is not lectured on different techniques, instead, she has a coach that shows her how it is done.

Which brings up an interesting point, there are some things you know how to do, but you don’t really know how you learned it—you just, well, know it. You can’t explain to anyone else how to do it, but you can demonstrate the technique and skill and as they watch you they can learn from your demonstration. I watch my boys head off cutting grass and I am confident that they are competent to do the job. They never had a lecture on grass cutting, edging and blowing. They simply followed me around for the past four summers learning by observation. Last summer when Jamie got his driver’s license, I backed out and let them assume more and more responsibility. However, they decided that I was getting too big a cut of the profits so they sort of eased me out entirely. Their education at least in this field is complete; they have mastery and I willingly back out knowing they are responsible. It is not the case with engines, but that is another story.

Which brings me to another interesting point - why do we think we can achieve in the church through a lecture or a book, what can’t be achieved anywhere else in the field of human knowledge. I just got back from a clinic on coaching because I am coaching a guy that is planting a church in Mobil, Alabama. It hit me afresh, that we spend lots of time in theological fact and little time in teaching and showing competencies. Does that argue that theology is not important? Of course not, but it does explain why there is little improvement in the spiritual lives of those in the church. I can’t think of one single skill or competency I have ever mastered or gotten adequate at, that at some point in the learning curve, I didn’t find a mentor or coach who was patient enough to show me how all this theoretical or abstract knowledge made sense. They simply showed me, they demonstrated it to me as I followed them around and barraged them with a thousand questions to make sure what was theoretical was becoming concrete so it would have some application in reality.

Pride I suppose is what keeps most of us from development; we refuse to admit we need help. We have read all the books, gone to the seminars, done the Bible Studies, but have we ever gone to someone we admire because of their competencies as a father, husband, mother, wife, teacher, steward or whatever and said, “I know God has blessed you in this area of your life, I am struggling, would you spend some time with me and show me how you got there?” I was reminded of this again and how basic this is to life and learning when I was instructed to build a closet in the building St. Patrick will be moving into in August. Now, I grew up roofing houses and doing rough carpentry. I am good with hammering and ripping, but when it comes to figuring out angles and the fine stuff I am a complete idiot. But because I have this past and want to appear like I am a carpenter, I spent half a morning trying to figure it out, wound up building a bomb shelter for a closet, wasted ten dollars worth of two by fours and my thumbnail is black because I was so frustrated I was hammering the wrong thing. And then, when pride and pain were at a threshold I could no longer stand, I told Rick Brow, “Come show me this, I am an idiot.” This time he didn’t tell me what to do; he came and demonstrated it in a way that made sense.

God’s world is so vast none of us can be experts in everything. To learn spiritual disciplines and skills that will make us better and more human – things that will continue the work of restoration in our own lives—we simply must find those people that can coach and mentor us. Jesus did that with twelve and technology and time have not improved on that method. Maybe when you are frustrated what you need to look for is mentor, not a book.