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.