Just in time

In Mexico there is a kind of restaurant that doesn’t exist in North America. It’s a small family restaurant where you sit down for a full meal, but it has no menu. You’re served the dish of the day, complete with sides and flavored drink, and it’s fresh, home-cooked, and fast. It’s also cheap, as cheap as any fast food. It’s called comida corrida, meal on the run, a fine Latin American invention. You do get variety from day to day, and I know some people who eat a comida corrida every day. The comida corrida uses a technique newly applied in North America (my brother-in-law uses it in his mechanic business), the just-in-time inventory. The chefs (as do most moms) shop fresh from the market every day. Although I doubt the comida corrida would take off in our culture, the concept of just-in-time is gaining ground in other fields.

Take education, for example. I have a niece who is graduating as a computer programmer from Waterloo University, a university made world famous by its co-op program. This program requires a four month job placement after every four month academic term. By the time my niece graduates, she will already have two years of experience. With great feedback from her employers as well as her profs, she can now pick the job she wants. She chose Google.

My brother-in-law, who uses a just-in-time inventory, also uses just-in-time training. He starts his apprentices on simple jobs, changing oil and spark plugs, but as they learn, he trains them for more complex tasks. Throughout the process, the apprentices bill out their own work, so by the end of their training, they practice all aspects of the business and have clients of their own.  When they finish, they run their own business. This is just-in-time training.

If you think about it, this is the model Jesus used to train his apprentices. He put his disciples to work right away and gave them the training they needed for the immediate tasks at hand. He modeled everything for them and gave them immediate feedback when they finished. Paul did the same with Titus and Timothy. A more familiar term for just-in-time apprenticing would be discipleship.

Discipling means learning what tasks people are facing and helping them do these tasks well. Instead of laying out a long plan of study disconnected from practice, a good teacher teaches to the tasks at hand. This means using a menu-based teaching style, “bringing from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old.” (Matt 13: 52) If the task is evangelizing, then teach and model how to evangelize. If it is preaching, then teach and model how to preach. If it is baptizing, then teach and model how to baptize. The best teachers have always trained their disciples for specific tasks by giving them the principles, the modeling, and the practice they need, and then putting them to work. How much do we hear complaints about how college didn’t prepare students for the actual work they do or about how quickly they forget everything because at the time it wasn’t relevant? What would it be like if higher education used more of a menu-based approach?

In just three years, Jesus taught his disciples so well that he could step aside and send them on their way. They had what they needed. Paul sent his disciples to start churches, name elders, and manage disputes in a matter of months.

I think it’s a good model, this kind of just-in-time training. I want to learn how to use it more in my teaching and writing.  The first task for my writing project is to build a menu directed at specific tasks that cross-cultural workers might face as they take the Good News to people who have not heard it. The first item to tackle was the menu.