What Do You Assume about the Students You Will Teach This Week?

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!

Why Have a Sunday School?

I really wanted to title this blog post "Get Rid of Your Sunday School, if . . . !" And as you see from the rest of this post, the "if" is really important and I certainly did not want the casual reader to take away the wrong message. Because, while I can imagine a congregation that would not need a Sunday School to assist in its mission, I have never "met" one.

But, if in your congregation . . .

• children are fully integrated into the worship service,
• families faithfully and frequently attend worship and receive the Lord's Supper,
• students attend a Lutheran Day School,
• parents have placed the Holy Scriptures into the hands of their children and provide daily family devoted time,
• children have a ready understanding of the salvation narrative, the basic accounts of the Bible, Luther's Small Catechism, and spend time each day in increasing that knowledge,
• parents regularly and comfortably discuss God's Word and its impact on their faith and daily life,

. . . then perhaps a Sunday School is not crucial.

On the other hand, what could it hurt?

God bless you for providing weekly opportunities for God's children to study His Word!

How Well Do You Know the Bible?

Pretty well, I thought. Then I dipped into the Lutheran Bible Companion. I still have a lot to learn.

This two-volume set will help me. It is packed with supplementary and contextual information about every book of the Bible. Check it out. You may catch it on sale.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Is There Value in Sunday School?

Suppose your congregation was a perfect congregation.

• Your members attend church every Sunday.
• Your pastor preaches excellent sermons that reach old and young people equally well.
• Your congregation supports a day school in which all eligible children are enrolled.
• Your parents are comfortable in their roles as the primary influencers of their children's spiritual life and growth and engage in daily family devotions and faith conversations with their children.
• Young and old members alike are avid readers of the Bible and do so daily.

Would there be any point in having a Sunday School?

I would argue that even in that amazing congregation, Sunday School would be a valuable opportunity for all families. It would provide:

• age-appropriate interaction and instruction for each child
• comprehensive coverage of the entire scope of the salvation narrative
• a place to build relationships with Christian peers
• outreach opportunities for friends and others from the community
• another chance to hear the blessed Gospel

Of course, your congregation and my congregation fall woefully short of that perfect standard. Sunday School then helps fill the gaps. It is surely worth every moment, and every penny, we invest in it.

God bless you as you provide opportunities for His children to study 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!

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!

Why Teach the Old Testament?

The arrangement of lessons in Sunday School materials published by Concordia Publishing House incorporates four quarters, 52 lessons, from the Old Testament. Given the duplication of a few key lessons in the New Testament (especially lessons around Christmas and Easter), nearly one-half of our lessons are from the Old Testament.

Why?

It gets us in trouble with some customers, those who would really prefer that we align fully with the three-year lectionary. The Old Testament is not presented chronologically in the lectionary. Readings are usually chosen to connect in some way with the Gospel lesson and theme of a Sunday in the Church Year.

So why?

I see at least three reasons:

• The Old Testament, along with the New, is the historical account of God's relationship with His people, especially the unfolding of His plan for our salvation. Those who wish to understand and appreciate the Bible need to know the Old Testament.
• The lessons in the Old Testament are important, not because they teach about wonderful, faithful people of God, but because they point us to Jesus Christ and the salvation God accomplishes for us through Him. We study these people not as examples of their behavior, bu as examples of those with faith in Christ.
• Every account in the Old Testament can and should be tied to that salvation history and studied to see how it points us to Christ.

We are nearing the end of the current cycle of Old Testament accounts. Next fall we will return to the beginning, to the accounts of the creation of all things and especially the creation of humankind as the crown of creation.

Do you think our current scope and sequence includes enough Old Testament? Too much?

Which Old Testament accounts do you think are missing and should be included?

God's blessing as you teach His children His Old Testament 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!

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!

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!

Let's Review

Last week I wrote about "Sticky Lessons." A key point in that post was that repetition and review are important tools for making lessons stick, for moving information from short-term to long-term memory.

Did You Review?
So, let me ask, when you taught your most recent Sunday School lesson, did you review the lesson from the week before? Did you place the lesson you were teaching into the context of the Bible's narrative in a way that made sense? (A very different task for teaching three-year-olds than for teaching preteens.) After teaching the Bible account did you review it in some way before the end of the session, perhaps by letting the students retell the account while acting it out or creating a drawing about the event and telling their classmates about their picture? Or by playing a review game with the Bible Review Cards (part of every lesson in the Growing in Christ middle and upper grades materials)? Or by simply asking informational and analytical questions?

If You Reviewed
If you review the Bible account as part of your lesson last week, you increased the likelihood that your students will remember the key point and basic facts of the lesson next week, or next month, or the next time they encounter that lesson some day in the future. Good job!

If You Did Not Review
Plan now to include review in your next lesson plan. You and your students will be glad you did. It is sometimes difficult to include review. It may mean not doing something else in the precious window time you have available. But it is worth it! It is one of the significant ways you can make those lessons stick!

God bless you as you make His Word stick in the hearts and lives of His children!

Sticky Lessons

I recently fielded a critique from a pastor who was concerned that students in their Sunday School were not retaining the lessons that were being taught. He suspected that the curriculum was at fault. That was hard to hear, but it gets me thinking.

What Makes a Lesson Stick?
What are the keys to memorable lessons? How can we teach so that children retain the stuff we want them to learn? What is is that we want them to remember in the first place?

Gospel First
It is enough, I think, that children come away from Sunday School convinced that God loves them, that Jesus sacrificed Himself so that their sins are forgiven, their life restored, and a place prepared for them in heaven. Yes, I'd love for them to know how to live as God's children. I'd like them to be able to replay the Bible account and provide accurate details, even a week, month, or year later. I'd like them to be able to connect the Bible account to a chronological framework of the Bible, understand its context, and know the broader narrative for which it is a part. But it is enough if the children can honestly sing, "Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Memorable Classroom Moments
What will make the lesson memorable? The possibilities are too numerous to list here, but some that top the list: connect the lesson to the child's life, be relational, involve emotional content, know and cater to the students' preferred learning styles, start with things the students know and add on that foundation with new knowledge that makes sense.

Repetition and Review
Moving knowledge from short-term memory to long-term memory is a subject worth tackling on its own and one that I won't try to write about with some personal study (not enough parked in my long-term memory). But repetition and review are tried and trued techniques. Our Growing in Christ lessons include some deliberate review tools and procedures. I wonder how many teachers skip them? The lessons I edit probably do not have enough specific instructions about review lessons from the last week or the weeks before that. That may be an oversight worth correcting. Growing in Christ repeats most Bible accounts on a three-year cycle; a student who is faithful in attendance will study a lesson three or four times in the course of his or her Sunday School career, each time in an age-appropriate way, building on previous knowledge. That review will reap a harvest. All review, however, depends on that faithful attendance. If I review a lesson three times, but the student is present only once, that's not much review.

So, I'm bold to ask:
What do you do to make Bible lessons stick?

What more can we do as your publisher to make memorable moments happen in your classroom?

God bless your efforts to teach God's children His Word!

Improving Biblical Literacy

Following up on my last post, I just composed a response for a pastor whose congregation is considering a new model (modified workshop rotation) to increase biblical literacy. Here's what I wrote:
First, let me say that what you suggest is certainly possible. There has been, over the past decade a movement in some churches toward what you describe, usually called “workshop rotation,” so called because, when student numbers warrant it, students can be grouped and rotated through two or more workshop, one each week. The “workshop” leader teaches the same lesson in the same style (drama, cooking, crafts, etc) each week to a new group of students. CPH has not produced a “workshop rotation” curriculum. We are leery of the resulting narrow range of Bible accounts that are then studied in a given period of time. We think it requires more than just a few Bible accounts a year to teach the entire sweep of salvation’s plan. That is not to say that I prefer a shallow approach, in which a large number of lessons are taught superficially.

These are my premises:
• You and I, and most of the parents and students in you congregation, probably grew up in a Sunday School that taught a different lesson each Sunday. The lessons repeated every three years or so, and the result was at least a passing acquaintance with a large number of Bible accounts. That pattern is not inherently flawed.
• If Sunday School leaders and teachers spend the same amount on time improving their present system of curriculum, preparation, and teaching that they would spend in reviewing, choosing, and implementing a new system, the resulting improvement will be about the same. It is not the new system that makes the most difference, but the time and energy invested in any system.
• The material in a typical Sunday School curriculum today (and that includes Growing in Christ from CPH) provides enough teaching activities to fill more than an hour in a typical Sunday School. The teacher must pick and choose the activities that will be best for his or her students and focus on them in order to teach the main points effectively, while leaving time at the beginning of each lesson to review the key points of previous lessons, and at the end of the lesson to review the key points of the lesson just taught. The teacher that tries to cover everything in the teacher guide will wind up glossing over the key points, skipping the review, and still feel frustrated every week because “I wasn’t able to cover everything.” The students retain the material, not because the class covered everything, but because the activities that were chosen engaged the students and made connections between the Bible and contemporary life.
• Doing this final edit of any lesson—choosing and revising the activities so that they will engage your specific students—is hard work and requires preparation that too many teachers don’t invest each week.
• The whole process of retention, call it a lack of biblical literacy, is aggravated in our present day by the growing numbers of students who do not attend Sunday School every week. The depth and breadth of their biblical knowledge is not assisted by repeating lessons on multiple weeks, because they miss significant opportunities for learning new material and reviewing past lessons. The real solution is not to teach fewer lessons, but to get students into the classroom more often.

So, I’m not saying that what you propose is not possible; it is. Assuming that you plan carefully and student number to vacillate widely, you could in theory order the lessons you want when they are available and save the material until you need it. A 13-lesson quarter of material might last you for two or even three quarters. But it will be a lot of work figuring out how to extend the material over two or three weeks. You should be prepared for the extra work. And care will be needed to avoid sending the message that a student now only has to attend one week out of two or three since the lessons are repeated, which would result in even less biblical literacy than you currently faced.

I will admit that I am a traditionalist. I think that the traditional Sunday School can still work and thrive in most congregations.

Let me suggest another tool that you might want to promote in your congregation: biblequizzesonline.com. My wife built this Web site several years ago in response to her own concerns for biblical literacy among the students of our congregation. She continues to maintain it each week, providing a 10 question quiz that promotes accountable Bible reading. The Web site provides a way to read (or listen to) the Bible account for each lesson in Growing in Christ, followed by an on-line quiz with immediate feedback on correct and incorrect answers. This is one tool that teachers and families can use to promote biblical literacy.

I’m sorry if my response is not what you hoped for. I’m open to whatever follow-up questions you might have.

If you are looking for a new model for your Sunday School that incorporates a different form of rotation—“site rotation”—you might be aware that CPH is offering a second alternative for Sunday School in Fall 2012: Cross Explorations. This model combines large-group (“Engage”)/small-group (“Explore”) Sunday School with a rotation of sites in series of “Express” sites. You can learn more at http://sites.cph.org/sundayschool/.

Thanks for working hard for your Sunday School, Pastor. God will bless your efforts to teach His children His Word.

Why is biblical literacy important?

If you've followed this blog for very long, you will not be surprised to hear me say that the heart of Sunday School is sharing the Gospel of salvation through Christ with God's children.

Since that is the case, one could wonder why I have been slow to buy into the workshop rotation model of Sunday School.

Workshop Rotation
The workshop rotation model chooses to focus on just a few Bible accounts each year. The selected sections of Scripture are taught through several workshops (drama, video, art/crafts, cooking, and many others). Children attend a different workshop each week and study the same Bible account for three, four, or five weeks in a row. There are some significant positive aspects to this model. Repetition is a powerful teaching tool; students are likely to learn the Bible account and its application to their lives well through the month of instruction. Variety in learning styles are accommodated in the different workshops. A student who must miss an occasional week of Sunday School will not miss an entire lesson. Assuming that Law and Gospel are applied in each workshop and that the Gospel predominates in the instruction, I can certainly affirm this model.

Biblical Literacy
The workshop rotation model offers depth in biblical instruction. What it lacks is breadth. The students will encounter only ten or twelve Bible stories a year. This compares to the potential for learning forty or fifty Bible stories a year in a more traditional model.

The Bible is a library of books that together recount the amazing record of God's creation and preservation of a chosen people through whom and to whom He sends His Son, Jesus, as the Messiah, the Savior from sin, death, and Satan and the giver of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Students who learn the full scope of salvation history over time will be better able to understand and connect the various accounts in the Bible and find application to their lives. They will see God's love through a broader array of varied Gospel images. And, assuming that Law and Gospel are applied in each lesson and that the Gospel predominates in the instruction, the broader approach will provide both proclamation of the Gospel and increased biblical literacy.

From my perspective, it is a better way to teach God's children His Word.

What am I missing?

What approach do you take in your congregation?