Help! CPH Changed My Sunday School Material!

"The lessons no longer align with the Church Year!"
"They forgot the Easter lesson!"
"No wonder! They forgot to put dates on the lessons."

Yep. CPH changed things up in September 2015, and our customers are beginning to notice. Lessons are now organized into 9 themed units, four Old Testament and for New Testament, and the 13 lessons in each unit are organized chronologically. There are no dates to be found. And each unit as it is published will be stocked in the warehouse for purchase in any quarter of the year.

Would you like to teach the Bible in your Sunday School chronologically from Genesis to Revelation? Starting with fall 2016 that becomes a possibility.

Why? It turns out that the most expensive way to publish Sunday School material is by pegging it to the liturgical calendar, which then requires that every quarter of material be re-edited every year to accommodate the shifting calendar. As most Sunday Schools decline and congregational budgets get tighter, it was getting harder and harder to provide material without large increases in prices.

There are some major positives that result from this change.

• Congregations have greater flexibility to start the fall quarter on a date other than the first Sunday in September.
• They can choose the order in which to teach the nine units.
• They can save teaching material and unused student material to use in two or three years when that unit comes up again. The material will not change, so everything will still work together.
• They can stretch out each quarter if there is no Sunday School due to weather, or holidays, or other special occasions.

A couple of things become a little harder:

• It is harder to keep all teachers on the same page. (We have provided several tools for noting when lessons are scheduled by your congregation to be taught, but someone needs to decide those dates and publish them to all the teachers.)
• It is harder to teach children about the Church Year. Church Year Connections is a new annual resource that provides material for opening worship (either with the entire Sunday School or in your classroom) that is focused on the current Sunday of the Church Year. A feature of this resource is a complete set of "Teaching Points for Children" that can be woven into your lessons.
• Each winter and spring, CPH will provide free lessons for Christmas and Easter (more savings!) to supplement the material you purchased.

CPH understands that after 30 years of dated Sunday School material, this change will take some getting used to. We apologize for your frustration. Please know that some things have NOT changed.

• The Gospel of Jesus Christ is still central to every single lesson.
• Law and Gospel are correctly taught at all levels.
• The Small Catechism and hymnal are integrated into our curricula.
• The Bible is accurately taught through the text and images in every lesson.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Are You Ready for Spring?

Imagine a beautiful spring day! There are lots of them coming! Why will parents and children spend their time with you each Sunday in the weeks ahead in Sunday School? What will you provide that soccer, tee-ball, weekends at the lake, or sleeping in cannot provide? The opportunity to see Jesus, to hear more about forgiveness of sins and new life in His name!

The lessons you’ll teach from Concordia’s two Sunday School options---Growing in Christ and Cross Explorations---will reveal the power, authority, mercy, and love of our Savior. Your students will watch Him defend the sanctity of the temple, commend the generosity of a widow, die and rise again, be preached throughout the known world, and take His rightful place again on the throne of heaven. These are faith experiences that the world cannot provide. You have an exciting season ahead!

It is not always easy for families to see it that way, though. As you teach in the weeks ahead . . .

• persistently invite every eligible student to join you in Sunday School.
• diligently prepare each lesson to be an enjoyable and rewarding experience.
• warmly welcome each student each week by name and thank them for coming.
• earnestly pray that God will bless each student.  

Thanks for teaching God’s children His Word!

What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?

He asked the wrong question! This account of Jesus' conversation with the rich ruler appears in three of the four Gospels. The title of this post quotes the Mark and Luke accounts (Mark 10:17-27; Luke 18:17-27). But the rich ruler who addressed this question to Jesus asked the wrong question.

"What must I do!" Jesus makes clear to the man, and to us, that this asks the impossible. Human beings do not have the ability to do their own salvation. We have inherited a sinful nature from our first parents. We sin in what we do and in what we do not do. If we seek to merit eternal life, we have already failed.

Jesus' response sends the man away sad.

This question is a key to teaching God's children His Word. Don't send the children you teach away sad, seeking to earn eternal life through moral living, trying to be like Jesus, and failing. Point them instead as Jesus does, to God's strength as the source of eternal life. “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

It's not what we do. It's God's amazing grace! God has done it! He sent Jesus to earn our salvation. He gives us His Word and promise. He washes us clean through our Baptism. He forgives and strengthens us through the Sacrament of the Altar.

Does the curriculum you use teach clearly about Jesus in every lesson, about God's gifts of Baptism and the Lord's Supper? Or does it send children away sad?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

WOW! CPH Has All That?

I've heard that some congregations are looking for new Sunday School material, something that is family-friendly, recognizes the Church Year, is experiential and relational, is easy to prepar, and contributes significantly to biblical literacy.

I have good news: Sunday School material from Concordia Publishing House does all that and more!

Family Friendly: For thirty years, CPH has produced Sunday School material that is unified across all age levels. Everyone in the congregation, from the youngest to the oldest can study the same biblical text each week, each using materials and techniques that are age-appropriate. The materials incorporate take-home materials that promote family discussion and further study about the lesson. Especially, check out the "Explore More Cards," published with our Cross Explorations material but useful with either curriculum. Our materials assume that families will worship together each Sunday and we incorporate elements of the Church's worship in the lessons.

Recognizes the Church Year: CPH Sunday School material is rooted in the Church Year; major festivals are recognized and often the focus of lessons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, the Baptism of our Lord, Transfiguration, Holy Week, and Easter lessons are taught on appropriate Sundays; Reformation Day, All Saints' Day, and other festivals are noted and often incorporated into the lesson. About half of the Sunday School lessons each year teach the Bible account that is read as the Gospel in the Divine Service in congregations using the three-year-lectionary.

Experiential and Relational: CPH recognizes that children learn best by applying Scriptures to life experience. The youngest children spend time each week in activities that provide a real-life experience to which the Scriptures can be applied; lessons for older children use role play and discussion to help student apply what they learn from the Bible to their lives between Sundays.

Easy to Prepare: Each lesson has a one-page study of the theological and bibical content of the lesson, handy materials lists, scripted teacher talk (so you know what to say, even if you put it in your own words), and a simple four-part outline. In addition, a 30-minute podcast about the lesson is available each week.

Biblical Literacy: the sequence of lessons in Growing in Christ and Cross Explorations materials has been carefully designed to teach the entire narrative of salvation history over a three-year-plus period, with the most significant parts of that history (Advent, Christmas, and Easter) taught every year. Lessons repeat every third or fourth year, so that as student grow they encounter God's Word again and again in age-appropriate learning.

In addition, CPH offers consistent instruction using both Law and Gospel, lessons that are truly centered in Jesus Christ as our Savior from sin, two choices of material (check them out at our new Web site: cph.org/sundayschool), realistic full-color Bible art, varied modes of instruction and story presentation, and a wealth of supplementary material.

What are you looking for in Sunday School material?

What do you think we are missing?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Is Sunday School Necessary in Your Congregation?

• Not if all families in your congregation are fulfilling their vocations and living as God's children twenty-four seven.
• Not if your children are continuing as lifelong Christians through their teenage and young adult lives, attending the Divine Service regularly and immersing themselves in God's Word.
• Not if the children in your congregation are immune to the temptations of the devil, the world, and their own sinful flesh.
• Not if your students never encounter a skewed teaching that distorts the Gospel and proclaims instead a need to earn salvation through personal effort.
• Not if your students are already biblically literate and knowledgeable about the doctrines of the Lutheran Church.
• Not if your pastor's sermons are equally helpful to children and adults.
• Not if your church never has visitors who are eager to learn more about Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior from sin.
• Not if there are other programs of Christian education that are more convenient for and utilized by all the families of your congregation.

For congregations that are not quite there yet, Sunday School remains a time-tested opportunity for children, youth, and adults to study God's Word using age-appropriate materials that are centered on Christ.

God bless you teach His children His Word!

Broken

I am in the middle of reading one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time: Broken: 7 "Christian" Rules that Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible.

In this book, Jonathan Fisk (RevFisk on YouTube.com) examines seven counterfeit rules that many churches today teach as doctrine but that have no basis in Scripture.

Others have lamented the drift of young people away from the Church. Fisk lays out some of the false promises some churches make to their young people and explores God's Word as it touches on each area. You will find these teachings in churches near you, or perhaps even in the glitzy material someone has chosen for your Sunday School.

None of these false doctrines is new; they have been around for centuries. But all of them find expression in contemporary American religion. You will learn to identify and avoid:

• Mysticism
• Moralism
• Rationalism
• Prosperity
• Ecclesiology
• Lawlessness
• Worship of Self

God's Word clearly teaches that He comes to us in the Word He has inspired and preserved for our instruction, the Bible, and the Sacraments He ordained for our good, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Fisk's discussion of authentic Christianity in Broken is truly worth your time to read.

Where do you see one or more of these seven "rules" at work in your church or community?

If you agree with Rev. Fisk's assessment of the false doctrines we need to oppose, how will you change how and what you teach?

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

You Are in the Customer Service Business

It struck me this morning, as I pondered a superintendent's comment that her teachers preferred "grab-and-go" lessons over ones that took "preparation." Our Sunday Schools---and their directors and teachers---are in the customer service business.

Each child who attends, and by extension their parents and families, are customers who come with definite expectations about the quality of the service they will receive.

That raises some questions.

• What are you doing to make sure that these customers are "repeat customers," loyal, and engaged?
• Are you taking the time to prepare lessons that are adapted for the educational needs and interest of your students?
• Are you ensuring that the Gospel is presented front and center rather than the moralistic junk that so many publishers provide?
• Are you treating your students as customers, being polite, pleasant, and engaging?

Make no mistake, customers notice quality and make choices about where and how often they "shop."

How do you make each Sunday School customer's visit "first class"?

God bless you as you teach your customers His Word!

The Impact of the Lectionary

How much does the lectionary impact your Sunday School?
Here at Concordia Publishing House, we have crafted our lesson sequence with two things in mind: (1) biblical literacy and (2) the three-year lectionary. The result is, of necessity, a compromise.

In pursuit of biblical literacy, we depart from the lectionary in significant ways. The readings of the lectionary do not incorporate a chronological look at the Old Testament; in fact, large swaths of the salvation narrative from the Old Testament are not included in the lectionary at all. In order to expose students to the key events in the salvation narrative, we teach Old Testament lessons in a chronological sequence in each fall quarter, dividing the Old Testament into four very unequal parts. Other departures from the lectionary occur in the spring quarters. The events of Holy Week cannot be adequately taught in just one Sunday School lesson, so some lessons before Easter often depart from the appointed Gospel reading. Similarly, the Book of Acts contains many events worth teaching in Sunday School, so other Gospel lessons are sacrificed. When all is said and done, students will study the appointed Gospel text about seventy percent of the time in our winter and spring quarters. And we've worked hard to have even this degree of congruence with the lectionary.

But then we have to ask: what about those who do not use the three-year lectionary? A portion of our LCMS congregations have retained the one-year lectionary. Another portion still worship out of an older hymnal, while our Sunday School lessons are pegged to the lectionary as revised in the Lutheran Service Book. And there are a fair number of congregations where the lectionary is unique to that congregation, where the pastor preaches series of sermons that do not use the historic lectionary and then chooses readings that support that sermon topic.

When it happens, teaching the Gospel lesson for the Sunday in Sunday School provides powerful reinforcement. It connects the worship and education experiences and allows them to support one another. It gives the family a solid core on which to build with devotions and discussions through the week. When it does not happen, the students still get a solid lesson, rooted in God's Word, that teaches salvation through faith in Christ each and every week. We seem to be on target for a lot of congregations. How about you?

Does your congregation use the three-year lectionary in your worship services? Another version of the lectionary? No lectionary at all?

What do you like, or not like, about the sequence of lessons in your current Sunday School curriculum?

What aspects of the curriculum are equally or more important than lesson sequence?

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

Teachers Interaction Magazine

The Fall 2012 issue of Teachers Interaction magazine, the magazine for today's Sunday School, was released last month. Have you seen it? (E-mail me at tom.nummela@cph.org if you have never seen this magazine. Include your mailing address and I'll make sure you get a sample copy.) I had the privilege of editing this magazine for the past 14 years, but have recently turned the reigns over to my colleague Mark Sengele.

This issue centers on the topic of "Christology," the doctrines of the Church that unpack the person and work of Jesus Christ. It does so using language that volunteer teachers can understand and make their own. It is worth the "single copy" price of $5.50; it's even a better deal as part of a subscription. You can check it out at teachersinteraction.cph.org.

Here's a rundown on this issue: "Pastor Timothy Pauls introduces the topic in “Christology in Sunday School,” challenging us to teach clearly but to allow God’s mystery to be believed rather than understood. In “We Wish to See Jesus,” the editor presents the case for a Sunday School that is truly centered on Christ. Pastor Charles Lehmann looks at the lessons in this fall’s quarter of Growing in Christ Sunday School materials and succeeds in “Finding Christ in the Old Testament.” DCE James Lohman suggests ways our students can be involved in serving Christ as we serve others in “The Hands of Christ.” Reverend Scot Kinnaman provides a helpful look at some things we can share with our students about the Divine Service in “Our Worship Teaches Christ.”

Teachers Interaction is the only magazine of its kind, devoted exclusively to volunteer Sunday School teachers and those who support them. It can be a great supplement to your teacher training. It is tailor-made for those who teach God's children His Word. I hope you'll check it out!

What would make Teachers Interaction an even better value to you?

What topics do you think this magazine should tackle in future issues?

Clarifying the Gospel

When I saw a post recommending an article titled "Four Ways to Clarify the Gospel for Kids" from ChurchLeaders.com, my interested was piqued. I was eager to see the wider Church giving some focus to this crucial topic. I was not entirely disappointed. The author, Sam Luce, states among other things, "It is massively important that we are clear on what the gospel is and what it isn't." Those who know me, know I couldn't agree more. You can read the entire article here. In summary, Luce suggests that teachers (1) be real, letting kids know that they need God as much as their students do, (2) not oversimplify doctrine, (3) use diverse examples in application, and (4) "bring it back to Jesus." Explaining this fourth point, Luce writes, "The application of every story needs to come back to Jesus and what He has done that empowers us to go and do."

Christ-Centered
Thanks, Sam, to taking us this far. I'm going to suggest though that for the sake of clarity, Lutherans might seek to unpack what it means to "bring it back to Jesus."

We don't mean that Jesus is a great example of what we should strive for in Christian living. Jesus is God; we are not. He is perfect; we are not. The focus of each lesson should not be "What would Jesus do?" but "What did Jesus do?" Paul writes that "[The Gospel] is the power of salvation to all who believe" (Romans 1:16). The Gospel is not about what I should do, but about what God did for me in the sacrifice of His Son and continues to do for me as the Holy Spirit works daily through the Word to strengthen faith.

We don't mean that Jesus motivates us to greater personal effort in going and doing the work of our salvation. Scripture is clear: salvation is only by God's gracious gift of faith (Ephesians 2:-9).

We don't mean that God's gift of faith in Christ makes us "perfectly empowered Christians." Dr. Earl Gaulke, writing in "Principles of Christian Education for the Local Parish" (LCMS Board for Parish Services Bulletin 90582, undated), says "We confuse Law and Gospel when we . . . describe faith in a way that does not fit all believers at all times." Being real means acknowledging the continued presence and impact of sin in the lives of believers as well as unbelievers.

What Has Christ Done?
So then, as we teach God's children His Word, let's be clear about "what He has done." Christ has fulfilled the Law perfectly on our behalf, suffered the punishment we deserve for our sin even to death, rose from death as the first-fruit of all who believe. Through faith in Him, believers have forgiveness of sin, new life now and forever.

When we "bring it back to Jesus" in our Sunday School lessons, let's be sure that repentant sinners leave with clear consciences. Bring it back to the Gospel: forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ!

In what other ways can Sunday School teachers teach the Gospel with clarity?