Introduction: Do you believe that knowledge transforms our destiny? In this age of knowledge explosion, we will fall behind if we do not continue learning. Where should we start learning all that we need?

The weekend is coming soon. Did your job go well this week? I believe that after a week’s hard work, you have made more progress today compared to last week, haven’t you? Lifelong learning is inextricably intertwined with our career advancement, especially in the present era when technology is ever-changing. It is insufficient to just learn from the textbooks. We need to constantly renew our skills.

However, we need to work during the day and take care of our families at night. Furthermore, we have to participate in church activities on Sunday. Where do we find the time to learn? Because so many are so busy with life, a lot of people opt for online lessons. In China, we have online lessons and courses on the WeChat app. These courses expand the boundaries of our learning. You can find all the resources for learning. It is up to you to decide on the venue and time for learning. In addition, we can work and go for online courses in the evening or on the weekend. Learning empowers us, so through learning, we possess greater authority. How blessed we are!

I remember that several years ago, when I first heard of the concept of online lessons in MOOC, I was very excited. I wanted to tell my friends about it immediately. What do you want to learn? How about your children? All of these courses are available on the Internet! I would provide you with the website link.

A few years later, my friends and I discovered that the outcomes of online learning were not what we expected.

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Dear friends, have you purchased online lessons before? How many of them have you not completed or persevered to completion? Even after you have finished it, does it bring about any changes?

If you have similar experiences, you may blame yourself, loathe yourself for wasting money and time, feel that you lack determination or have poor learning ability. If you harbour all these thoughts, I advise you to put aside such thoughts. I want to tell you some ‘good news’ instead: in reality, the success rate of online learning is very low! Do you know that only 5% of MOOC students complete their studies? For every 100 people who register for the online course, only 5 people persevered to the end! This is the reality. Even though we can easily obtain learning materials from the Internet, it does not enable us to possess more willpower in learning.

In other words, the Internet has provided us with a very good opportunity for online learning. It is a pity when we don’t make full use of it! Therefore, let us discuss on how to employ this tool fully.

Recently, the Financial Times in Britain published an article to introduce one of the earliest advocates of online education. He was Sebastian Thrun, who once assumed the role of Professor of
Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. Later, he was the founder of Google’s self-driving car company, and was the first person to be responsible for the research laboratory of Google’s ‘moon exploration project’. Eight years ago, Thrun left Google and established Udacity, a provider of online lessons. His goal was to design the most effective method to boost the skills of working professionals and enable them to switch jobs or be promoted.

After a period of time, Thrun found out that for those who had invested a huge amount of money to produce the online lessons, the results were not as good as he thought they would be. Compared to the 5% of the online graduates in MOOC, Udacity had 34% of their students graduate with Nanodegrees. These results were rather good, but two-thirds of them gave up on the course.

Why is it so difficult to press on in online courses? Thrun points out that the most important underlying reason is that it is hard to study alone. He realised that with the lack of attention from traditional teachers, many people would quit halfway.

Udacity attempted to incorporate the social factor into learning, and reduced the loneliness of the students after they noticed that interpersonal communication plays a crucial role in learning. The students were put into groups and were scheduled to discuss their assignments face-to-face. The number of online tutors was also increased. They provided more feedback to the students, encouraged students to stay with the course, helped them to overcome hurdles, and urged them to complete their assignments. As a result, the success rate for these courses increased to more than 60%.

Apart from this, Udacity also perceived that it was essential to have support from the employers. It would greatly motivate the students when their bosses recognised their efforts in learning, especially when the acknowledgement was from the top superior. This determined to a large extent if the employee could persevere to complete his online studies.

Christians know that we cannot cease to gather, since we need mutual encouragement to walk further in our spiritual journey. Now we discover that we must also encourage one another in learning. Regardless of whether we intend to study the Bible systematically, or plan to acquire career-centered knowledge, it is better for us to find three or more people to embark on our studies together. Next time, before registering for an online course, you can try telling your circle of friends: I am going for online studies. Who would like to join me?

At this point, you may ponder over calling a few friends to complete the online studies together. Don’t be anxious! Have you noticed that some courses were left uncompleted? This was because we registered for it in the spur of the moment. After a few days, we realised that this was not our cup of tea, so we put it aside!

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All of us have made such a mistake. After all, the online resources seem interesting and contain a vast variety of useful things! For example, some working professionals pay for lessons to learn PowerPoint since they think it is important to pick up more office skills. What about the English language? Those with a good standard of English have greater job options, so let’s grasp more English. What about gaining some financial knowledge to manage money? There are also courses on relationships between parents and children, marital relationships, and exercising. In addition, there is also the promotion of writing advertorials with vivid descriptions. You seem to be full of enthusiasm and think that this is an opportunity not to be missed. Come, register for it quickly and start learning!

Have you noticed that nowadays, there are numerous educational platforms on advertorials and advertisements? They employ the psychological tactic of exploiting fears in people to promote their products. Therefore, before deciding on any course, we need to remind ourselves that as workplace Christians, even though it is crucial to learn new skills, we have to depend on the Lord rather than on knowledge. The Bible reminds us that we need to rely on God instead of our own intelligence, as only God is the rock in our life. In the present generation, we have to keep abreast of the changes in knowledge. Not only must we absorb knowledge, we also need to learn in-depth and rely on God entirely.

I pose a question to our friends here: Do you believe that knowledge transforms our destinies?

This is a statement that many parents and young friends always mention.

Dear friends, when a Christian starts to believe in this, his focus will no longer be on God but on his worldly status and benefits.

As followers of Jesus Christ who rely on God’s grace, we do not take in knowledge to transform our destinies. We do it to better accomplish God’s will for us. Indeed, knowledge will influence many areas in our lives, but it is not the goal of our pursuit. We gain knowledge to accomplish the tasks that God has entrusted us in order to be His good stewards.

Upon closer scrutiny, we discover that the attitude of a person who learns to fulfil God’s will is different from that of someone who learns to change his destiny. The former is full of joy and peace while the latter is always in a rush and full of worries. If he does not reap the expected benefits of learning, he will fall into despair.

For those brothers and sisters in Christ who have registered for one uncompleted course after another, I would say to them: Slow down! Come, pray to the Lord and acknowledge your fear and anxiety. Which destiny are you in a rush to change? Which parts of your life have you not committed to God such that you have lost the peace which comes from God?

Friends who regularly tune in to this programme would have discovered the point that we keep emphasizing: workplace Christians have to find God’s calling for them. In this rapidly changing era when new realities constantly emerge, God’s calling for us is His compass for our lives. We need to be clear about our bearings so that we have clear perspectives and aren’t easily swayed by the advertorials or advertisements. Once we have clearly distinguished our calling in life, we will not be distracted by other things. At the same time, we easily grasp the truly valuable things and plough deeper in learning.

The Internet has provided us with online learning, which is a good tool for learning. However, we need to think through these questions clearly before registration for the course: What is God’s calling for me? In order to fulfil this calling, what do I need to learn today?

Prioritise the list of things that you have delineated for learning. Which one is the most important or of secondary importance? What about the third in the list? Hold on to the crucial points and take one step at a time. Don’t go for all at once.

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There are too many interesting and useful things on the Internet. We need to filter them through our calling, or else we will be depleted of our time and energy in the relentless pursuit of them. Let us examine if those online lessons that we have purchased are aligned with our goals in life. If not, let us let go of them decisively. We must not think that persevering to the end is our victory. Once we make a wrong decision, our loss will be greater when we hold on to it longer. Our time is limited and we should focus on a few valuable things and find a few like-minded people to plod on together!

Dear friends, I hope you found today’s episode helpful.  Please tune in again for our next episode of “Workplace Strategy” as we continue to explore how to live faithfully for Jesus in the workplace.