Lessons taught, lessons caught

It's been about two decades since my husband and I visited a Sunday School class while we were on vacation. 

I'm sure the teacher, as all good Sunday School teachers do, spent plenty of time preparing his lessons in hopes that his class would appreciate it and that they'd also participate. 

Unfortunately, I don't remember a single point of his lesson.

I do, however, remember that he spent the first five to ten minutes of class explaining who their church was and was not in fellowship with. 

The lesson I caught that day was not, I'm sure, the lesson that the teacher taught. 

Contrast that with a church service I attended some weeks ago. 

The minister of this congregation prefers to travel around the front of the church rather than staying firmly planted behind the pulpit. On this day, he was standing in the aisle, preaching, when a toddler came up to him saying, "Here," and holding out a piece of paper he'd drawn on. 

To be honest, I was thinking, where is this kid's mom? and expecting the minister to tell the kid, "not right now!"

Instead, he stopped, sat down on the floor, looked at the picture, asked the child a few questions, and then said, "Thank you!" 

And continued the sermon from where he'd left off. 

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember very much about the sermon that was preached. 

But I remember very well the lesson that was caught and not necessarily the lesson that was taught. 

It makes me wonder:  What are we teaching, and what are the people around us catching? 

Good question.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.