Reflections
Many colleges and universities offer both on- site and on-line classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The latter are
becoming more and more prevalent. The students can save driving time to and from campus as well as fuel costs. I am not a big fan
of on-line classes for several reasons. The primary one is because on-line classes eliminate face to face interaction with the
instructor and fellow-students which I believe is so vital to the learning process. In my doctoral work I learned more from the
discussions I had with the professor and my colleagues than the subject I researched for the seminar.
On-line classes demand that the students to be self- starters. Now how many people do you know who will start a project, especially
one like taking a college course, without some kind of external stimulus to get and keep them going? The work on-line courses
require is generally done at home. Activities around the house, chores, children, even television, vie for a person’s time and
attention and oftentimes win out over doing school work. It is absolutely imperative for a student to be a self-starter if he or she
is going to complete all the assignments in a timely and satisfactory way.
Being a self-starter is a sure sign of maturity. Parents have to plead or threaten children in order to get them to go to bed at
night, brush their teeth, and eat broccoli. Many adolescents have to be prodded to get out of bed and get ready for school.
Children and adolescents are more concerned with what they want to do rather than with what they need to do. That is not the case
with those who have matured into adulthood. They get out of bed on their own and go to work, even if they don’t feel like it.
It is just part of being an adult. Adults take responsibility; they don’t shirk it.
Those of us who profess to have been Christians for years should be self-starters in the spiritual disciplines necessary for spiritual
growth. But sadly, many of us are not. We have to be constantly reminded and coddled to be in our place on Sundays for worship, to
read and study our Bibles, to witness, to give, to pray, to meditate, to confess, and so forth. The fact that we have to be
perpetually prodded, coaxed and pled with to do these basic things is a certain indicator of spiritual immaturity. I know some of us
would take issue with this. We would argue that we are mature believers. But the very fact that we have to be told time and time
again to engage in the elementary exercises necessary for Christian growth before we do them indicates otherwise. Mature believers
engage in these activities without external stimulus. They are self-starters. And what are we to make of those of us who won’t do
them even when we are prodded and coaxed? That may be a symptom of something even more serious.
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