Once you set out to teach—whether you're a pastor or a lay leader—you need to decide whether you're a spring or a cistern. There are very few springs in this world, as you know. People who are springs are thinkers; people who are cisterns are collectors of the information that comes from the springs.

Most people are collectors rather than thinkers. They are the folk who make A's in school. They can take in and spit back without changing the data at all, like Jewish rabbis, who transmitted the Law for years without the slightest alteration. Collectors are extremely important, because they do not pollute the flow of knowledge. But the flow originates with a spring.

If you're a spring, you face the danger of all who work on the creative edge—the danger of being wrong. You have to develop a certain discipline that says, Just because I have a thought doesn't make it true. Otherwise you will become a dogmatic propagandist. You must apply your new creativity and prove whether ...