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.

Stewardship of the Gospel

I occasionally hear from Sunday School leaders and other Christian educators that they are looking for reproducible or "download it yourself and print it from your home computer" resources as a matter of good stewardship. Attendance varies so greatly from session to session, that they cannot accurately estimate the amount of pre-printed student material to purchase.

Here is what I wrote recently to a VBS director:
         'Let me step up on my soap box for a moment. I want you to be a good steward with your church’s financial resources. But even more, I want you to be a good steward with the Church’s Gospel message. Consider what you give up when you sacrifice “the official LCMS program” for sake of dollars: CPH is the only publisher who guarantees that your VBS will teach God’s Word clearly and fully from a Lutheran perspective without the false teachings of moralism (you can be good by your own power), synergism (you help God by cooperating in your salvation), or decision theology (you find and choose God). CPH is the only publisher who submits their material for an independent doctrinal review by LCMS theologians. I assume sharing the Gospel is the reason your church goes to all the work of preparing a VBS in the first place.'

Jesus, in Matthew 25:14-30, commends those stewards who put their master's treasure to work and condemns the one who guards the master's money and gains nothing with it. Since we know that Jesus is not teaching a course on financial management, we must consider: Is it good stewardship to save money and sacrifice theology?

But what about that "wasted" student material? You can:

• negotiate a better return policy with your supplier or publisher
• send the unused material by mail to the student who otherwise would have used it (with a sincere invitation to use the material in person next week)
• offer it to a local mission congregation
• in larger congregations where more than one class uses the same student leaflets, store the leaflets in a common area rather than in the classroom and distribute them at the end of opening, or simply make sure teachers know to ask and share; don't let leaflets sit unused in one classroom, while also classroom runs short

Exercise good stewardship of the Gospel, not just good financial stewardship. God promises to bless you as you teach His children His Word!

Sunday School and the Family

The Bible assigns parents the responsibility for the spiritual nurture of their children (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Ephesians 6:4). I can envision a world where parents taught God's Word to their children from their earliest days with such dedication and consistency that Sunday School lessons were unnecessary. That's not the world I see, however.

Instead, I find that families today benefit from age-appropriate Christian education for their children. Call me old-fashioned, but I suspect that the tradition of "graded" (that is "separated into grades") Sunday School classes and intergenerational (all ages together) worship that has served our church body for a century or more did not come about by accident. It is a good thing.

A speaker at the recent conference of the National Association of [LCMS] DCEs applauded the "new" pattern in a large SoCal non-denominational megachurch of once a quarter having all age groups set aside their age-segregated worship in order to worship together. (I was disappointed that she didn't know her audience better.) And I've seen congregations, and at one time served one, where at least occasionally all ages would join together for intergenerational Sunday School experiences.

I think intergenerational Sunday School lessons can be wonderful, but I know they take a lot of work; they are not very common; and I don't get very many requests for material to serve that model. I think the traditional Sunday School has relevance and purpose.

But I would encourage you to think about how your church supports families in their role as the primary teachers of the faith.

What resources do you provide so that parents can do their job well? (Such as the Story Bible or My Devotions)

How clearly do you articulate the expectation that parents will teach their children about the Christian faith at home?

What training do you provide to assist parents in this responsibility? What more could you do?

God's blessings as you teach parents to teach God's Word to His children!

Orthodox

Orthodox: conforming to established doctrine especially in religion

Heterodox: contrary to or different from an acknowledged standard, a traditional form, or an established religion

Should orthodoxy be a benchmark for your Sunday School? Orthodox material? Training for your teachers? It make sense to me that what is taught in our Christian education agencies should be congruent with our beliefs. How else will the faith be accurately taught? For example, if the material we use omit the correct teaching on Baptism, how will the children we teach know of its importance and its power? If the material we teach is at its root moralistic, what prevents the children we teach from believing that they have the power in themselves to be good Christians who please God by their righteous living?

What constitutes orthodoxy for Sunday Schools in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod? A great question and fodder, perhaps, for another post.

Who has the responsibility in your congregation to make sure that orthodox material and doctrine are taught? The pastor accepts this responsibility when he is called to the congregation. He is free, of course, to delegate this responsibility, or to share it with others, but a system where individual teachers can teach "whatever they want" does not seem likely to contribute to orthodoxy.

I pray that this concern is not brushed off by those who find it intrusive. Some may suppose that my first or even only concern is selling the curriculum that I believe is orthodox. Rather, I strive for the goal that I hope you share: that every student hear the Good News of God's grace and love in Christ Jesus every Sunday and grow in faith in Him.

God bless you as you teach God's 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!

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.

Immanuel, God with Us

On this Eighth Day of Christmas, it's worth remembering that God is still Immanuel, "God with us."

Yes, He is with us "in the broad sense," a spiritual/Spiritual sense suggested by Luke 1:28 or perhaps Matthew 28:20.

But He is more specifically with us "in the narrow sense," in the Means of Grace, in the Word He has given us, the Holy Scriptures and the "Word made flesh," and in the Sacrament of the Altar where Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine.

We (and the children we teach) cannot see or touch the Spirit or the spiritual Jesus, but we can hold the Word in our hands as we teach, knowing that it comes from God Himself. We taste and see the elements of the Lord's Supper knowing that by God's Word "this is My body . . . blood."

Jesus is "God with us" in Word and Sacrament, in each Divine Service, in each Sunday School lesson. That's a powerful promise from Immanuel!

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