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!

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!

What about Easter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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