CAPACITY-BUILDING THROUGH LEARNING Pt.4

CULTIVATE THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TO LEARNING

On a certain day in the seminary, I was in a bible language class when i saw a man dressed in white entering the classroom to greet my lecturer. He wore the traditional white cap of royal fathers and I saw beads on his neck and hands typical of chiefs and kings. My lecturer greeted him calling him "Kabiyesi"( title for kings in Yoruba land in South west, Nigeria). The man stretched his hand for a handshake. He was a lively person. Myself and other colleagues looked on at the interaction between him and our erudite lecturer. It was purely academic related. Not long after, my lecturer introduced him to us as the king of a town in South west of Nigeria. We all greeted him and were happy to meet a king. Right there, our lecturer told us he was a student in the school as well. A very dedicated student who organized free tutorials on bible languages for his younger classmates. That was a shocker. His relationship in the school with students and staff was devoid of kingly protocols. He was a student just like every other person. I saw humility all over this man. We decided to take pictures with him but that encounter didn't leave me the same. I knew God got my attention there.

I saw pride in me that day. The kind of pride I saw was not the boastful type but more of an attitudinal type that was averse to learning especially from certain places and people. Prior to the time I enrolled in the seminary, I have always questioned what people spend years learning there. I just felt it was a waste of time because I know alot of ministers who are doing well in ministry but had no seminary education. Little did I know that such attitude smirks of pride and arrogance. Unfortunately, it is common to preachers. Through out that day and for sometime, I didn't get over what I saw. What got my attention was not the fact that I shook hands with a king but I saw a man who had the right attitude to learning. God taught me that one of the ways to know a humble man is not that gentle and reserved mien that we commonly call humility but submitting oneself to the rigour of capacity building through learning regardless of status and height attained is a great sign of humility.

A humble man will always learn. If you truly mean to develop and increase your capacity for quality output and greatness in your God-given purpose, you must cultivate the right attitude to learning- humility. As a pioneer pastor, don't say "I can't sit in a leadership seminar organized by an 'ordinary' assembly pastor' or someone that is not pastoring. Can you even listen to him first before you conclude he has nothing to offer? Bro Gbile Akanni is just a 'brother' by title but he is a discipler of pastors, bishops and ministers yet he doesn't oversee a church. Do you have any explanation for that? There are folks in ministry today who believe the only person that can teach them is a man that operates in a 'higher class' e.g., a man with thousands of congregants. This is a very wrong and carnal attitude that prevents people from learning especially those that measure success by human parameters. If Moses had that mentality, he wouldn't have learnt from Jethro. Aside the fact that Jethro was his father-in-law, he was no match for Moses' ministerial achievements but that meek man, Moses, humbled himself and learnt from a man whose congregation was unknown. It paid off. In humility we learn, in continous learning we build capacity for qualitative greatness.