When Was the Last Time?

When was the last time you heard the pastor say to your congregation (or, Pastor, when was the last time you said to your congregation), "Sunday School is an important tool for teaching your children more about Jesus"? Or "Sunday morning Bible class is an important tool for equipping yourself to live as God's person in the world and an important example to your children about the value of life-long Christian education."

The pastor is your congregation's single most influential advocate for a strong Sunday School. It is worth encouraging him to speak up, regularly, often, about Sunday School.

God bless your congregation as it teaches God's children His Word!

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!

Everyday Faith Family Pages---A Free Resource

Are you looking for ways to help families connect to God's Word? Check out this free weekly resource from CPH: Everyday Faith Family Pages. (Click the title to go find these downloadable PDFs.) Pages for the current unit for Growing in Christ, New Testament 1, are located at the bottom of the page.

Each page is designed to engage parents and families in concepts related to that week's Sunday School lesson. They are organized to match our Concordia Sunday School scope and sequence, but they can be used in any congregation with any family. They don't rely on Sunday School content, and they don't assume Sunday School attendance. You can print and distribute these pages to students as a take-home resource, or you can attach them to a email to every family. Use these pages to . . .

• Inform parents of what their children are learning in Sunday School.
• Stimulate faith discussions in the home.
• Encourage families that don't currently attend Sunday School.

Try this resource today! Your families will be glad you did.

Thanks for teaching God's children His Word!

Time for a Census?

Once every ten years, our nation undertakes a census, a count of citizens and an investigation into who they are, what characteristics they exhibit.

Once a year, your Sunday School should also undertake a census. List by name all the children of Sunday School age who are baptized members of your congregation. Then note, to the best of your ability, what characteristics they exhibit.

• Do they attend Sunday School? How frequently?
• Do their parents attend Bible class?
• What other church connections do they have? Worship? Day School attendance? Participation in choir? Other activities?
• Who are their friends within the congregation?
• What challenging circumstances do they face?

What value is there in such a list?

• It is a prayer list. Pray for each family and child, personally and corporately.
• It may suggest social connections that could encourage more frequent attendance.
• It can be a source of incremental improvement. The Smiths have never been to Sunday School; what entry level event might attract them? The Jones attend only once in a while; what strategy or incentive might help them be more faithful? The Roberts children sometimes come but their parents are never in Bible class; what class might appeal to them?
• It can be a aid to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's a plan that has been used before! "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration . . . ." (Luke 2:1-2 ESV)

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

My Car Won't Run! It Must Need New Paint!

Or I could address the real problem. My car may deserve to have its paint job touched up, but a new coat of paint is not going to help it run. Since my car has a specific purpose, which is providing transportation not decoration, I would be better off spending my time and money identifying and fixing the issues that keeps it from running.

"Our Sunday School is losing ground. We must need a new curriculum." Or you could address the real problem. Too many churches would rather focus on stuff that is visible, tangible, and seems easily remedied, than to do the hard work---train the volunteers, educate the parents, fund the mission. Contacting families who are finding other things to do on Sunday morning, building relationships with parents so that your spiritual encouragement does not fall on deaf ears, convincing church council members that Sunday School is worth allocating budgeted funds for. These are not easy tasks. They will require patient effort over a period of weeks, months, and years to accomplish.

But the mission of your Sunday School, to share the Gospel with the children and adults of your church and community, is truly worth the effort. And how much more beneficial it will be in the long run if you focus on finding and fixing the real issues behind low Sunday School attendance.

Unless, of course, your curriculum truly is the problem---the real reason (not the excuse) that families are not attending. If your curriculum fails to teach God's Word of both Law and Gospel, if it ignores the Sacraments God has provided for our spiritual nurture, if it seeks to entertain rather than instruct, perhaps it is time for a new coat of paint.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!

To Us a Child Is Born!

Merry Christmas! Thanks for teaching God's children His Word!

 

(Hear a sample of this wonderful Christmas song by Jacob and Rachael Weber here.)

What's the Hurry for Christmas?

The world will be done with Christmas on December 26th, delaying only long enough to put Christmas on sale for half-price. But what's the rush? In early times, Christmas was celebrated not just on December 25th, but for twelve more days after ("On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . ."). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Christmas is celebrated on January 6th, the date when the Church marks the visit of the Magi.

So don't get impatient with the Growing in Christ and Cross Explorations Sunday School materials from CPH, when you don't get to the Nativity lesson until the middle of January, and that Epiphany lesson is delayed almost into February! There is a lot to bless children with in the accounts that lead up to and follow Jesus' birthday. Tell your students to enjoy the Church's celebrations of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany as they come, and promise them that that Christmas lesson in Sunday School is coming!

For wonderful explanations about the importance of the several lessons before the Christmas one, I hope you listen to Pastor Tom Baker's exposition each week in the Seeds of Faith podcasts, produced by Issues, Etc. They provide 30 minutes of background on the biblical text, and they can be downloaded for listening on the go.

God bless you as you teach His children His Word!