Teacher Training Ideas

I've lamented before that training opportunities for Sunday School teachers seem to have gone by the wayside. A few decades ago we saw weekly Sunday School meetings, regular training classes, annual regional conferences, teacher "certification" programs, and a national convention. Now I fear that some congregations manage a quarterly teachers' meeting, but most offer no organized training at all. I know we can do better.

So a recent post by the Sunday School Revolutionary (Darryl Wilson, a Sunday School leader for the Kentucky Baptist Convention) caught my eye. Under the title (you can link to his post by clicking on the title) "Twelve Months of Sunday School Teacher Training," he offers several creative suggestions for equipping teachers, including some that encourage us to spread the leadership roles with others.

send teachers an article or blog post to read and answer three questions to prepare for discussion at the meeting

ask the pastor to share the background of book(s) teachers will be covering in the upcoming quarter

ask one of your teachers (could be in each age group) to be prepared to demonstrate a teaching method for the group--allow time to debrief/dialogue

show a short Sunday School training video--allowing time to debrief/dialogue

read a short section of a Sunday School book to teachers--divide them into groups to dialogue, closing with a summary

devote one of your planning meetings to training beginning with a 20-30 minute presentation and dividing into age groups for application each one facilitated by an age group teacher

Great ideas! Implementing even one or two of them would provide a helpful shot in the arm for those who teach God's children His Word in your congregation.

What do you think? Are my impressions accurate? What is the state of teacher training in your Sunday School?

What training suggestions can you add to Darryl's list?

The Temple Test

Christian apologetics is on my mind a lot these days. The writings of Ken Ham and Brad Alles urge us to be a bit more deliberate (no, a lot more deliberate) about preparing Sunday School students to face a world that is often hostile to their faith.

How can we make sure that the lessons we teach on Sunday morning will be distinctively Christian and Lutheran?

A wise man who helped me get started in the Sunday School editing business, Rev. Earl Gaulke, spoke occasionally of using the temple test.

It works like this. Just ask yourself: Could the lessons we teach, the materials we use, be taught in a temple of another faith (Jewish, Islam, Baptist, etc.) without causing those who worship and study there to object? If there would be no objections, our lessons have failed the test! They have not adhered to the truth of Scripture that Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through [Him]" (John 14:6 ESV).

We do the children we teach a disservice when the lesson we teach present godless morality, Christless salvation, or religious life absent the Sacraments through which Jesus promises to be with us. That hour of opportunity each week, when God's children gather in your classroom to study His Word, is too precious to waste!

Am I too harsh?

How do you evaluate the material you teach?

What Can We Evaluate?

I'm wrestling this week with the concept of evaluation in Sunday School.

Over the years, I've operated from the conviction that things benefit from inspection. The simple act of looking at something is the beginning of opportunity, while ignoring things guarantees the continuation of the status quo. Okay, there are exceptions, surprises ("silent growth while we are sleeping," in the words of Fred Pratt Green, Hope Publishing 1970), but even those we see only when we get around to looking.

So, what can we look at in Sunday School that will bring blessings for our task of teaching God's children His Word?

Volunteers will generally fear evaluation by others. Most are insecure enough in their role to suspect that in any evaluation they will be judged inferior, not really sufficient for the task. (In fact, most volunteers are proably duing a commendable job, else they would not remain in their positions.) They are likely open though to self-evaluation.

Other aspects of Sunday School will also defy evaluation. Faith is a perrsonal and internal matter that is not subject to our human examination or measurement. Numbers (students registered or attending, and the like) may not be helpful for evaluation; the root causes for changes in numbers may be difficult to discern.

• So what's left to look at?
  Environment (are we providing attractive space, places where children will want to be and where parents will want to bring them?)



• Curriculum (are we provide theologically and educationally sound material that above all else shares Christ are Savior?)



• Administration (are effective systems in place to provide volunteers, training, resources, and visibility for the Sunday School?)

What am I missing?

What needs to be included in a Sunday School evaluation?

What My School Teacher Says or What the Bible Says?

I had a brief debate yesterday morning with a young man, a first or second grader, who was not buying the Bible's notion of a six-day creation. It was very brief; I didn't intend to engage in any kind of contest and I didn't expect to win if I tried.

Already in his early years of, I assume, public education, this young man had been taught, and was firmly convinced, that the earth was millions of years old, the dinosaurs and man could not have been created at the same time or lived peacefully together on the earth, and the dinosaurs perished millions of years ago because of a "big volcano." (Maybe it was not public education, after all, but children's television and movies.)

That God's Word is true, a reliable source of information about all that it teaches, including a six-day creation, is ultimately a matter of faith. So I made my case, in language that I hoped the others in the mixed-age class could understand. "This is what the Bible says. The Bible also promises forgiveness of sins to all people who, like Adam and Eve, have sinned and turned away from God and then hear again God's Word of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus."

But I'm praying for that young man, and for all the other children who hear God's Word, that their hearts will be open to hear it. And I hurt for the many ways that tender faith will be challenged as children encounter a world that does not believe what the Bible teaches.

God bless all of you who take time to teach God's children His Word.

How would you have handled this encounter?


At what age should be engage children in "serious theological discussion"?