The Children's Christmas Service

Friends, just a short post before Christmas about that wonderful tradition in many churches: the Sunday School Christmas Service. Perhaps yours has already taken place. Perhaps it is scheduled for Christmas Eve. In our large congregation there are often three such services, two in the weeks before Christmas and one on Christmas Eve. I hope yours was a wonderful event for the congregation, its children, and their families!

Now it's time to start thinking and planning for next year. The first step in that planning process should be defining the purpose for the event. I see the following goals as important ones to consider.

Share the Gospel

The primary purpose of any worship service or Christmas program would proclaim God's Word of grace, the reason He sent His Son, Jesus, to take our human form for a time, life a perfect life and die a sacrificial death in our stead, and win for us eternal life with Him in heaven. Entertainment and photo opportunities don't measure up!

Let the Children Tell the Story

The children's Christmas service or Christmas program is a wonderful opportunity for the children of your Sunday School to share the Gospel with their family, friends, congregation, and community. In the process, it should become a story they understand and can express in words that could be their own.

Tell the Story Accurately

Sad to say, there are many resources offered for your use on this occasion that stray far from the truths of Scripture.It should not need to be said that snowmen and Santas are really not part of the equation.

Tell the Story Winsomely

That is not to say that the service or program cannot enjoyable and touch the hearts of those who see it. Narrations that are well rehearsed, familiar songs and hymns of the season, and a visually rich environment can be important considerations.

What else needs to be said?

What will you be looking for in your next Christmas service?

Thanks for making it another occasion to share God's Word with His children!

What Is the Value of Sunday School?

What is your Sunday School for? How you answer that question will guide all the critical decisions about Sunday School.

• Many congregations are facing tight budgets in these tough economic times. Every expenditure, including the cost of Sunday School material, is being reconsidered with at an eye to saving money. Perhaps they will look at a different, less expensive Sunday School curriculum.
• A publisher has mailed an attractive flyer to your Sunday School director featuring their new curriculum. It looks fun, interesting (which is the job of such a flyer). Some teachers are all in favor of trying it out. Should you?
• A parent reports that it is difficult to get her child to attend Sunday School; the child says it is boring. He would rather be signed up for the city soccer league and be out on the field on Sunday mornings. You wonder whether some new style of Sunday School would make it more attractive to families with similar issues.

If your Sunday School is in competition in family schedules with other activities as a form of entertainment, a nice opportunity to have fun with friends, someone has missed the point. It is unlikely that your Sunday School can compete in this arena, and I wonder why you would want to.

Sunday School is valuable as an agency that assists families with the spiritual nurture of the children and adults in those families. It is a place where the proclamation and study of God's Word combats the forces of sin, death, and Satan, offering grace and forgiveness for those burdened by guilt and mired in sin. Sunday School, seen in that way, offers far more than any game of soccer.

If that is not what your Sunday School does, change is in order. If that is not how Sunday School is perceived by the families of your congregation, it is time to get that message out. Sunday School is an opportunity for God's children to see Jesus and know the salvation He came to win for us on the cross.

That kind of Sunday School will not be in competition with soccer, will not be evaluated only the basis of fun, and will more likely be seen as worth the cost.

How do we communicate the real value of Sunday School to the families we serve? What tips can you share for presenting that message?

God's blessings as you teach His children His Word.

Christmas Plans

I've seen some posts this past week on e-mail list I follow on the topic of how to deal with Sunday School on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Most, almost all, of the responses fall into two groups: those who are going to cancel and those who are going to some form of alternate activity.

I'll admit I'm hard pressed to choose between the alternative of teaching nothing or turning the class over to a video of dancing and singing vegetables who preach moralism instead of God's grace.

Those who follow this blog will know where I stand on this one: there is no better day to teach a solid lesson about God's gift of a Savior from sin, death, and Satan, than on the day we celebrate the Nativity of that Savior and no excuse for teaching moralism in Sunday School ever.

I know that staffing your Sunday School can be difficult on these holidays and I know that low attendance can make planning and teaching a challenge. But in the long run, how we handle these Sundays will say a lot about a congregation's priorities.

How will your congregation meet these challenging Sundays?


How can a congregation prepare for the staffing and attendance challenges without sacrificing the opportunity to teach God's children His Word?

Why a Lutheran Sunday School Curriculum?

I am trained and certified in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod as a director of Christian education. It is a title that I am proud to hold because I think it says something about my abilities, education and preparation for my work, professional status, and commitment to the ministry of teaching God's Word. I take my theological preparation seriously, and I treasure the doctrinal heritage of our Church and its emphasis on teaching both Law and Gospel and distinguishing clearly between them as we do so.

Therefore, it puzzles me and makes me sad when I see Christian education leaders in LCMS congregations (be they pastors, DCEs, lay people, or others) who place so little importance on the theology of Lutheran Church as they select materials for use in the congregations they serve. Can they really not see that material prepared by Baptist, reformed, or non-denominational publishers will consistently fail to teach correctly about the Means of Grace? Even material prepared for other Lutheran denominations will reflect that church body's beliefs about God's Word and their social agenda.

Don't be fooled!
* Material that avoids teaching about Baptism and the Lord's Supper in order to appeal to a broad market of Christian churches misses the very tools that Jesus has given the Christian to nurture faith and sustain a Sunday School student's daily walk as a child of God.
* Material chosen for is appearance or fun activities rather than its theology shortchanges the participants in the long run.

I've heard some Sunday School leaders justify their choice of heterodox materials by saying "I review the material and edit the theology" or "My teachers add Lutheran doctrine as they teach." But if the material omits the Means of Grace, it will rely on Law as the way to salvation. How much editing will be required to strip that kind of error from each Sunday School lesson? How can a lesson that teaches legalism and moralism be corrected by "adding the Gospel"? We cannot teach both error and truth.

I pray that God will guide those who teach His children His Word in the choice of material that is faithful to that Word.

What characteristics do you place first when evaluating Sunday School material?

How can we better communicate the importance of doctrine as we make curriculum choices?

Reformation and Other Movable Festivals

The movable festivals of the Church Year present a challenge for a publisher of Sunday School materials. It is difficult to know what the customer is going to encounter in his or her worship service or what they would prefer in the Sunday School lesson that week.

How much should Sunday School try to do with Reformation Sunday or All Saints' Sunday? Do we note these observances in the opening or closing worship times? Incorporate them into the body of the lesson?

Although the hymnal (Lutheran Service Book) recommends marking the principal feasts* only when they fall on Sunday, local custom prevails, and many churches (and our every-Sunday bulletin products at CPH) use the Reformation and All Saints' pericopes on the last Sunday of October and first Sunday of November respectively.

What is your preference? Should we teach a Reformation Sunday School lesson each year?

*Principal feasts generally are those related to related to the life of Christ (Circumcision and Name of Jesus, Purification of Mary and Presentation of our Lord, Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity of John the Baptist, St. Michael's and All Angels, and All Saints' Day).

Music in Sunday School

I've had several discussions recently with fellow editors at CPH about the role of music in Sunday School and what resources congregations need in this area. So I'm bold in this post to offer a couple of comments and then ask a few questions.

Music Is One of God's Gifts
Music is mentioned throughout Scripture, from Genesis (4:21, Jubal, "father of all those who play the lyre and pipe") to Revelation (5:9, "And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You . . ."). Paul writes some of my favorite words in Ephesians 5:19: "Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and make melody to the Lord with your heart." God wants us to sing!

Music Teachs the Faith
Martin Luther, and scores of church leaders who came before and after him, recognized the power of music as a tool for teaching the Christian faith. Among his nearly 30 hymns, Luther included several intended to teach the six chief parts of the Small Catechism.

Music Is Integral to Worship
It is hard for me to imagine a worship service without music, and, for me, the sung liturgy and heritage of hymns in the Lutheran Church are some of its great treasures.

It makes sense then for us to use and teach music in Sunday School. So let me ask a few questions.

What is the connection between Sunday School music and worship music in your congregation?

Where will the next generation of Lutheran Christians learn the great hymns of faith? Will they?

What style of music to you prefer to use in your Sunday School? Why?

What music resources are your looking for to use in Sunday School? (I'd really love foryou to tell me about this. I'm in an improved position to address this kind of need.)

Blessings as you teach God's children His Word!

Callahan's Fourth Key-Significant, Relational Groups

Working our way down Kennon Callahan's Twelve Keys to an Effective Church, we find the fourth key: significant relational groups. As applied to the whole congregation, Callahan's general point is that most people look the their congregation for more than just worship opportunities, they build relationships. The congregation can be seen as a system of overlapping groups to which people voluntarily associate themselves: a worshiping body (the 8 am service), a choir, a board or committee, or a Bible study. The more relationally connected people are to groups in the congregation, the more regularly they will participate, recommend, and invite others to join.

Relational Sunday School
In the Lutheran Church, Sunday School identifies more closely with children than in other denominations such as the Baptist churches, where Sunday School is seen primarily as a system of classess for adults. And the participation of children in Sunday School is not completely voluntary, given that they do not control their own transportation or Sunday morning schedules.

However, the degree to which children are relationally connected to their Sunday School class, both their teachers and their fellow studnets, the more likely they are to attend regularly and to invite their friends to visit or attend regularly with them. This relational dynamic is a powerful factor in effective Sunday Schools.

How do you build relationships in your Sunday School?

What role will an effective teacher play in making Sunday School a "significant, relational group"?

God's blessing as you teach His children His Word!

Callahan's Third Key Applied to Sunday School

A few weeks ago, I began reviewing (in between other posts), Kennon Callahan's Twelve Keys to an Effective Church, and applying them to Sunday School. These keys, taken together, provide a great tool for renewed effort toward excellence.

Callahan's Third Key is "corporate, dynamic worship" (his word order and punctuation, not mine). Worship is a primary activity for the Church; it plays a lesser role within the 60 to 75 minutes most congregation's have for Sunday School. And the connection between Sunday School and worship is extremely important as well. Let's look briefly at each.

The Congregation's Worship
The vitality of the congregation's worship affects the health and growth of the congregation and indirectly the health and growth of the Sunday School as well, especially when a worshiping congregation that welcomes and involves children in the Divine Service. You can read more about my thoughts in a previous post by clicking here.

Worship in the Sunday School
Worship plays two important roles within the context of the Sunday School itself. It is a worship opportunity, and it is an educational opportunity.

Opening and closing devotions, whether done as an individual class or larger segment of the Sunday School provide unique opportunities for children to experience worship that is tailored to their specific levels of development, reading ability, and interest. Child-friendly hymns and songs, opportunity for individual prayer concerns to be addressed, and even object lessons or devotional thoughts targeted for children are all possible in a much greater degree than in the Divine Service.

What resources do you find most helpful in classroom devotions or department-wide worship? What resources should your publishing house be providing?

These opening and closing devotions are also an important, even vital, opportunity to teach the elements of corporate worship to children. We can explain the vocabulary used in the parts of the liturgy. We can teach the refrains, such as the Alleluia and Verse, that come and go so quickly in the service that some children are "left in the dust." We can help children memorize the creed and the Lord's Prayer so that their participation in the worship can be more meaningful. We can teach them how to follow the hymn texts from one staff of music to the next in the hymnal. In these ways and more, we can ensure that children grow into full participation in the congregation's worship.

How well does your curriculum integrate the elements of the Divine Service (hymns and liturgy) into classroom/Sunday School worship? What more would you like to see?

Time spend in Sunday School preparing children for and leading them in worship is not wasted. It is excellent Christian education!

God bless you as you teach God's Word (in liturgy and song) to His children.

Teaching about Prayer

A recent discussion with my fellow Sunday School editors at Concordia Publishing House has caused me to think a bit about prayer. It seems to me that either our practical theology about prayer is underdeveloped or our teaching on the subject has been flawed.

Specifically, I think my background in this area has been neglected. Therefore, I have pondered and you get the results, for better or worse.

Here are some things I think we can say about prayer.

• God invites, indeed commands, prayer. (Psalm 50:15 and other passages)
• Prayer does not change God; He is always loving, always caring for His creation, including all humankind. Our prayer does not draw His attention or cause Him to act against His nature. (I'm not sure prayer even causes God to change His mind or do what He wouldn't do anyway, but I really need to look more closely at that; it sounds a bit heretical.)
• Prayer does reflect changes God works in us through His Word. When we pray for God's action ("Thy kingdom come"), we are acknowledging that we have become convinced through God's Word that He is able and willing to act on our behalf, as Luther says in his explanation: "The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also." When we ask for our daily bread, we are acknowledging that, through God's Word, we see that God is the source of our daily bread.

I'm not saying that prayer is not worthwhile; quite the contrary. But I am saying that we should not teach prayer as some kind of additional "means of grace"; we do not receive God's favor because of our prayers.

And I suggest that we should not mislead our students into thinking that, by their prayers, they manipulate God.

God does not need our prayers, but we certainly do.

What do you think?

What do you teach about prayer?

What am I missing as I think this one through?

What resources can we study to get a better grasp on this God-given practice?

I pray that God will bless you as you teach His children His Word! (That is, make you aware of all He is doing to equip and strengthen you for that task?)

First Article Christians

A fellow editor at CPH, responding by e-mail to a customer, gave me a handle on the big short-coming of so many Sunday School curricula on the market these days, including some that are very popular even in LCMS churches.

These Sunday School materials dwell almost exclusively on "first article" theme: "God is good." "God cares for you." "God loves you."

Don't get me wrong! I confess the First Article of the Apostles' Creed just as loudly as I do the second and third. But as my colleague pointed out, the truths of the First Article are essentially natural knowledge about God, things we can know without having to even read the Scriptures, teachings that can be affirmed even by many non-Christians. Sunday School material that dwells exclusively on the First Article will miss entirely the saving nature of Christ and the blessings of life nurtured by Word and Sacraments.

I'm proud to be part of a team that publishes a Sunday School curriculum, Growing in Christ, and teaches the truths of the Second and Third Articles as well as the First, one where Christ is the center of each lesson, even those in the Old Testament, and where Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar are not avoided.

How was Jesus taught in your Sunday School classroom this past week?

Thanks for all you do to teach God's children His Word.

Callahan's Second Key

I started last week running through Kennon Callahan's Twelve Keys to an Effective Church and will continue the list this week. (But I can't promise to do them order; who knows what other topics may intrude.)

Callahan's second key is Pastor and Lay Visitation. He includes here visits to the unchurched, newcomers, constituents, and members and proposes they be done weekly.

If we tranlate this key to the Sunday School level, we need to consider a few issues.

Is visitation a "lost art"? That's how Callahan describes it in his book (which, you will remember, was published in 1983). And what constitutes a "visit"? To be sure, there is a very different dynamic in a phone call or e-mail contact than a face-to-face contact, and I would suggest that face to face is always better, if it is possible. Yes, it requires time and effort, but when teachers and Sunday School leaders take time to connect with those who attend, or who could attend or used to attend, Sunday School, they can expect fruit. Every ounce of effort expended by your church will be noticed, and almost certainly appreciated, that the people you visit.

You're not ready yet to commit to personal visits. Then commit to phone calls, or personal e-mails (not group posts, please), and strive to make the consistently under some or all of the following circumstances:

• first-time visitors and attenders (those who have attended your Sunday School for the first time, whether they are visitors from the community or families who are considering church membership.


• new enrollees (those who have expressed a commitment to your Sunday School, filled out the registration form, signed on the dotted line, should be welcomed and a concerted effort made to get to know them better, figure out who they might be hooked up with for support, and determine what other resource they might benefit from in the congregation)


• absentees (Set a bench-mark here: absent one week, absent two weeks in a row, absent three weeks. Don't be shy! Say "We noticed you [your child] have [has] not been in Sunday School and wanted to see if there was anything amiss, anything we could do to get you back." You may get an excuse; you may get an earful; you may be able to provide significant support and assistance; you may just prod the lazy sinful nature to come again to God's house to hear about His grace and love.

These visits, whether in person or on the phone, can make a huge difference. They should be made by someone with a natural interest; the teacher is a logical candidate.

Commit to it. See if it makes a difference in your ability to teach God's children His Word.

Keys to an Effective Sunday School

More than twenty-five years ago Kennon Callahan authored a wonderful book that shaped much of my thinking about how a congregation works. It is titled Twelve Keys to an Effective Church and it is still available in limited quantities. It is worth reading.

His "twelve keys" are also worth looking at in terms of Sunday School.

The first key in his list of twelve is one of six relational keys "Specific, Concrete Missional Objectives." Simply put, if you don't know where you are going, any road is as good (or bad) as another; you have a great chance of wandering endlessly.

Specific, because until you can state your objective(s) briefly and clearly, you have little hope of meeting them.

Concrete, because if you can't actually envision the end result, describing it in tangible ways, you cannot really plan to go there.

Missional, which I always thought was an odd word, pushes your objectives out of the selfish and maintenance oriented realm into the world of Christian service.


How would you describe the objectives for your Sunday School? Are they written down? Are they specific, concrete, and missional?


I would love to hear about them! As the weeks unfold, I'll strive to unpack the other eleven "keys" as they related to Sunday School.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Active Training

Your teachers are a key link between your curriculum (hopefully a good one) and your students. It will pay to train them as much as they are willing to be trained.

It used to be that weekly (or at least monthly) teachers' meetings were the norm for Sunday Schools, just as weekly rehearsals were normative for choirs. In addition, quarterly training courses and regional workshops, and an annual or triennial national conference, were provided. These days it is rare that I hear of a Sunday School that offers a teachers' meeting once a quarter.

Your staff may be small enough, or so hard to assemble, that regular face-to-face group training seems impossible. What can you do? First browse the collections of ideas I offered in June 2011; you'll find it here.) Then consider what you can do one-on-one.

• Send an article to your teachers and meet briefly to discuss it after Sunday School or in individual phones calls with your staff. You'll find many to choose from at teachersinteraction.cph.org under "Read Some Featured Articles."




• Spend a few minutes before class reviewing the features of the teacher guide and other resources with each teacher, one each week.




• Invite teachers to suggest areas of need, locate and provide resources, and follow up by phone to discuss them.

You get the picture. If you just send or give the resource, it is passive; the teacher may or may not benefit from it. It is the active contact that provides accountability and feedback.

God bless you as you help others teach God's children His Word.

How do you provide training for new or continuing teachers?

What resources have you found most helpful?

When Do You Promote?

I've helped out a lot this summer for my church's Sunday School program. The "School Year" teachers get to take the summer off, and volunteers were scarce.

An issue that cropped up for me is one that you might find familiar. As the kids signed in each week, they were to mark their grade level; we used last year's grade, or as I started calling it later in the summer, "the grade you've graduated from." (That has a nice positive ring to it, don't you think?)

Then in mid-August the kids went back to school, so the DCE (my wife) changed the sign-in sheets to request "the grade you are now attending." That's great!

It strikes me, though, that a case could be made for promoting students at the beginning of the summer, just after they have completed their year of school. If your students meet in standard graded classrooms through the summer, they might meet their new teacher and use the next grades material. It might be a bit more work in the spring, but less work to start in the fall. The students might have a slight, positive boost in attitude. And you could still have a Rally Day or Christian Education Festival in the fall even though the students have already been promoted.

What do you think?

When do you promote your Sunday School students to the next grade? Why?

What are the pros and cons of promoting the first week of June? The first week of September?

Thanks for all you do to teach God's children His Word!

Yes, You Can, and Should, Adapt Your Lessons

Last week's post bears a little follow up. I can simply not emphasize it enough: teachers can, should, and will adapt each week's lesson to best teach God's Word to the children He sends them.

You Can
Just in case your were waiting for permission, now you have it. You can change the lesson plan printed in your teacher guide to accommodate the resources you have available, the room in which you teach, the abilities of the students you will have in class, and your own teaching preferences.

You Should
Not only can you do this, but it is a good thing. The editor does not you or your situation and cannot accommodate for those things. I offer our customers a great starting place, but I rely on the teacher to make the final adjustments based on local preferences and needs.

You Will
And though I take time to emphasize these things, the reality is that you certainly already adapt your lessons on the fly, probably every week. If time grows short, you cut to the end. If you appear to be finishing early, you extend things a bit. If the language in the guide seems awkward, you reword. If you think an activity is dumb, you skip it. If you could find the object suggested, you wing it. That's what teaching is all about!

Please Don't . . .
So, you can, should, and will adapt your lessons as you prepare and teach them. But, please! Don't revise the theology! One of the strengths of Growing in Christ Sunday School materials, is that they have been carefully written, edited, and reviewed by folks chosen for their ability to teach God's Word in accordance with Lutheran theology, that is to say, what the Bible really teaches. If you believe something has been misstated, your pastor is a ready resource for verifying what is true and should be taught. Though we strive at CPH be be consistently faithful and error-free, our systems occasionally skip a beat. Don't hesitate to let us know, if you think that has happened.


We earnestly desire that God's Word be taught to His children correctly.


What do you find yourself revising most frequently in the lessons you teach?



Which do you think is easier: revising a bogus activity or revising the theological basis for a lesson?

Is This a Good Test of a Sunday School Curriculum?

"The math questions are too hard."

I confess that I don't get it, but that complaint has been registered about our middle grades Growing in Christ materials. It is one of the reasons cited for a possible change of curriculum. Sigh.

I could argue that the math questions cited, used as part of a puzzle that reviewed a key biblical text in the lesson, were not too hard. In checking a number of on-line math practice resources, all the skills involved are taught in most third-grade classes. I would readily admit, however, that skill development in elementary students varies widely and the problems will undoubtedly seem hard for some students. And the use of math problems in a Bible lesson is not my first preference anyway.

I could also argue, though, that mathematical intelligence is one of the many "ways kids are smart" according to the theories of Howard Gardner and, in varying instruction to engage a wide range of learning styles, using math activities with students who are mathematically inclined is not a bad strategy.

But I really don't need to go far with either of those arguments.

My big concern is with using any single activity, or the inclusion of a type of activity on an occasional basis, as rationale for rejecting an entire curriculum.

The essence of any Christian Sunday School curriculum is its ability to share the Gospel. If you can find two or more such curricula (good luck with that), then you can get fussy about other elements. I promise you, that it will be much easier to edit, adapt, and supplement the activities in a curriculum than it will be to correct bad theology and infuse Gospel.

Really! You cannot expect that any curriculum will meet your needs in every respect! You can read more about why I say that in my first post to this blog; you can read it here. But I would always make theology, Jesus Christ as Savior in every lesson, the non-negotiable starting point.

What criteria do you look for in Sunday School curricula?


God's richest blessings as you teach His children His Word.

Five Steps for Enlisting Teachers

There is no magic here, but let me share a process that worked for me in my 15 years of ministry. Perhaps you already do many or all of these things.

1. Enlist the help of one or both pastors in preparing a list of potential teachers. You want to be able to say, “Pastor X and I agree that you would make a good teacher for our Sunday School and we hope you will prayerfully consider it.” Grandparents, parents, and single young adults are all great candidates.

2. Prepare an honest estimate of how much time each week the task will require (at least an hour, perhaps two, of preparation and an hour of teaching; more if you require your teachers to follow up on absent students or attend SS teacher meetings). If the time required is be judged as too much for those you are enlisting, you may need to consider a system where teachers alternate. I resist this, but when it is necessary, I’d go for a system where a volunteer teachers serves two weeks and is off a week, working in a team of three (one teacher, one assisting, and one off each week). This provide continuity for relationships with the students and, oddly enough, it is often easier to enlist two or three teachers than it is to enlist one, since they both know they will have help. Also set a realistic term of service, such as a quarter. This is a pain for recruiting, but might be necessary. Volunteers will resist giving you a blank check on their time or accepting a “life sentence” to teach forever. You can always invite them to re-enlist.

3. Send a letter of invitation to teach and follow up in person or by phone. Don’t take a yes or no answer to this first personal contact; instead answer questions and invite the person to consider and pray about things for a week. Then follow up again. Invite the prospective teacher to sit in with one of your best teachers to see what it is like.

4. Offer training and support. Place new teachers with experienced teachers in a team. Lead the volunteer step by step through the teacher guide and material before their first class, so that they see all the resources available and know how to use them. Offer to sit in with them in their first experience. No one wants to take on a responsibility and then feel like they are failing; do everything you can to make sure each teacher feels successful.

5. In all your contacts, elevate the position of Sunday School teacher for the potential volunteer. Point out the opportunity to impact the lives of young Christians for eternity. Call this service what it is, “one of the most important volunteer tasks in the church.” Install your teachers before their service, thank them publicly and often.

What hurdles do you encounter in finding Sunday School teachers, or in being a Sunday School teacher?

What works for you as you enlist teachers?

God bless your efforts to enlist other in teaching God's children His Word.

Sunday School and Day School

I had the opportunity, while engaging a CPH customer, to express my thoughts on the challenge faced in many congregations: how to encourage Sunday School participation among day school families.

Perhaps you face a similar difficulty. Here is what I said:

The Impact of a Day School
It is wonderful that your congregation has a parochial school. It is a blessing when all subjects can be taught from a biblical perspective. And it is likely true that the day school students are getting solid education in Bible and doctrine as well. You will not win over day school families to solid Sunday School participation by emphasizing responsibility or duty, such as “leading an example.” They are setting a good example by supporting day school education. Instead I would emphasize the Sunday School as:

• Another opportunity to feed on God’s Word. It is difficult to argue that anyone has “learned enough” of God’s Word. Each study opportunity, even studying the exact same passage of Scripture, will lead to new and deeper insight.



• A great opportunity for parents. Parent need to study God’s Word just as much as children. Do whatever you can to support and encourage strong adult Christian education on Sunday mornings. Ask your pastors to lead Bible study for adults and focus on topics of interest to parents. If the parents are attending Bible class, the children will be in Sunday School.



• A different style of education than day school with another positive adult role model as a lay teacher. It is different from the day school class and worthwhile in its own right.

How do day school families intereact with your Sunday School? Are they a blessing? A challenge?

How do you encourage them in Sunday School participation?

Biblical Literacy

Sharing the Gospel
Without a doubt, the first reason for having a solid Sunday School in your congregation is to share the Gospel. The Bible tells the good news that Jesus has earned forgiveness for our sins and that God offers that forgiveness to us as a free gift through faith in Christ. That's what we are about on Sunday mornings, teaching God's children His Word.

That message of salvation, though, unfolds in a truly fascinating narrative about the creation and protection of a people who are called to be faithful to God, who is always faithful to them. The students you teach will benefit from studying the entire Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, and the countless ways in which they reveal God's love for us in Jesus Christ.

How Many Bible Stories Are There?
So, how many Bible lessons are there that a child should learn? The Growing in Christ Sunday School material published by Concordia Publishing House offers about 175 different Bible lessons, counting those taught in the summer quarters. About forty percent of these come from the Old Testament and sixty percent from the New: not a particularly fair treatment of the Old Testament given is larger size, but more Old Testament accounts than any previous Sunday School curriculum CPH has published. The curriculum repeats itself on a cycle of about three years (that gets a little complicated, because New Testament accounts are repeated more frequently than Old Testament ones). This deliberate repetition of lessons allows a student to study a Bible story about three times in the course of childhood, with a fresh, age-level appropriate look at that text in each repetition.

It would be possible, of course, to teach a significantly higher number of accounts from the Bible; there are certainly many to choose from that are not covered in the current scope and sequence, or that are covered with only broad strokes.

Too Many? Too Few?
On the other extreme, a model of Sunday School gaining some attention these days---Workshop Rotation---teaches just one Bible account every month or so, rotating the students through several different hour-long workshops. Just ten or twelve Bible accounts are studied each year, though one assumes that a given set of lessons might not be repeated again for many years. I am sceptical about this approach, because of the fewer number of lessons taught among other reasons (that's fodder for another post to this blog, I suppose).

So, I ask: what do you think?
What is the ideal number of lessons in a Sunday School curriculum?

How often should lessons be repeated?

What will contribute best to the biblical literacy of children?

What choices would you make, if your could, as you teach God's children His Word?

What Do You Hear? Part 2

As promised, I want to return to the topic of the TT/ST Ratio: the Teacher Talk to Student Talk Ratio. You might want to browse last week's post, part 1, to catch up to where we are.

It is my premise that, withing the bounds of reason, more student talk is better than some or none. Here's why:

The students are engaged! If the students are quiet, they are often passive. Maybe they are listening, but maybe they are not. If they are making noise---answering or asking questions, talking with each other (in teacher directed activity), or even the chaotic murmur that characterizes craft activity---they are at least on task.

Sometimes, teacher talk in the form of lecture is necessary. (Don't kid yourself, you could be lecturing to preschoolers and preteens, as well as college students and adults, if the teacher is doing all the talking.) But lecture has a huge drawback from an educational standpoint. You don't know what the students are really picking up. They may be confused, but afraid or not permitted to ask questions. They may have mentally checked out and "gone home," even though 30 minutes of class time remain. They may be distracted by a classmate, a poster on the wall, or a bird in the bush outside the window. If they are silent, you don't know where they are in the learning process. Well, okay, you could give quizzes or require that they fill in blanks on a hand-out as you lecture, but really, I know we can do better. Lecture shows how much the teacher knows, but it shows nothing about what the student knows.

Catechesis is a great tool! Asking questions and drawing the students into giving answers or asking questions of their own is a much more effective way of hearing what the students are learning in class. The more great questions you ask the lower your TT/ST Ratio. That's a good thing.

Student reports are good. This can be a two-edged sword. The time students invest in preparing reports, unless they are given as homework, will show on your class sound audit as silence or, if you have asked for teamwork in the reports, discussion or chaos. So, keep the report assignments narrow in scope and easy to accomplish in just a few minutes. Then couple the student talk/reporting time with discussion/asking questions. You will still lower that TT/ST Ratio.

How do YOU know whether your students are engaged in your lesson?


What are other ways to reduce the Teacher Talk to Student Talk Ratio?


Thanks for teaching God's children His Word!

What Do You Hear? Part 1

Imagine that you recorded one of the recent Bible lessons you taught. You pressed "Record" when the first student arrived and "Stop" when the last one went out the door. Now, play that tape back in your mind. What do you hear?

Do you hear mostly your own voice? Giving instructions. Reading from the Bible. Asking questions. Leading the students in prayer. Do you hear mostly voices of the students? Answering questions or asking questions of their own. Reading. Singing. Praying. Talking to each other. Do you hear silence? Do you hear chaos?

What should you hear? How would an excellent lesson sound? Many years ago, Rev. Locke E. Bowman, Jr., a gifted Christian educator and president of the National Teacher Education Project, taught me to be aware of the Teacher Talk to Student Talk Ratio.

It's a simple calculation. Divide the amount of time during which the teacher talks by the amount of time students are talking. If the teacher talks for 45 minutes and the students talk for 15 minutes the TT/ST ratio is 3. If the amounts are equal, the ratio is 1.

What does the TT/ST ratio in your lessons tell you? Would you rather it be high, more teacher than student? Low? Why?

I invite you to ponder this one for a few days! I promise to return to this topic next week with some further thoughts of my own.

Summer Sunday School

Summer brings new challenges for Sunday School. Sometimes teachers become scarce. Those who have taught faithfully for nine months take a break. Replacing them is often a struggle. Attendance may sag; families go away on vacation, or just take a vacation from church.

Some congregations pack it in; keeping Sunday School functioning is just too much work, they say. But then they have to start all over again in the fall. Some congregations go the summer entertainment route: puppet shows, magicians, and videos featuring talking vegetables and graceless moralism. But I also know that many congregations press on, continuing to offer their standard Sunday School classes come what may. And I know of many that take the summer as a chance to do something new, site rotation, intergenerational classes, and the like---but with a continued emphasis on Law and Gospel, such theological and pedagogical content.

CPH's Growing in Christ summer material can be taught in a traditional classroom setting, but adapts wonderfully to a site rotation format. The first week of June, my wife and I (well, mostly my wife) taught over 30 first through fifth graders by ourselves and it went fine. (Thankfully, more volunteers have stepped up as summer has progressed.)

How is it going where you serve?

What is your biggest summer challenge?

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"?

Will You Teach Sunday School?

I spent fifteen years recruiting Sunday School teachers. Some years the task was easier than others, but it was never truly easy. Over the years, I developed a system that worked for me. It sought to address the two chief reasons adults were reluctant to volunteer to teach, two fears that kept them from saying yes.


FEAR #1: Will I have time for this? No reasonable adult will be willing to give you a signed blank check to draw on their checking account, no matter how rich they are. Similarly, no reasonable adult will give you a blank check on their personal time account. They will want to know that they can handle this new responsibility, and they will want to feel confident that you can tell them honestly what it will take.

You will need to do your homework. Provide a brief job description. Describe honestly the number of hours each week, and the number of weeks in the year, that you want the volunteer to serve. (It will not serve you well to fudge here; if you think the numbers will scare off your volunteers, you may want to honestly re-evaluate what you are expecting.)

FEAR #2: Will I succeed at this? Almost every potential teacher, whether they express it or not, will have this concern. No one wants to take a job and do poorly.

You will want to guarantee them success! Offer training and orientation. Encourage them to shadow one of your best teachers for a couple of weeks. Point out how the curriculum you've chosen helps them be successful, both educationally and theologically. Promise to stay in touch as they get started in the position and keep your promise.

If you can address these two concerns for your potential volunteers, you have a greater chance of successfully enlisting them to teach God's children His Word!

What other concerns do volunteers have?


How do you go about enlisting new teachers?

Are You a Heretic?

It's Monday. The beginning of another week of service in my life as a curriculum editor for Concordia Publishing House. I am grateful for my opportunity to serve at CPH and relish the challenge of creating resource for Sunday School teachers and students that teach God's Word accurately, clearly, and age-appropriately. I am often humbled by the responsibility my call represents.

For, you see, I am a heretic at heart. My sinful nature seek always to corrupt my work. It is so easy for bad theology to raise it's ugly head. How do I cope with that?

• I give thanks for and use the best tools I can in my work, including The Lutheran Study Bible, the Concordia Commentary series, and often the Christian Cyclopedia (though the on-line version once found through the LCMS Web site seems to no longer be available).





• I rely on my colleagues. CPH has a system of "second edits" and "senior editor reviews," and copyediting and proofreading, through which knowledgeable colleagues review the material I have written or edited.





• I treasure our system of doctrinal review. Independent, anonymous theologians appointed by our synod's president review every product with theological content that we publish. The insights of these reviewers are universally helpful in teaching God's Word accurately.





• I respond with unfeigned gratitude to the constructive criticism of those who purchase and use the resouces I help prepare.

At times I cringe at the resources mentioned or even recommended by others in our LCMS circles, including various teachers, principals, and DCEs. I would like to think they know better, and I try to cut them some slack because I am a heretic at heart. Only by God's grace am I able to assist in the production of material that teaches God's Word in all its truth and purity. And, at least occasionally, I fail. Like all Christians, I rely on God's forgiveness and mercy, and I trust His Spirit's power to use the resources I prepare to teach God's children His Word.

What steps do you take to ensure that the material used to teach God's children are faithful to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions?

What about Easter?

What will the children in your congregation be learning on Easter? That breakfast, egg hunts, and candy are more important than Sunday School?

While it is true that volunteers can be scarce on Easter Sunday, here are four reasons not to cancel or alter Sunday School on this pivotal Sunday in the Church Year.

4. Sunday School should be a habit. This is what we do on Sunday: we go to worship and we go to Sunday School. These are the actions that make our Sabbath complete.

3. Hunting for candy and watching videos about talking vegetables pale when compared to the riches to be found in the study of God's Word.

2. Most churches will get more visitor this Sunday and any other week of the year except Christmas. Visitors equal opportunities to share the Good News of God's love in Christ with children who may have never heard it!

1. The most important reason for Sunday School on Easter? What better day can there be on which to connect the joyous celebration taking place in worship with an insightful lesson about the blessings of the resurrection?

God's blessings as you teach God's children His Word this Easter Sunday!

Three Web Sites to Check Out

There are millions of Web sites out there, hundreds (if not thousands) of them devoted to Sunday School resources. Here are three you should know about.

• Growing in Christ http://sites/cph.org/sundayschool/ This Web site was created when the Growing in Christ Sunday School materials were released by in 2006. It is updated regularly in a couple of areas. Under "Podcasts and Downloads," any corrections that need to be made to material already distributed for use are posted here. This also one route to the "Seeds of Faith" podcasts, a weekly discussion of the Bible accounts in the Growing in Christ curriculum (click on "Learn More" under "Podcasts"). The next lesson's discussion should come up first; pervious lessons are archived. Once you have started the player, you can click on the progress bar in your player to skip ahead or go back in the recording. Many teacher find these podcasts invaluable to their teaching.


• SundaySchoolSpot.com http://sundayschoolspot.com/ A great place for "Growing in Christ" product information and teaching resources. Under "Teacher Spot," you can access basic information about the age-level you are teaching, view some tips, and find some additional resources. You can also access the "Seedlings" podcasts through this site.


• Bible Quizzes Onlive http://biblequizzesonline.com/ My wife created this Web site last year to promote Bible literacy and accountable reading practice. Quizzes are being created for every Bible account in the Growing in Christ curriculum, as well as for One Hundred Bible Stories, the popular Bible story book from CPH. The quizzes are written to follow both the NIV and ESV translations. Students can read or listen to the Bible account (ESV for Growing in Christ, NIV for One Hundred Bible Stories) and then take a ten-question quiz while receiving feedback on their answers. It's a cool site! And it's free!

What Web sites have you found helpful? What kind of resources do you find yourself looking for regularly online?

Integrating Sunday School and Worship

A while back I offered some criteria for excellent Sunday School materials (see it here). Included was the suggestion that such material "integrate with the congregation's worship." What does that mean?

I believe that children of any age have a place not only in Sunday School and Christian education, but also in the Divine Service. The congregation needs to understand that worship is for children as well as adults, and children should feel welcome and included in the congregation's worship. While it's true that a restless child may occasionally need to be taken out of the sanctuary briefly during worship, their complete absence troubles me. It makes me wonder at what age they are then expected to return?

An excellent Sunday School curriculum will support and equip families to worship together. It will teach children about the elements of the Divine Service, teach and use the hymns that the congregation sings, and connect to the lessons and sermons that the children will hear in the service. It will cause children to say in worship, "We sang/heard/learned about that in Sunday School!" And it will cause children in Sunday School to say, "We sang/heard/learned about that in church!"

CPH's Growing in Christ Sunday School material have several features that promote this kind of synergy. More than two-thirds of the Bible accounts taught in Sunday School are drawn from the Gospel readings or liturgical occasions used by congregations following the three-year lectionary. Since GiC is a unified curriculum, that means that the family will share many connections in worship and Sunday School that can inform their discussion and devotion throughout the week. Elements of the liturgy are often taught in the curriculum, including many "Liturgy Connections" that are introduced in each quarter. Hymns are suggested for each lesson that come from the standard repertoire of a congregation.

How does your congregation encourage (or hinder) the participation of children in worship?

How does your Sunday School support and integrate with the congregation's worship?

Bible Translations

The Biblica folks are currently releasing the 2011 NIV translation (New International Version, copyright held by Biblica, Inc.). According to their Web site, they plan to shift all their products to this new translation over the next two years.

Some of the content of the 2011 translation may raise problems for conservative Lutherans, including revisions involving gender and inclusive language. CPH has chosen to use the ESV translation for many recent products, including our Growing in Christ Sunday School curriculum.

I am generally quite satisfied with the ESV. It conforms well to the original languages (or so I'm told; I don't read Greek or Hebrew, though I often wish I could). Some CPH customers have complained about the reading level of ESV; our editorial department has not found a quantifiable difference between ESV and NIV in this regard. Others feel the ESV does not read as smoothly as the NIV, another fairly subjective issue. I have noticed that ESV, as it follows the original texts closely, does not break verses as conveniently at the verse numbers as some other translations. This causes me a little more work when I identify passages for reading or study. A great Bible memory verse in the NIV doesn't always work as well in the ESV.

In 2004, the synodical convention of the LCMS approved the use of ESV for the new hymnal, The Lutheran Service Book, in all Bible texts except for those imbedded in CPH translation of Luther's Small Catechism. Since that time, CPH has given some preference to ESV in its curriula and other publications.

Recent ESV resources include The Lutheran Study Bible (in all 16 of its editions), a new Faith Alive Bible (just released; check it out at cph.org), the Growing in Christ Sunday School materials, and many other resources. This trend will continue, especially since Biblia, Inc., will no longer support use of the 1984 translation.

What translation of the Bible do you prefer?

What version to you buy for use in your Sunday School classrooms, as you teach God's children His Word?

Why have you made these choices?

Site Rotation or Workshop Rotation?

Those of us who sit on the Sunday School Team at Concordia Publishing House are always in a listening mode. One of the trends that we have been monitoring is the use of "Rotation Sunday School."

Understand: what we are hearing these days is merely anecdotal, not really research. If I had to characterize this trend, I would say that there is small but steady interest in "Rotation Sunday School" in our LCMS congregations.

One of the difficulties in analyzing and then meeting the needs of these congregations is the fact that "rotation" is being used to describe two very different models of Sunday School, and congregations are not very helpful in specifying which model they are most interested in.

One rotation model is Workshop Rotation. In this model, a Bible account is taught for three or four weeks in a row. The congregation prepares several workshops (drama, cooking, crafts, science, video, computers, and the like). Sunday School students are "rotated" through workshops, one each week, sometimes with an element of choice, and sometimes not. Each workshop takes the full 45 to 60 minutes of the Sunday School hour. Proponents suggest that the repetition increases the depth of learning that takes place and the variety of workshops appeal to the varied learning styles among the students. Congregations embracing this model sometimes invest huge amounts of money and effort remodeling space to accommodate each workshop (a drama room, a science room, etc.) and preparing the material for each of the workshops.

The other workshop model is Site Rotation. In this model, one Bible account is taught each week. Students rotate through a series of sites in the building, often starting and perhaps ending in a large-group setting. Sites often include a presentation of the Bible account, a related craft, a science experiment or object lesson, and others. Each site takes 12 to 20 minutes. Proponents suggest that volunteers are easy to recruit because they take only a portion of the hour and repeat it several times, the account is taught and reviewed in a number of ways, and the interest of the students stays high because the mode of instruction keeps shifting.

You are not likely to see Workshop Rotation lessons published by CPH anytime soon. There is just not enough interest yet in this model to warrant the investment required. However, starting in the fall of 2012, you will be able to purchase a Site Rotation Sunday School curriculum as a option to our traditional, and very successful, Growing in Christ Sunday School materials, which will be updated and improved for another cycle or two.

My opinion? Thanks for asking. I a big fan of biblical literacy. I am not impressed with the Workshop Rotation model's pace of 12 to 15 Bible accounts each year, compared to 48 to 50 taught through a traditional or Site Rotation model. My home congregation uses a site rotation model each summer and I know that it can work well. But I'm a traditionalist. The age-appropriate and relatively in-depth traditional Sunday School structure seems to be me to offer the best educational experience.

I think it's worth promoting and supporting.

How about you?

How is your Sunday School structured?

Have you experience one of the rotation models? What did you think?

Worship or Christian Education?

It is inevitable that families in some of our Lutheran congregations will ask the question, "Which is more important for our kids on Sunday morning, worship or education?" Be thankful if you are part of the many churches where this question is rare or non-existent. There are thousands of congregations that maintain a Sunday schedule where worship is conducted at one time and Christian education precedes or follows.

In too many, however, the decision has been made to schedule a worship service concurrent with Sunday School. Often this is seen as a stewardship decision: How can we justify a multi-million-dollar building project to handle the growing number of worshipers when we can increase our worship capacity by simply adding another worship service? I have attended and served in congregations that took this route. I confess to my shame that even advocated such a decision in my youth. I would no longer do so.

But, let me know avoid the question: which is more important? Without a doubt, worship get my vote. In the Divine Service, God provides His Word and Sacraments and, with them, the precious gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Divine Service fulfills the commands of God in a way that Sunday School cannot.

Yet I would insist that Christian education, adult Bible study and Sunday School, runs a close second, so nearly matching worship in importance that I would urge parents to do all they can to provide for both experiences on Sunday morning for their children, and for themselves.

But won't young children get more out of an age-appropriate Sunday School class than from a worship service that seems designed primarily for adults? While this may seem true from a human perspective, how can it be true? God promises that His Word will accomplish what He desires, even in the ears, eyes, and hearts of children. At what age will this not be true? The worship service is a rich tapestry of Word that touches us through all our senses---music, speech, drama, symbols and images, and even aromas---with opportunities to impress the Gospel on even the youngest of children.

So, let's not force our families to make a choice. Let's provide excellent worship opportunities that share God's Word with those of all ages. And let's encourage attendance in Sunday School or Bible class for children, youth, and adults.

What's is your Sunday morning schedule for worship and education? How happy are you with that schedule?

In your opinion, does concurrent worship and education opportunities have a positive or negative impact on Sunday School?

A Unified Curriculum

A couple of week ago, I wrote about the hallmarks of a good Sunday School curriculum (specifically, Growing in Christ published by Concordia Publishing House). Among the benficial characteristics I mentioned was that the curriculum is unified.

A unified curriculum is designed to teach the same topics to all students in a given lesson. In Growing in Christ, the same Bible text is presented in all levels of the curriculum each Sunday. Not all curricula are unified. Even CPH Sunday School material has not always been unified, at least not on all levels. (Mission: Life is probably the most obvious example; published in the 1970s, this curriculum provided topical units that were completely different for each level of the curriculum. The Life in Christ and New Life in Christ curricula, which followed Mission: Life, were largely unified, but had a few weeks when especially the younger grades did not tackle the same texts as the upper grades.)

What are the pros and cons of a unified curriculum?

The chief benefit, the one that convinced the Growing in Christ team to prepare a completely unified curriculum, is that the entire family can, if the congregation chooses, study the exact same Bible text each week, children of all ages, junior high and high school students, and even adults. This provide the natural opportunity for the family to continue the discussion and learning in the home. The normal question, asked by so many parents each week, "What did you study in Sunday School today?" becomes a springboard, as each family member can enter such a conversation informed, armed with an understanding of the text appropriate to his or her age level.

This can also benefit the family's participation in worship during the seasons (generally December through May) when the Growing in Christ curriculum often mirrors the Gospel lesson read and perhaps preached on in the worship service.

There is some small potential that a few Bible accounts may stretch the developmental ability of a family's youngest children. I can honestly say, though, that our editors at the early childhood and lower grades levels of Growing in Christ have done a masterful job of addressing even difficult biblical subjects in ways that young children can comprehend.

Given that God's love for us, shown best in the gift of His Son as a sacrifice for our sin, is at the heart of every Sunday School lesson we create, it is not surprising that even the youngest of children can come away having gotten the main point.

Is the curriculum you use unified?

What do you see as the challenges and benefits of this approach?

What advice do you have for CPH as we prepare new and revised curriculum for Fall 2012 and beyond?

Teaching about Vocation

One of the characteristics of Lutheran Sunday School curriculum is that is should teach children about their vocations. (No, not vacations, wonderful though those are.) In Lutheran theology, one's vocation is the way(s) God provides the Christian to server our neighbor.

On occasion, I receive articles submitted for Teachers Interaction, the magazine I publish for volunteer Sunday School teachers, in which the author focuses on spiritual gifts. I recognize that the Bible teaches us about spiritual gifts in the New Testament letters of Paul, and in my years of service as a director of Christian education I occasionally tried to use these passages in ways I thought would be helpful to the faith and life of members of the congregations I served. But some of the ways in which those Bible passages are applied in the Church today can create issues rather than solve them.

I'm more inclined these days to emphasize vocation rather than gift. Our vocations are objective and obvious. They don't have to be discovered or taught. God has made me at various times in my life a son, student, citizen, employee, congregation member, husband, and father. In each of these vocations, I have had opportunities to serve others (parents, teachers and classmates, community, boss, congregation, wife, children, and others) with all the gifts God has given me.

As it is with all of life this side of heaven, my service in these vocations has been less than perfect. In these roles, I have at times, by God's grace, been helpful to others. In these roles, I have at times, in my sinful nature been less than helpful. In these roles, I have sought God's grace in confession and absolution, known God's forgiveness, and continued to serve as best I could strengthened by God's Word.

Our vocations are marred by sin (laziness, improper motive, weakness, and imperfect effort) but they are blessed by God and used for His purposes in spite of sin. The dichotomy of simul justus et peccator is lived out in the Lutheran understanding of vocation.

Most often, in the "We Live" section of a lesson I've edited, this is what you'll find as you teach God's children His Word.

How often do you see vocation in the lessons you teach?

What do you find most helpful about this doctrine as you teach children?

Hallmarks of a Great Curriculum NOT!

I was asked recently to identify my personal choices for the five most significant characteristics of the Growing in Christ Sunday School curriculum. Further into this post, I plan to comment briefly on some items that I did not include and why.

The exercise was a helpful one and one I suspect Sunday School leaders should be asking themselves:
What characteristics do you think are important for a Sunday School curriculum? What things should define the material we use to teach the next generation of God's children His Word?

Here are the five I chose:
1. Christ-centered
2. Lutheran
3. Unified
4. Integrates with the congregation's worship
5. Age-appropriate
I will expand on each of these characteristics in future posts to this blog.

But let me return to the antithesis. What characteristics are not included?

Fun? No, I am not committed to insuring that Sunday School is boring for children. It's a sin to bore children with God's Word. But fun is not the goal for which I think we should strive, just a by-product of the interaction between teacher, student, and Word that are the essence of the Sunday School experience.
Flash? The reality of the publishing experience makes it difficult to be trendy and cool in the material we produce. We invest millions of dollars in curricula that will serve the Church for many years. Our goal is an abiding relevance not any passing fad.
Technology? CPH wants to be on the cutting edge, but not the bleeding edge, here. I see many intriguing applications of digital media that the Church could find tremendously helpful in our mission to share Christ with the nations. And I know that some churches have embraced technology in a big way. But our core constituents are not there yet, not by a long shot. CPH is diligently seeking ways to better serve those who are embracing technology, but we are committed to serving all our customers.
Easy to prepare? This is a tough one for me. I could easily buy in to this one, because I know that many, many teachers step into class each week with a bare minimum of advance preparation. The era of weekly teachers' meetings and teacher training conferences, workshops, courses, and certificates seems to have gone the way of Mayberry RFD. But I know that the quality of the classroom experience goes up exponentially with the amount of time spend in preparation. I'm not ready yet to let the Sunday School teacher off the hook. At CPH, we continue to seek ways to make our teacher materials as accessible as possible, while providing solid biblical teaching each week at all levels.

Did you make your own list? Are you willing to share?

Thanks to all who teach God's children His Word!