Reaching Every Child

Does your Sunday School class include any children who are not average? CPH has a new resource for you: Reaching Every Child.

A must-read for everyone involved in Sunday School ministry, Reaching Every Child offers practical help for teaching every child in your Sunday School classroom, regardless of ability, about the love of Jesus Christ.

• Learn what has changed and what has stayed the same in the world of special education.
• Understand the basics of teaching children with exceptional learning needs.
• Get practical tips for the diverse Sunday School classroom.
• Learn more about how to teach children with specific disabilities.
• Find resources that can help you in and out of the classroom.
• Rethink your approach to including every child.

Help! Share Your Thoughts!

CPH is conducting a Sunday School materials survey. It is a multi-path survey for anyone interested in or using any Sunday School curriculum. It is designed to help us measure which components of our curriculum are most used and what new features Sunday School leaders and teachers are seeking.

You can help in two ways!

First, take the survey! Your thoughts will be extremely helpful as we craft the next generation of Sunday School resources her at Concordia Publishing House.

Second, encourage others (your Sunday School teachers, and colleagues and their teachers in other churches) to take the survey as well.

You can access the survey by following the link below. It will be live through June 30.

Please take our Sunday School survey to share how you use Growing in Christ or Cross Explorations, what you like about the curriculum, and what you think could be improved. 

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

God at Work: Changing Lives by Teaching Law and Gospel

(Following up on my last post, check out this new resource from Concordia Publishing House. TN)

YOU can change lives by teaching Law and Gospel!

This collection of 34 articles offers practical direction to help you understand God's Word of Law and Gospel and use it in your teaching, your relationships, and your life. For personal or group use, this book helps you to do the following:

• Learn the difference between Law and Gospel and why every person needs to hear both messages.
• Get better at communicating why we need a Savior, who Jesus is, and what He did for us.
• Teach lessons that move beyond facts to the heart of God and His purpose for our lives.
• Improve your biblical teaching and see it change students' attitudes and behaviors.
• Teach and model repentance, forgiveness, and service to others to show students how to live the Christian life.
• Find out what motivates your students (and you) and engage them.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word.

 

Callahan's Fifth Key to an Effective Church: Strong Leadership

(Back in 2011, I started a series of posts based on Kennon Callahan's 1983 volume, Twelve Keys to an Effective Church. My contention then, and now, is that these keys can be directly applied to your Sunday School in beneficial ways. You can see the first four posts in this series by typing the work "Callahan" into the search line above.)

Callahan calls the first six of his twelve keys "relational keys"; these characteristics impact the connections church and Sunday School participants establish with the church and with one another. He also calls them "satisfiers," things that contribute to the learner's sense of well-being and success.

Strong Leadership Resources
The strength of leadership in the Sunday School is demonstrated in three significant ways.

1. The presence of capable volunteers to lead the institution and to teach in its classrooms.
2. The existence of strategic objectives that guide those leaders.
3. Complementary relationships between the volunteer leaders and the pastors and staff.

Capable Volunteers
I've written before in this blog about the enlistment of volunteers. Let me just say here that ideals leaders are (1) able (that is predisposed by temperament, background, and ability to do the job they are enlisted for), (2) trained (no leader or teacher has all the skills and knowledge necessary from day one; training opportunities suited to the individuals interests, needs, and schedule are vital), and (3) supported (that is, given the tools, appreciation, and feedback that will ensure success).

Strategy
Teachers and leaders benefit immensely when they know the specific goals toward which they should strive. Two or three objectives are better than ten. The best objectives are those that are written, owned (constituents have input as they are formed and are offered a chance to "buy into" them), specific and measurable, and realistic (that is, theoretically possible in the time frame allowed). (Check out the first post in this series to hear more.)

Staff Leadership
The pastors and other staff called to or employed by the congregation are vital to every organization that seeks to be effective in carrying out the church's mission. The Sunday School will succeed only to degree to which the efforts of the staff and volunteers are aligned. It is important then that the pastor know and care about the Sunday School, understand and guide its mission, and support its effort . . . and that the Sunday School leaders and volunteers be aligned with and support the pastor.

Strong leadership does not happen accidentally. If you're reading this blog, you have an interest and at least some influence for Sunday School in your congregation. You can identify an area that needs improving and work, through your resources and relationship, to see it happen.

God bless you in those efforts to see that His children are taught His Word.

What is the best way to involve your pastor in your Sunday School?

How does your congregation enlist leaders and teachers for your Sunday School?

Have You Visited Yet?

I've been fascinated over the past few weeks to "watch" people like you visit our relatively new Sunday School Web site, cph.org/sundayschool. Okay, I can't really watch you literally, but as a tool to facilitate communication with our customers, visitors who download samples of our Growing in Christ or Cross Explorations material leave behind their name and e-mail address.

I can tell that we are in the heart of "it's time to choose our Sunday School curriculum for the fall." Visitors are downloading samples five or six times a day, compared to just two or three times a day last spring when the new Web site was launched.

In addition to viewing samples, there are several other reasons you might want to visit.

• Complete overviews of both curricula
• A handy comparison of the features of each curriculum
• Access to the weekly "Seeds of Faith" podcast, offering Bible background for next week's lesson
• Access to the scope and sequence of lessons
• Access to W5Online, contemporary event openings for junior high and high school classes (offered for the school year only; the next new posting will be on August 23rd)
• Quick order forms

So, check out the new Web site. I'll be watching for your.

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

Going Digital

My Sunday School team is discussing how best to format the next revision of Sunday School material for Concordia Publishing House. This would be for material published for fall 2015 and following quarters. Among our observations are these points:

• Our scope and sequence is pretty solid; we might eliminate a bit of the annual repetition imposed by the Church Year.
• The biblical art created for Growing in Christ and reused in Cross Explorations is a winner.
• The demand for Sunday School material in general continues in a downward trend; many congregations are struggling to maintain their Sunday School in the face of a poor economy and fewer students.
• Advances in digital publishing suggest that we look seriously at how Sunday School material for teachers and students could be provided to congregations digitally.

Digital Sunday School material represents serious challenges. Our Sunday School customers are often late-adopters of technology. A significant part of our financial investment is recovered through sale of student material. For each teacher guide we sell five to ten student sets in our "print model." The financial picture changes radically if we are selling just one digital set of material that is then printed locally. Most of our publishing costs do not go away. The process of developing, writing, editing, and playing out the material in a designed format still remain; only the printing cost are reduced, which is a small part of the total investment.

Digital material also presents several significant advantages. Customers could have some choice in designing their own scope and sequence. Distribution of material to teachers might also be possible electronically.

Do you have time to answer a couple of questions about this possibility?

Would you purchase Sunday School materials as a digital subscription?

What advantages would you look for?

Would you print student material locally in color or black and white?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this thorny issue. Leave me a comment or write me at tom.nummela@cph.org.

God's blessings as you teach His children His Word.

Do No Harm

It is a basic assumption in the moral and ethical systems of many bodies, organizations, and professions (for example, in the Hippocratic oath familiar to many in the medical profession), that we human beings not deliberately harm others. It is implied in the Commandment "Do not kill." And it is worth consideration by those who choose the material to be used in their Sunday School classes individually or as a leader.

Surely we want to "do no harm" to the children, youth, and adults who join us in studying God's Word. We do not want to place in the hands of students or untrained volunteers material that will mislead them or contradict the clear teaching that God gives salvation through faith in the work of Jesus Christ as our Savior from sin.

It always amazes me that some Sunday School leaders, pastors, and directors of Christian education don't get it.

How does your church insure that the material you teach each Sunday "does no harm"?

God's blessings as you teach His children His Word.

Sunday School for the Small Church

What do folks mean when they ask for "Sunday School materials for the small church"?

• Material that works with ultra-small classes?
• Material that works with combined grades?
• Material for all students (preschool through upper grades) in the same room?
• Material for churches with just one or two teachers?
• Material that works in small classrooms, or where classes meet in close proximity without the benefit of walls and doors?
• Material for churches that can't afford copiers?
• Material for churches that can't afford to purchase leaflets?

I wonder at times whether what is really being asked for is material that requires little or no advance preparation and material that costs next to nothing to purchase.

Me? I'm always suspicious of the easy and cheap stuff. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is (too good to be true).

Teaching God's children His Word is often, maybe even always, hard work that requires preparation to be most effective. And material that will make it happen is worth paying for.

What am I missing?

Maybe there is a "leaner and meaner" way to do Sunday School material?

I'd love to hear your ideas.

Would You Rather Have . . . ?

Would you rather have . . .

. . . full color printing for student material or reproducible pages?

. . . material on a CD that you can print or everything accessible on a well-organized Web site?

. . . too much material in the lesson plan the publisher gives you or enough for the average Sunday School class?

Would you pay more for . . .

. . . a teacher guide that included thumbnail images of the student materials?

. . . a teacher guide with half-size student pages with the answer typed in where applicable?

. . . a teacher guide PDF file on a CD or Web site with hyperlinks to student page and teacher tool images, song recordings, relevant Web sites, and other resources.

Your publisher frequently seeks data on questions like these through surveys. We sometimes makes assumptions about how customers would answer these questions. The "answers will vary" to these questions, but in reality the only answers that probably matter very much to you are your own.

So I'm curious!

What kinds of resources would really make sense in your Sunday School?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word.