A customer comment this week makes me wonder. The customer challenges our apparent assumption that every student starts from ground zero in every lesson. "Students are capable of so much more!"
I certainly agree. It is not because we who publish Sunday School material think all students are below average that we make very few assumptions about where students will begin regarding the next lesson. It is because we know that some students will be starting at or near zero.
Some students will not have been present last week, or the last time this Bible account was taught in Sunday School, or many of the lessons in between. Some students may have never opened the Bible before. Some will have only a vague recollection of the account, but be fuzzy on the details. Some students may confuse this event with another from Scripture. Some students may have even learned it all wrong for one reason or another.
Even more challenging, any of these conditions might exist for the person who has been enlisted to teach the lesson.
As a result, the Sunday School lesson you get from Concordia Publishing House will, to the best of our ability, reflect the general developmental characteristics that are expected of children within a year or two of the grade for which it is prepared, But we will assume very little Bible background.
That, of course, is where you, the teachers, come in. God willing, you will know your students, or at least know that you don't know them. You can judge whether some of the material in your lesson can be skipped, reviewed lightly, or expanded in order to meet your students where they are in terms of biblical literacy. You create the final edition of the lesson!
God bless you as you teach His children His Word!
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