What Is Epiphany?

Have you enjoyed the previous "Church Year" videos from Concordia Publishing House? Perhaps you'll find a use for new addition to the line-up in the upcoming season of Epiphany: What Is Epiphany?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word in the new year!

Have a Debt-Free Christmas!

I've seen these thoughts many times over the years, most recently on the Christmas card from a friend:

Christ came to pay a debt He did not owe,
because we owed a debt we could not pay.

Jesus paid the price we owe for our sins (Romans 6:23), by coming to earth as a human child born of Mary, living a sinless life (He accumulated no debt of His own), suffering and dying on the cross as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin, and rising again as a guarantee of new life for all who believe in Him as their Savior through the proclamation of God's Word.

I hope you will have the privilege of sharing that good news with some of God's children this Sunday and each week, so that they, like you, can have a debt-free Christmas!

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

What Do You Teach about Angels?

A customer inquired about the art used to illustrate Gabriel's appearance to Zechariah (not sure why the question, since that art is not used this year due to the shifting position of the beginning of Advent). The question was why Gabriel appeared with a sword. (The sword is also visible in our art for Gabriel's visit to Mary.) Here's how I responded:

Our culture takes its image of angels from cute porcelain figurines and Valentine’s Day cards. A biblical study of angels reveals an entirely different picture.

Angels (cherubim) barred Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden with flaming swords (Genesis 3:24). Angels guided Lot and his family from the sinful city of Sodom (Gen. 19). Angels protected Israel throughout the Exodus (Ex. 23:23, 32:34, 33:2 and others). An angel, invisible to God’s prophet Balaam but visible to his donkey, prevented Balaam from prophesying against God’s people, blocking his way with a sword (Numbers 22:23). In 1 Chronicles 21, God nearly allows an angel to destroy Jerusalem with a sword. In 2 Kings 19:35 and again in Isaiah 37: 36, God’s angel “strikes down” huge armies who oppose God’s people. Revelation 12 describes a great war in heaven with Michael and loyal angels fighting against “the dragon” (Satan) and his rebellious angels. Angels are warriors, guardians, protectors, fighters.

It is no wonder that an angel’s first words when appearing in the New Testament were often “Do not be afraid!” It is that statement and all the fearsome angel attributes behind it that led the artist to depict Gabriel with the sword.

In fact, we do not know exactly what Gabriel looked like. Angels sometimes appeared in human likeness (Abraham describes God and two other heavenly beings as men in Genesis 18), but not always. Ezekiel and Isaiah both describe very different heavenly beings. But the picture of the angel and Zechariah is a helpful representation, faithful to Scripture, and approved through our internal art doctrinal review process.

Other important correctives about angels? We do not become angels when we die. Angels were part of God's creation (though not mentioned specifically in Genesis 1). Not all angels have wings, though some apparently have more than one pair of them. The linguistic root of our word angel means "message" or "news"; they are God's messengers, as well as warriors and worshippers.

We do children no favors if we do not teach God's Word accurately. And we and they can take great comfort from the vast army of angels deployed to protect us.

God bless you as your teach His children His Word!

Thanks!

Thank you, Lord, for your saints Carl and Dorothy Felten.

They "adopted" two young brothers from down the street as their personal Sunday School mission project. They provided transportation, encouragement, supervision, and not a few Dairy Queen ice cream cones to ensure that these boys had the opportunity to learn about God's Word each week. A chance to hear the Gospel.

Yes, I was one of those boys. Dorothy served as my Sunday School teacher every year it seemed to me (though that's probably just a fanciful memory) through grade school. She apparently moved up each year with my class, perhaps because I was more hindrance than help in class.

I have no doubt that, without their effort, I would not be who I am today, God's child and willing servant.

Who are you reaching out to? Who might you invite, encourage, even transport to make Sunday School possible?

God bless you as you bring His children to hear His Word!

Advent Video

The last Sunday of the Church Year has come and gone, and the new Church Year is about to begin with the first Sunday in Advent. You can give your students some sense of what Advent means through this beautiful video from Concordia Publishing House. You can play it here.

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

The Gospel

"Do this and live," the Law commands,
     but gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better way His grace now brings:
     it bids me fly---and gives me wings!
(John Fisher, 1974, from "The New Covenant")

God bless you as you give wings to His children!

Building a Sunday School Expectation

Is there a Sunday School teacher or director, pastor, or director of Christian education who believes that their Sunday School attendance is good enough? A survey conducted earlier this year by Concordia Publishing House indicates that "low or sporadic attendance" is the number one challenge for Sunday School leaders. The number two challenge? Lack of family engagement.

So, how do you motivate families, parents and children, to avail themselves of the Sunday School opportunity you provide each week? Let me suggest three actions that will make a difference.

1. Your pastor's expressed expectation for Sunday School involvement. Encourage your pastor to talk about the value of Sunday School participation for all ages as often as possible. From the pulpit, during worship announcements, as he meets with families before a Baptism, when he reports to the voters assembly. I recall the words of a mission-minded pastor who preceded me in a congregation: "Stay close to the spout where the glory comes out." When the pastor says it is important for adults and children to be in Sunday School, they will listen. If he does not make this recommendation frequently and publicly, they may feel excused.
2. Frequent public information about your Sunday School. Certainly the accurate weekly schedule, information about locations of classrooms, and a general invitation should be printed in your church's publications. In addition, profiles of faithful teachers, stories about special classroom activities, and curriculum information can be shared. Involve Sunday School classes in the worship services through singing, dramatic interpretation of the Scripture readings, or puppet shows.
3. An effective nursery roll program. Starting with the birth of a child, many congregations begin a ministry of visits and mailings to share information about a child's physical and spiritual development. This information culminates with an invitation to enroll the child in their first Sunday School class as soon as possible after their third birthday.

The goal is to create an expectation that children and adults in your congregation will attend Sunday School. It becomes what the members of [Zion or St. Paul's or you name it] Lutheran Church do. Your congregation's leaders can be reminded of the example they set in this regard. Integrate into this expectation the reason for the behavior: hear more about our Savior Jesus and to grow closer to Him and stronger in the faith.

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

The Best Class Ever!

You didn't use the suggested worship. Your students joined several other grades in a joint opening devotion led by the Sunday School director.

You didn't use the opening activity. A local news story had captured the interest of your students, so you allowed them to share their thoughts, offered some comments, and led the discussion into the Bible account for the day.

You didn't present the Bible account using drama like the guide suggested. Most of your students are not very outgoing, but they like to draw, so you had them line up at the board and have each one illustrate one paragraph of the text.

You didn't use the scripted teacher talk. Instead you phrased questions in your own words and followed up on insights your students shared.

You did remember the key point and general thrust of the lesson from your review earlier in the week, and you kept to that outline, more of less.

You didn't use the suggest application activity, but instead tied the Bible text back to the local event with which you started.

You didn't sing the suggested hymn in closing, but the text was right on target, so you challenged your students to listen carefully as you played the recording.

You didn't use the closing prayer, exactly. Your students are generally willing to pray petitions expressing their spiritual concerns, so you allowed each of them to offer a short prayer and closed with just a couple of phrases from the printed prayer.

You didn't use the leaflet this week, but you passed it out, and you noticed a couple of the students tucked it into their Bibles. Maybe they will use those daily Bible readings this week.

It was one of the best classes you've taught this quarter. The students were engaged. The Gospel was clearly shared. And the lesson material provided just enough structure and substance to get you started and keep you on track. You were the final editor, making choices and adjustments based on local conditions the publisher could never have anticipated.

Thanks! God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Why Did They Come?

Name a student or two who attended your Sunday School class yesterday. Picture them in your mind. Then ask yourself, "Why did he or she come?"

• Was it parental insistence?
• A chance to see a friend?
• Enjoying the craft activity?
• The good feeling of being able to answer the teachers' questions?
• The promise of a snack?
• Thirst for God's Word?

Intrinsic motivation, the love of learning, the thirst for God's Word, is probably a rare thing for your students. This side of heaven our desires are more often corrupted by our sinful nature. That does not mean, though, that the force of the Law is the only motive that will bring your students to class.

If your students love engaging in conversation with each other, it is not Law to give them opportunities to do that before or during the lesson. If your students enjoy craft activities, or singing, or drama, or art, it is not Law to make frequent use of those activities in your class.

Use the tools at your disposal, all of them, to draw in your students to hear God's Word, talk about their faith, and grow as Jesus' disciples.

God will bless you as you teach His children His Word.

Who Is Missing?

You are five weeks into a new quarter of Sunday School. Routines are established. The dust has settled. You know your students pretty well and they know you.

It's time to ask, "Who is missing?"

Are all the students present each week who could be? Who should be? Probably not. Make a short list today, one or two names of students you miss. What would it take to get them to class?

• A personal contact?
• A promise (fulfilled, of course) of an activity they will find interesting?
• Contact from another student?
• An offer of transportation?
• A reminder to parents of the important opportunity that is being missed?
• A nudge from the pastor?

Say a prayer. Choose one thing you can do. Do it today.

God will bless you as you teach His children His Word.

Do You Know Where Your Sunday School Material Comes From?

(Immediate aside: If you use CPH's Sunday School material, you know your material was written by experienced Sunday School teachers, edited by called church workers, and reviewed by theologians all of whom are members of, and proficient in the doctrines of, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It's a given that the material will be rooted in a conservative view of Scripture and reliance on the Means of Grace for our faith and life. It will be educationally and scripturally sound. You will not have to answer embarrassing questions about the material's content from your Sunday School parents or your pastor or board of education. It is material that definitely will NOT pass "the Temple test," and that's a good thing!)

All too often, I hear Sunday School leaders or directors of Christian education speak openly of the non-Lutheran material they use in their Sunday School, and I wonder, "Do they know where that material comes from?" How can material that avoids or denies the central role of God's Word and Sacraments, the teaching of justification by faith, be useful in a Lutheran Sunday School? The basic message I get is, theology doesn't matter. Let's use material that is trendy and cute!

It makes me sad.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

What Would You Do Differently?

It has been a while since I asked for a response on this blog, but I'm doing so today. The team I lead here at Concordia Publishing House will make some significant decisions this month about what our Sunday School material will look like for the next three years.

For nearly forty consecutive years, CPH Sunday School material has been

• unified (all grades studying the same Bible account),
• dated (written to be taught on a certain Sunday and available for purchase only in the quarter for which it was intended to be used),
• closely graded (developed for groups of children who are nearly the same age), and
• offering full-color student materials.

This is not the cheapest way to produce Sunday School material, nor the least expensive for the customer to purchase and use, but it has been used because it is an excellent way to teach God's Word to His children.

We are, however, faced with a consistent decline in Sunday School students across our church body and erosion of support for Sunday School is many congregations (less priority, lower Sunday School budgets, fewer volunteers).

So, I wonder . . .

What would you do differently? What changes make sense if we are to provide Sunday School resources in a sustainable manner (that is, offering a product valued enough by the customer to be purchased in sufficient quantity at a high enough price so that it returns to the company the dollars invested in its production)?

Undated material? (The material would be less expensive to reprint for future reuse, and possibly usable at any time.)

Broadly graded? (Designed for use by students of a broad range of, or perhaps even any, age.)

Reproducible student material? (The customer pays for local printing of student material, either black and white or color.)

Fully digital? (The customer downloads reproducible material through the Web and prints it locally as needed.)

Other options?

Obviously, we are not looking only to the readers of this blog for answers to these questions, but your input would be particularly valuable at this time. I hope you will take time to share your thoughts.

God bless the preparation of material to teach His children His Word.

Send It Home!

A recent Sunday School product survey here at CPH has suggested that the family connections built into our student leaflets may be the components of the material least valued by teachers. The response rate on the survey was rather low; the data is not statistically reliable. But the message is troubling.

Are we guilty of paying lip service to the notion that parents are the primary sources of faith nurture for their children? We know that is God's plan. Surely we must do all we can to support and encourage faith formation in the home, throughout the week, even as we also encourage families to avail themselves of Christian education and Sunday School.

On one hand, I can imagine some of the reasoning behind the low scores some teachers give the family connection components. They are not intended for use in class. They take up space in the leaflet that could be devoted to in-class activities. The students often don't even take the leaflet with them when they leave the classroom. It could be perceived as a waste.

Instead, I might suggest that we re-think our strategy. If we value our partnership with the home in faith formation, we might:

• Encourage students to take the leaflets home.
• Point out the activities the student could show their parents or even do with their parents at home.
• Mention the Bible account summaries and family devotion suggestions to the parents in conversation at the classroom door, or in e-mail updates to the parents. Challenge them to look for these things in the leaflet their child brings home.

Finally, I would encourage Sunday School teachers and directors to make full use of two key resources as you partner with parents.

The first are the Explore More Cards feature the biblical art for each lesson along with 4 or 5 activities or discussion questions that families can use in the car or during family devotions to review and explore the Bible account more fully. Some congregations use these cards as incentives to encourage attendance. They are listed in the Cross Explorations section of our Sunday School order form, but are designed for work equally well with Growing in Christ.

The second resource are the weekly "bulletin notes" available on the Director CD (GiC), in the Director Handbook (CE), or in the Tools section of our Sunday School Web site (cph.org/SundaySchool). Many congregations already print these paragraphs in the church bulletin, but they can also e-mailed to parents before each Sunday as a way of encouraging attendance or after each lesson as a reminder to review and discuss the lesson with the students.

God bless you as you equip parents to teach His children His Word!

Do It Now

You're in the first month of a new school year. The slate is fresh. Energy is high.

Sunday School Director, now is the time to . . .

• List every child in your congregation eligible for Sunday School. If they have attended already this month, send their parents a note or call them with thanks for their commitment to Christian education. If they have not yet attended, send their parents a note or call them, encouraging them to join the other families in your congregation who hear the Gospel each week in Sunday School.
• Check each Sunday School classroom for appropriate furniture, adequate storage, clean windows and floors, and a fresh coat of paint.
• Start plans for your children's Christmas service.
• Speak a public word of thanks for those who teach in your Sunday School.

Sunday School Teacher, now is the time to . . .

• List each child who is eligible for your class. Pray for each child. Note the ones who have attended in September.
• Introduce yourself to the parents of children who are attending. Invite their input on how their child learns best and is most readily motivated to be engaged in class.
• Introduce yourself to the parents of children who have not yet attended. Invite their children to join their peers in studying God's Word.
• Request a list of birthdays and Baptismal dates from parents or the church office.
• Start a weekly Sunday School class e-mail. Alert the parents to activities that went well last Sunday and to what lesson will be taught this Sunday.

Is that too much to do now, or this week? Then do one thing on your list this week, and do another one next week. It will be time well invested.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Have You Seen the NEW 'Happy Times'?

 

CPH's fun magazine for preschoolers and the adults to love them has undergone and thorough, thoughtful revision.

Each issue has a topic, a recipe, an action poem, a coloring page, a craft, one of God's amazing creatures, and the faith talk parents and teachers can use to share the Gospel with their children.

Click here to get more information and see a sample issue online.

Share this great news with Sunday School parents, preschool and daycare families, grandparents . . . anyone who loves preschoolers!

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Are You Ready for Christmas?

If Sunday School has kicked off the fall quarter of lessons, can the children's Christmas service be far behind?

Here are some basics steps to take as you work toward Christmas!

Set a date! (Or dates!) My congregation often has scheduled two Sunday School Christmas presentations, one early on Christmas Eve and one on the Sunday before schools let out for Christmas break. This allowed families who were headed out of town for Christmas to participate. Curiously, the two services are nearly identical in size.

Select a program. This year CPH is releasing another service based on a favorite Christmas hymn, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." You can get details here.

Prepare scripts and rehearsal CDs. Share the scripts and CDs with your teachers to distribute in class. With the publisher's permission, prepare a CD of songs the children should practice and send a copy home with each student or with the oldest child in each family. (CPH Christmas programs come with permission to duplicate such a CD for practice at home.)

Schedule rehearsal time. Work several weeks in advance and encourage your teachers not to spend too much class time on this project. Teaching the Gospel in Sunday School certainly comes first. Alert parents to ways their children can prepare at home.

Delegate key tasks. Volunteers are usually willing to tackle limited, one-time projects like duplicating material, arranging costumes, rounding up props, preparing banners or other visual aids, and helping supervise the children at rehearsals and presentations.

Publicize the event. Make sure that parents, grandparents, and congregation members know the dates and times of the presentations.

Conduct dress rehearsals. One or two Saturdays before the presentation, bring the children together for rehearsal and to run through the presentation. When we have two presentations, we would schedule two back-to-back rehearsals, one for each service.

Why go to all this trouble, you may ask? The annual children's Christmas service is an opportunity to teach one of the central events of Scripture in an event that engages visual, verbal, musical, and kinetic learners. It teaches the story of salvation. It teaches about the Church Year. It also gives your children an opportunity to share the Gospel with their families, friends, congregation, and community.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

A Good Start on Discipline

Next Sunday many Sunday School teachers will be teaching a new class of students for the first time.

Although discipline strategies will differ by age level and local custom, here are five things that will help most teachers enjoy a good start and maintain a happy classroom environment with their new class.

1. Prepare thoroughly. It can be difficult at times to set sufficient time aside for preparing for your class each week, but it's a fact that being prepared heads off a world of discipline problems. When the teacher is confident, not distracted with last-minute preparations, with less need to bury one's nose in the teacher guide, and knowing what comes next, the students have less opportunity to wander mentally or physically. Pay special attention to engaging presession activities for students as they gather, and prepare an interesting transition into the start of the lesson.

2. Be present early and always. The teacher should be the first one in the room, greeting the students and directing them into presession activities, not studying the teacher guide at the last minute or gathering supplies.

3. Post classroom rules, three or four, perhaps letting the students help craft them. Remind the students of them at the beginning of each class for the first few weeks, and as needed during the lesson.

4. Know your church's policies for handling discipline problems. When should the director or parents be engaged and how? What physical contact is allowed?

5. Team up with a partner. Many congregations have learned the advantages of staffing two deep, placing at least two adults in each classroom. The benefits are obvious, and it is not as difficult as you might believe. It is easier to enlist both volunteers, since they know they will have support in the room.

God bless your good start as you teach His children His Word!

Building Up Your Sunday School

Who would not love to have more children attending Sunday School each week?

One powerful tool is a strong adult Bible study program, one that addresses the needs and matches the learning styles of parents with children. It will have three immediate benefits.

In the first place, if the parents are in Bible class, so will the children be in Sunday School.

Second, the example of the parents in valuing lifelong Christian education will impact the children in very positive ways.

Third, if parents join their children in study during the Sunday School hour, the children will then join the parents for worship, which, sad to say, is not always the case in our churches these days.

Good things happen when children learn to value weekly opportunities for worship and Christian education. God promises this will be so!

God bless you as you teach His children, and their parents, His Word!

Quality versus Cost

It is unanimous! Everyone would like our Sunday School material to be less costly. That includes us here at the publishing house.

I work for a nonprofit organization. We don't pay dividends to shareholders or big bonuses to upper management. For nearly all our products, we charge a price that returns to the publishing house only enough to sustain our ministry at a level that fulfills our vision: to be the "publisher and provider of choice for products and services that are faithful to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions." We want to be good enough so that you, and others, come to us first.

So what does it mean when a congregation says, "We can no longer afford to purchase your Sunday School material?" Our prices have not skyrocketed. The economy is relatively stable. But, I'm sure that many congregations, probably all congregations, struggle to allocate limited financial resources to a limitless number of ministry possibilities.

How then do congregations respond to tight finances? Probably the same way a family does.

• They buy the best quality (in personnel, equipment, and materials) that they can afford, but they don't overspend.
• They prioritize to get those things that they value most and do not purchase those things they don't really want or need.

So, I find myself wondering: what if our Sunday School material were of lower quality and cost?

• Is there a lower quality, lower price, at which more congregations would buy our material?
• Or would even fewer congregations buy our material if it were cheaper, lower in price and quality?

God bless you as you wrestle with cost and quality as you teach God's children His Word!

Looking Ahead to the Fall Quarter of Sunday School

The lessons in the coming quarter of Concordia's Sunday School materials take us back to the very beginning of the Old Testament—the creation of the world, the fall into sin, the formation of a nation through whom God planned to send a Savior.

Of the 150 Bible accounts we study every three years or so, more than 50 are from the Old Testament. Why? Because it’s there where we find explanations of how we came to be, why we need to hear the Law, why we need also the sweet words of the Gospel. Whether taking us through the narrative history of God’s plan for salvation or giving us pictures (theologians call them types) that foreshadow the coming Savior, each Sunday School lesson we study in the Old Testament points us toward the sacrifice of Christ for our sins.

There are many good reasons to use Concordia Publishing House materials. Whether you use Growing in Christ or Cross Explorations, you’re getting lessons that balance Law and Gospel and, most important, focus on Christ as our Savior.

God bless you as you teach God’s children His Word!

Calling All Dads!

An interesting conversation with a pastor this morning (thanks, Pastor Frank Zimmerman) sparks this brief post.

Fathers have both a spiritual responsibility as head of the family and an extraordinary amount of influence over the future engagement their children will have with the Church. Having Dad invested and active in the Church and in the spiritual formation of his children will pay incredible dividends.

So, says Pastor Zimmerman, "Dads, step up!" He wants dads teaching the Sunday School classes in his congregations.

I think it's a great idea! Dad will grow in his own biblical knowledge, set a blessed example for his children, impact children from other families, and learn skills that will help in family faith discussions through the week. It really is a "win, win" situation.

God bless you, Dad, as you teach God's children His Word!

Why Teach the Old Testament?

More than a third of the lessons in our current scope and sequence for Sunday School at Concordia Publishing House teach accounts from the Old Testament, four out of every ten fall, winter, and spring quarters and a generous portion of our summer quarters as well. Why?

• These lessons answer unique questions not addressed in the New Testament. How did the world and human beings begin? Why is there sin and trouble in the world? How did God prepare the world for the coming Savior?
• These lessons show the depth of God's love and concern for His people. They show His providence for both the spiritual needs of all people, and for their physical needs as well. (God provided food for a widow and her son through Elijah. He also provided food for "all the earth" [Genesis 41:57 ESV].) 
• These lessons shares God's forgiveness.
• These lessons demonstrates God's love for all nations. (Yes, Jonah, that includes Nineveh!)
• These lessons reveal Christ. He is revealed in the first Passover lamb and the blood painted on the door frames. He is revealed in the ram caught in the thicket. He is revealed in the bronze serpent lifted up on a pole for the healing of Israel.

The Old Testament lessons are divided among our four fall quarters, which means they are taught every four years. (Most of our New Testament lessons are repeated at least every three years.) This repetition allows the Bible accounts to be reviewed and taught anew in a depth appropriate to each student's age and development stage, contributing to the student's overall biblical literacy.

This fall the cycle begins anew, with lessons coming from the first 28 chapters of Genesis.

God bless you as you teach His children His Old Testament Word!

Have You Considered "Cross Explorations"?

Cross Explorations is a site rotation, large group/small group hybrid curriculum now in its third year of publication. It's a great alternative to our traditional Sunday School material.

• It is designed for first through sixth graders.
• It follows the same sequence of lessons as Growing in Christ (so your preschoolers and junior high students can use that material for a unified weekly experience).
• Up to 30 students could be taught by just two volunteers (but the activities are so varied, you'll probably find lots of eager volunteers).
• In addition to the Engage opening and Explore Bible studies, student can enjoy a variety of Express sessions of lesson related activities: music, drama, crafts, snacks, games, and service projects! Offer the same kinds of activities each week, or alternate among them. Your choice!
• The perfect alternative for congregations looking for something "a little different"!
• Buy the "Starter Kit" and leaflets for each student, or order individual components a la carte!

You can view an explanatory video, explore the starter kit contents, and download samples at cph.org/sundayschool.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Say Thank You

When was the last time your congregation said "Thank you" to your Sunday School teachers?

No one agrees to teach in order to receive your thanks. But the act of saying thanks blesses both the one thanked and the one doing the thanking. It acknowledges that we need each other in the body of Christ.

So, say "Thanks" . . .

• personally, one to one
• with a small gift
• with a card, handmade by the Sunday School children
• publicly, from the pulpit or during the announcements
• have the children sing a song
• with a phone call
• _________________________________

There are dozens of ways to say "Thank you." Don't put it off. And don't worry about doing it too often.

Thank you for teaching God's children His Word!

Editors Wanted

Did you know? CPH is seeking to fill a couple of editorial positions.

One is a director of curriculum, a management level position that would supervise nearly a dozen curriculum editors spanning products: Sunday School, VBS, day school, midweek school, confirmation, and adult Christian education.

Another is a curriculum editor: someone with interest, experience, and skills to editor material in one or more of the areas listed above.

The best candidates for both positions will have strong ability and interest in educational technology. Both positions are "working in the building" positions.

You can seek the specifics of these positions, and a few others available here at the LCMS publishing house, at www.cph.org; scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "Careers," or browse straight to www.cph.org/careers.

Do you know of someone with talent who is too shy to apply? Contact me at tom.nummela@cph.org and I'll try to encourage. We truly want the best possible people in these positions.

Help us prepare the resources that will help you teach God's children His Word!

Who Is Your Sunday School For?

Don't just blow past the title of this post. It is a serious question! For whom do you conduct your Sunday School on a week by week basis?

The student, right? Sunday School is all about delivering the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to the students in each class. That's not as easy as it might sound. It gets complicated because we must balance delivering the best content with making sure that the students and, in the case of most of our students under the age of 16, their parents desire to have this Sunday School experience of themselves or their children.

Then, assuming that you buy into the "it's for the students" mindset . . .

Sunday School is not for volunteer teacher. ("What is the easiest material to prepare and teach? I want something I can pick up and teach without spending my time studying the lesson and getting ready for class.")

Sunday School is not for the church finance board or treasurer. ("What is the cheapest alternative out there? Can we find something with reproducible student material? What about this stuff that is available free online?")

Sunday School is for the spiritual health of the student. ("Well, yeah, the theology is a little off, but the activities are really fun. And the material is cheap. And the teachers don't have to prepare.")

Forgive me if I sound harsh, but it seems to me that some congregations get off track on this at times.

Teaching Sunday School is a high calling with a vitally important goal. It truly is worth giving it our best!

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

Help! Share Your Thoughts!

CPH is conducting a Sunday School materials survey. It is a multi-path survey for anyone interested in or using any Sunday School curriculum. It is designed to help us measure which components of our curriculum are most used and what new features Sunday School leaders and teachers are seeking.

You can help in two ways!

First, take the survey! Your thoughts will be extremely helpful as we craft the next generation of Sunday School resources her at Concordia Publishing House.

Second, encourage others (your Sunday School teachers, and colleagues and their teachers in other churches) to take the survey as well.

You can access the survey by following the link below. It will be live through June 30.

Please take our Sunday School survey to share how you use Growing in Christ or Cross Explorations, what you like about the curriculum, and what you think could be improved. 

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Training Your Volunteer Teachers

So, how do you train your volunteer teachers?

It used to be that congregations had annual, semi-annual, or even quarterly volunteer training courses. Sunday School teachers came together weekly for several weeks to study and share.

CPH over the years has published many different types of teacher training resources, including video products like the Teaching the Faith series. Two of our latest books are God at Work and Discipline in Christian Classrooms.

It seems to me that teachers still need training, be it orientation, one-on-one mentoring, workshops, or training meetings.

What kind of training does your congregation provide?

What kind of resources would be most helpful for training your teachers?


God bless you as you train those who teach God's children His Word.

I Love to Tell the Story

I just read a blog post that advocates that we abandon the term story in connection with our teaching of the Bible's truths. I share the author's concern that the word story has a strong connotation for fictional writing, material that is not intended to be taken literally. Those of us on the conservative end of the spectrum regarding biblical inerrancy do not desire, and certainly do not intend, that our students doubt the truth of Scripture or the authentic nature of the events the Bible describes.

For that reason, I generally avoid the term Bible story in favor of less ambiguous terms like narrative or account. And the readers' version of the Bible called The Story and the curriculum marketed by that name make me uneasy (though not just because of their titles).

But, let's not go overboard. We can use the term story and still communicate truth rather than fiction. We might ask a person to tell us their story. We listen daily to the news stories that are broadcast on radio, television, and Web news services, expecting that they are not fiction. There are a dozen other ways we use the word in an obviously nonfiction sense. It makes sense, however, to pay attention to how our listeners or readers might be understanding that word when we use it.

We don't need to banish the word from our vocabularies. We just need to use it with awareness.

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

The Third Secret to Successful Teacher Enlistment

Imagine a continuum, with "personal" at one end and "impersonal" at the other.

PERSONAL------------------------------------------IMPERSONAL

The third truth about enlisting teachers (Secret is perhaps not an accurate term this time around) is that the more personal the approach, the more likely the "Yes."

Consider these possible recruiting approaches:

• bulletin announcements
• pleas from the pulpit
• form letters signed by the pastor
• personal notes from the Sunday School director
• personal notes from children
• e-mail
• phone calls
• chatting in the parking lot after church
• visiting in the home

Where does each fall on that continuum? That will tell you something about the usefulness of that approach. That is not to say that it is wrong to let the congregation know you are looking for Sunday School teachers or for the pastor to let the congregation know that he is recommending several names to the Sunday School director for follow up. But the best "Yes" will come from personal contact.

It is of great importance that we know those whom we ask to teach. Let's be honest. No matter how dire the need, there are some people who should probably not teach Sunday School.

My preferred steps for teacher enlistment are these:
1.  Prepare a list of positions to be filled.
2.  Pray.
3.  List as many candidates as come to mind (reviewing the church directory can help).
4.  Consult with the pastor about his recommendations and evaluation of those I've listed.
5.  Select one name for each postion to be filled.
6.  Send a letter to that candidate, including a brief job description and mentioning a day and time I will try to call them with more information.
7.  Make that call and offer or request to meet them face to face.
8.  Describe the need, the skills that person has to meet the need, the training and support the church will offer, and offer to answer any questions.
9.  Allow a week for them to consider the opportunity to teach; arrange a visit to the Sunday School class if they desire.
10. Meet again, or follow up by phone, to hear the conadidate's response.
11. Thanks them for saying "Yes," or thank them for prayerfully considering and go back to step 5.

God bless you as you enlist those who will teach God's children His Word.

The Second Secret to Enlisting Volunteer Teachers

It flies in the face of logic for some people, but it is easier to enlist two people to teach a Sunday School class than to enlist just one. And, of course, it is easier to enlist a second teacher to work with a teacher you already have on board.

Filling your teaching positions two deep addresses a number of issues and concerns.

• As mentioned last week, it eases concerns about the time commitment involved; each teacher has some guaranteed backup if an absence is required.
• It reduces discipline issues by lowering the student-to-teacher ratio. It also provides the option of one teacher removing a child from the room (maybe because of behavior, but maybe for a medical concern or restroom break) without leaving any child unsupervised.
• It allows a bit of specialization; one teacher might be good at crafts, another may really enjoy dialog with the students.
• It provides a sense of fellowship and partnership that most teachers enjoy.
• It provides for the "two deep" staffing that many churches strive for (and some insurance companies require) to avoid an adult being isolated with a child or group of children.

As you enlist teachers, then, you might look for pairs.

• A husband and wife
• A mother or father and a daughter or son
• Two teachers who are close friends

And, if you recruit your teachers face-to-face (which is a wonderful plan; the more personal the invitation the better), arrange to meet both candidates together to share the job description, the teaching material, information about orientation and training, and Sunday School policies.

What other advantages can you think of for enlisting two teachers for each class?


God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

The First Secret to Enlisting Teachers

I've written on teacher enlistment before in this blog, but in light of my post last week on summer Sunday School, it seems wise to reiterate.

Most volunteers, when faced with an invitation to teacher Sunday School, have two concerns that need to be addressed.

What am I getting into?
The volunteer will not agree to an open-ended, loosely defined position. Our time is one of our most precious possessions in today's culture and we will not give anyone a blank check on that account. When do I need to show up? How long will it take to prepare? How many weeks am I agreeing to? How do I deal with an occasional absence? Answer these questions up front, and you are more likely to hear those beautiful words, "Yes, I will do it."

Will I be able to do this?
You've answered part of this question when you address the first one. But there's more! No one likes to fail. I'd rather say no, than risk feeling bad about how I'm doing. Can you guarantee me success? Your task here is to assure the potential volunteer that you are fully committed to their success and have thought through the requirements for that success. Show them the wonderful material they will teach from. Offer complete orientation to the task, including a classroom tour, location of supplies, resources for further study, in-service skill building, and an opportunity to shadow one of your best teachers. Explain the discipline policy and procedures that have been successful in dealing with discipline problems. Offer to be close by, even in the room, during their first class, and take a few minutes to debrief that first experience.

Both of these concerns are also addressed by yet another secret to successful volunteer enlistment. Stay tuned for Secret #2 next week!

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

How Many Teachers Will You Need This Summer?

The exact answer, of course, will depend on how many children you expect to reach each week in Sunday Sunday School.

A small Sunday School, though, can probably manage with two teachers, one for each of two age groups. In Concordia Publishing's "H2Oh! God Keeps His Promises," we have pared down summer Sunday School to two levels.

Level A serves non-readers and early readers, generally preschool through grade one or two. Level B serves readers, generally grade two or three through grade six. Both levels share a common full-color lesson leaflet with activities that will intrigue your students and be helpful in class and at home.

The program offers options for creating a site rotation experience each week or teaching the children in same-aged classrooms. And the detailed teacher guides will make teaching easy even for the new teacher.

What is your preferred arrangement of classes during the summer?

Will your regular teachers continue through the summer, or do you recruit new teachers?

How many students do you expect?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word this summer!

To Break or Not to Break for the Summer

You will need to work carefully with congregational leadership on this one, but here's my take.

Achieving a vibrant, growing Sunday School requires huge amounts of energy! Keeping your momentum is difficult, reversing a declining trend even harder. Think of the amount of energy it takes to get that boat moving through the water, to overcome inertia and the drag of friction. When Sunday School is discontinued through the summer, you may actually train your families not to attend, let key volunteers find other things to do with their time, and make a statement about the program's ongoing value.

On the other hand, summer is when lots of families relocate and visit new churches. They are eager to establish roots, and have their children meet new friends. No summer Christian education opportunities will not cut if for them.

With these thoughts in mind, you might want to review the article provided through a recent e-mail from Concordia Publishing House. You can reach it through this link.

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

Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain

The Easter season has more than its fair share of great hymns, and I look forward to singing them all. One of my favorites, though, is one that is less well known, “Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain” (Lutheran Service Book 487), the union of an eighth-century text and Reformation era tune that captures the joy and wonder of the paschal season.

John of Damascus wrote this Greek text as one of a cycle of hymns sung in the daily prayer services of the Eastern Church on “St. Thomas Sunday” (the Sunday after Easter), and, because of its intended place in the cycle, the hymn picks up the theme of Israel crossing the Red Sea (st. 1). John then weaves a tapestry of Easter metaphors, each stanza offering new images of the resurrection: freedom from prison, waking from sleep, and the coming of spring in stanza 2; feasting in stanza 3; and the Gospel account of Christ’s appearance to Thomas in stanza 4.

Who can miss John’s meaning? We are the joyful sons and daughters of Jacob, the new Israel. We too are released, awake, and enjoying the new life of spring. We will join the feast now and in eternity. We see the empty tomb and know Christ’s peace that passes understanding. We will “raise the strain of triumphant gladness! God has brought His Israel into joy from sadness!”

God's richest blessings as you share His Word with His children in this Easter season!

He Did It for Me!

Surely that's the goal for the Sunday School lessons around this Easter celebration, the key point we want children and adults alike to take home from their Easter worship and education participation. He did it for me! Christ came in human flesh, lived a perfect human life, gave His body and blood, suffered a human death, and rose in victory over death and the grave . . . for me!

So that I would not be dead in my sins, beaten down by trials and woes, or frightened by the grave. And so that I live as God's child, serve my neighbor in his or her need, forgive those who sin against me, and find Christ in word and water, bread and wine.

Some of the most difficult Words of Scripture will assault our ears and hearts this week, detailing the suffering and death of our Lord. What a blessed joy that we can know for certain, He did it for me!

God bless you as you teach His children these words . . . He did it for you!

Don't Miss Easter!

The most casual Christian seems reluctant to skip Easter.

What a marvelous opportunity to encourage Sunday School attendance and teach the "real reason for the Easter Season!"

Will your church see Easter egg hunts and pancake breakfastson April 20? Or will they see Jesus in Sunday School?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Bad Theology Is Still Not Okay

• "We don't like the activities in our publisher's material."
• "We can't afford the printed leaflets."
• "The pictures in the material don't reflect our culture or community."
• "The material is over my students' heads."
• "I share space with two other classes, and we can't make too much noise or move around."
• "I can download lots of free resources from the Internet."

All of these can be accurate, legitimate statements and critiques. But that does not make it okay to use material in your classroom that teaches bad theology. Teaching moralism, decision theology, or works righteousness is still not okay.

Complain to your publisher. Adapt and revise freely. Write your own material. Mix and match from other acceptable materials. But don't use material that contradicts the theological views of your church body. That is not okay!

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

What Needs to Change?

Nearly every teacher and leader in Sunday School that I talk to these days shares the same concern. Their Sunday School is not as good as they would like it to be. Something needs to change. All too often, the assumption is made that a new curriculum is the solution to our Sunday School ills.

I was struck then by this quote from pastor, Christian educator, and blogger Pete Jurchen: "I'd go so far as to say that a teacher could have a very dry curriculum, one that doesn't seem 'relevant' or 'fun' and doesn't have a lot of videos or activities, and could still make it an engaging learning experience if the effective learning techniques were employed. How we choose to interact with learners and teach material, it would seem, has a vastly greater impact on overall improvement then what we use to teach."

It is wonderful, of course, when our curriculum has relevance, fun, videos, activities, and engaging learning experiences. The truth is that "engaging learning experiences" are more about the interactions between the teacher and students, the relationships, than about the material. I and the other editors on my team spend the bulk of our time creating the best material we can. But we know that the material is only half of the equation. The teacher is the other half.

We pray for Sunday School teachers who will spend a little time each day preparing for his or her next class, who will work to know the personal story of each student, who will tailor the lesson activities we provide to be of maximum benefit to the students they teach.

Thank you for time you spend creating engaging learning experiences for your students as you teach God's children His Word.

The Value of Pictures

(Thanks to my friend and colleague, Ed Grube, for including a January 18, 2014, blog post from FreeBibleImages.com in his weekly tips for parish educators. The post provides some helpful tips and sparked my own thinking on the value of pictures in the Christian education process.)

Some of those who read this blog may be aware that Concordia Publishing House invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past decade on new biblical art for use in our Sunday School curriculum. The resulting paintings are a rich library of authentic biblical images. The Bible accounts they illustrate were studied carefully for clues about the settings and contexts for each account. The details included in the art were carefully researched to be appropriate and likely. The artists were chosen based on their ability to convey the culture and people of the Bible well. And the images were reviewed through our in-house doctrinal review process for theological accuracy. The results are often stunning.

These paintings are truly worth studying in class, exploring the details and nuances that will inform the students' understanding of the biblical text. The setting and culture of the Bible is unfamiliar for many students; pictures are a simple way to bridge the gap, The pictures can be used in a variety of ways in the lesson.

Before, During, and After 

Pictures can be used before the presentation of the Bible account in the lesson as a kind of formative assessment (a pretest of sorts).

• Study this picture and tell what you remember or discover about the Bible account.
• Who was present? 
• What happened before the moment depicted in this picture?
• What happened after?

They can also be used as a hook to draw the students in to the Bible account.

• Why do you think these people are smiling or angry?
• What do you think will happen?

During the presentation of the Bible story, pictures can be used to unpack the cultural and practical details of the account.

• Who are these men wearing fancy clothes?
• Why are they walking?
• Where is this taking place?

After the Bible account has been presented and discussed, pictures can be used to review the lesson (another formative assessment). Let the students use the picture to tell the story again. Use this "before, during, and after" strategy for that review.

• What happened before the moment of this picture?
• What is happening here according to the Bible test?
• What happened after this picture?

Why and How?

The process of Christian education, all education really, is taking students from where they are in their understanding of the Bible's message, providing experiences and information that add to their understanding, and deepening their knowledge of God's Word. Pictures provide a simple way to provide new information and experience. What the children discover as they study and hear about a picture gets added to what they already know to build knowledge.

A good picture, then, is always worth studying. Encourage children to look both at the big picture, the event that is taking place, and at the details, the small things that add meaning. This kind of study takes time. Make sure that the students can all see the picture well enough and long enough to absorb the details. This is why the biblical art is always prominent on our leaflets, so each student can see and learn. If you are using posters, display at eye level and encourage the students to stand close enough to see the details, even if it means getting them up out of their seats. If you are showing pictures from a picture book display the pictures fully (turning so all students can see them) and move it very slowly (slower even than you think is possibly necessary) so that students catch the details.

A good picture is truly worth a thousand words!

God bless you as you teach His children His Word — through pictures!

Video Options for Junior and Senior High

Are you looking for videos to supplement your youth Bible study lessons on Sunday mornings?

YouTube (www.youtube.com), with more than 65,000 new videos added each day, is a rich source of video material, but it may seem an impossible haystack in which to find that one video needle you're looking for.

Have I got a deal for you! The Junior High and Senior High Growing in Christ Bible studies, available each quarter at cph.org/sundayschool, now offer a suggested video resource for each lesson. You can find the lists at the beginning of the teacher guides, but you can also scroll down on the Sunday School Web site to the tools at the bottom of the page and click "Jr/Sr High Videos" for a direct link to the playlist. The guides also provide a shortened URL that can simplify the task of finding these videos.

The videos have been screened for objectionable content or theological errors. The teacher guides offer specific language for connecting these videos to the study.

Here's what the teacher guides advise:
Go to the YouTube playlist online at bit.ly/1knXwnU to play any video in this quarter. Find the correct playlist for your level and quarter. Click “View full playlist.” Choose the video you need. To use the videos, you need an Internet connection and a tablet or other computer. Skip any ads and cue the video."

A word of caution: YouTube recently changed how they display our playlists, so older URLs may not take the user all the way to the playlist page. Look for the "Playlist" tab.

God bless you as you teach His junior and senior high "children" His Word!

What Are You Doing This Summer?

Have you chosen your Summer Sunday School curriculum yet?

Be sure to check out "H2Oh! God Keeps His Promises."

Sample materials will loaded to cph.org/sundayschool next week (click on either "Growing in Christ" or "Cross Explorations" and then click on the word "Summer" near the middle of your screen).

Dive into these Bible stories to discover the promises God made to His people in the Bible and to us! Young explorers will jump into the Bible to learn more about Noah, Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Naaman, Lydia, Paul and others as they discover how God has poured out His love for His people in these fourteen Old and New Testament stories:

H2Oh! Everywhere (Noah)

Walking through H2Oh! (Crossing the Red Sea)

Miraculous H2Oh! (Water from the Rock)

H2Oh! Survival (Elijah at the Brook Cherith)

Fire and H2Oh! (Elijah and the Prophets of Baal)

Cleansing H2Oh! (Naaman Healed)

H2Oh! Ride (Jonah)

Revealing H2Oh! (John the Baptist)

Changing H2Oh! (Wedding at Cana)

H2Oh! Safety (Built on the Rock)

Servant H2Oh! (Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet)

Meeting at the H2Oh! (Lydia is Baptized)

H2Oh! Rescue (Paul’s Shipwreck)

Living H2Oh! (The River of Life)

(Five other "water" Bible accounts will be used in CPH's 2014 VBS, "Gangway to Galilee!" It's a summer to share God's rescue.)

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Theology Matters (Reprise)

Curriculum choice cannot be just a matter of which publisher promises the least amount of preparation time, the flashiest promotion material, the coolest gadgets, or the lowest price. If you choose material based on prep time, printing, gadgets, or cost, you may miss the essential purpose of Christian education.
 
The goal of a Lutheran Sunday School is not to entertain the children or go easy on the budget. It is to share the truth of God's Word through balanced teaching of Law and Gospel. We want to proclaim forgiveness of sins, new life, and salvation through Jesus Christ every week. If we want a curriculum that gets the job done, theology matters.

What Is Your Goal?

The goal of a Lutheran Sunday School is not to entertain the children or go easy on the budget. It is to share the truth of God's Word through balanced teaching of Law and Gospel.

The world will always be better able to entertain and please. Let's focus our efforts each Sunday on the one thing that that world cannot provide: forgiveness, life, and salvation through Christ.

• How well does the material you use support that goal?
• How clear is that task in the minds of your teachers and how well have you prepared them for that task?
• How do you highlight that goal and its importance for your congregation and community?

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

When Did You Decide to Follow Jesus?

An interesting quotation in a Sunday School curriculum publisher's promotional e-mail this morning, highlighting their "Gospel-centered" material: "Nearly 80 percent of people in our churches today decided to follow Jesus before age 18. Of that group, 50 percent decided to follow Jesus before age 12."

The e-mail then proceeded to quote Matthew 19:14: “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

There are so many troubling aspects in this for me that it is hard to know where to begin. I'm going to let that simmer for a bit and come back to it in a future post.

Let me instead focus on the real occasion for joy that is reflected in the statistics cited, assuming they are accurate. Eighty percent of parents in these churches are apparently bringing their children to Jesus! Eighty percent of children in these churches are apparently hearing the Gospel! Eighty percent of these congregations seem to be doing a credible job of teaching God's children His Word!

You and I know that a so-called "decision for Christ" can only be the result of Gospel shared, of the Holy Spirit's calling and enlightening. We know that our ability to follow Jesus results only from His power at work in us through Word and Sacraments. To the extent that some people focus on the human actions of "deciding" and "following," they miss the point. The Gospel is not about our actions, our decisions, our choosing, our following, for I "cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him" (Luther's Small Catechism, CPH 1986).

Thank You, God, for Your actions: sacrificing Your Son, forgiving our sins, calling us through the Word, Jesus and the Holy Scriptures, to be Your own. Bless those bring little children to Jesus in Sunday School each week; bless those who teach and those who learn. Amen.

The Best Material for Lutheran Congregations

The best Sunday School material for a congregation is material that is aligned with the beliefs and practices that the congregation confesses to be true and valuable. An LCMS congregation that uses material from a different denominational publisher will encounter teachings that are contrary to our understanding of Scripture, teachings that are deeply embedded in the central premise of each lesson and supported in each of that lesson's elements. These errors are not easily removed or covered over with a layer of correct language. The best material is material in which such errors do not exist.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Bad Language?

Thanks to my friend, Ed Grube, for this helpful reminder (and clever title) to our colleagues on the Parish Educators Network of the Lutheran Education Association. Ed's weekly tips are available only to LEA members (LEA.org), but his reminder is a good one; it reads in part:

"If you’re using resources from various Christian publishers, you need to look out for bad language. One example is the inclusion of phrases like 'invite Jesus into your heart.' This may reflect 'decision theology,' popular in some circles but definitely not reflective of biblical Lutheran doctrine. . . . Don’t assume volunteer teachers will discern such things; help them to grow."

Bad language has its root in bad theology, at least when viewed from a Lutheran perspective. Decision theology, for example, flows from a flawed understanding of our fall into sin; it rejects the total depravity of mankind (see Romans 7:18). Instead it suggests that we only "fell partway," that we have, in and of ourselves, some ability to contribute to our salvation, to "work our way back toward God." This contradicts our Lutheran convictions of salvation "by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone." It's the child's mantra, "I can do it myself." It rejects our reliance on God.

Is it just a problem of language, though? No! If it were, we could fix a decision theology lesson by editing a few words or adding a couple of Lutheran sentences. The problem is not just with the language, but with the theological basis, with the heart and core of the lesson.

The bad language is a warning that the central premise and the resulting Bible discussion and lesson activities come from a unLutheran unstanding of Scripture. A little clean-up or even minor surgery may not be enough to save this lesson; major surgery or a whole-body transplant is required.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word.

Which Sunday School Would You Choose?

• Unified (all classes study the same Bible account)? OR
• Topical (different material at each age level)?

• Closely graded (one or two grades of children in a classroom)? OR
• Several grades (or all grades) in a single classroom?

• Self-contained classrooms? OR
• Children rotate to different locations for different activities during the hour?

• Lessons tied to the Church's lectionary? OR
• Chronological study of the biblical narrative?

• High tech? OR
• As simple as possible?

Sunday School can be about a lot of choices. As I look to the future, I have the opportunity to make some of these choices to benefit our customers. We will be asking our customers about their preferences in several ways. Maybe this blog can be one of them.

Given the five choices above, which would you choose and why? Which would benefit most the children you serve? I'd love to hear from you at tom.nummela@cph.org.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Making the Most of Lectionary Ties

Do you use Sunday School material from Concordia Publishing House? Do you use the three-year lectionary outlined in the Lutheran Service Book? Then you probably have noticed that this is one of the quarters when the Sunday School lessons and the Gospel accounts read in the Divine Service line up rather nicely. This Sunday, for example, the Gospel reading and the Sunday School text are identical: Matthew 4:12-15, Jesus calls His first disciples.

This is nice because teachers and parents can call a child's attention to the parallel texts. You can use the church bulletin in your classroom or parents can use the Sunday School leaflet at appropriate points in the church service. Later in the day on Sunday the family can review the Bible account from a base of knowledge, discuss it together, and enjoy sharing what was learned. If you're lucky, your church is using the "Explore More" cards that were designed initially for use with the Cross Explorations curriculum, but available for use with Growing in Christ as well. These cards provide activities and discussion starters to help families maximize their time together.

The last four weeks of this winter set of lessons present a bit more of a challenge. The Gospel lesson each week is a portion of Jesus' "sermon on the mount," from Matthew 5. The Sunday School lessons may not, at first, seem to relate.

But they do! It would be tough for even the most creative teacher to teach what is essentially the same narrative, the occasion of Jesus' sermon on the shore of Galilee, four weeks in a row. However, the concepts about which Jesus teaches in each week's installment of this important chapter of the Bible are expanded on in Sunday School by studying a related Bible narrative.

Children learn what it means to be blessed (Matthew 5:1-12) by studying Jesus' blessing of Zacchaeus. They learn what it means to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-20) by studying the work and resurrection of Dorcas. They learn an alternative to anger (Matthew 5:21-37) by exploring Paul's letter about Onesimus. And they learn about dealing with enemies (Matthew 5:38-48) by seeing how God and Ananias care for Saul.

Make of point of teaching these worship connections in the lessons ahead. Your students will be glad you did!

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Formative Assessment, a Critical Sunday School Task

We don't talk very much about assessment for Sunday School. Perhaps that is because most people, when they hear the term "assessment," think about summative assessment.

Summative assessment measures achievement and assigns a judgment, a grade. It is the grade you get at the end of the course in school. It is also all the grades for the quizzes and tests you took that are compiled to make up that final grade. The key here is that the assessment is fixed and immutable at that point in time at which it is rendered. We are judged, and often found wanting.

Formative assessment is different. It is assessment that intends to set the course for continued effort or instruction. It is the pre-test that helps the teacher to understand what the student already knows and does not yet know about a subject. It is the ongoing data from your GPS, telling you how you are doing as you approach your destination. It is the regular checkup with the doctor that suggests changes in diet or treatment for an illness.

One could argue that summative assessment has relatively little value in Christian education. The objective of such training, faith in Christ and life as one of God's children, is not subject to objective measurement or human judgment.

Formative assessment though would seem to be a different matter. When a teacher takes time to determine what a student, or a class as a whole, remembers about or knows about a particular Bible account, the teaching that follows can be more carefully tailored to the needs of those students. When a teacher takes time to investigate how each of the students in a group most enjoy learning or how they learn most easily, activities can be chosen that will capture more attention and accomplish more teaching and learning. When a teacher takes time in the middle of a lesson to check for comprehension, the remainder of the lesson can be salvaged or maximized.

So, forget the final grade! But take time to ask, "What do they know?" and "How am I doing?" Because the important thing at the end of the hour is not how much did I teach but how much did they learn?

God's blessings as His children learn His Word!

Did You Have Sunday School after Christmas?

Those who follow this blog might expect a bit of a rant here (like this one from 2011). No this year. But I have to ask the follow-up questions: why? or why not?

If you cancelled Sunday School for convenience (yours, or the teachers, or the families), I challenge you to re-think. We have precious few opportunities to teach God's children His Word. I would give up even one of them with the greatest reluctance.

If you cancelled Sunday School for safety (as our church did on Sunday, with blizzard condictions, travel advisories, and single-digit temperatures), bravo! Thanks for doing your best to keep God's children safe to hear His Word another day.