Clearing Stuff Out

We are planning to do renovations at the church this fall, which means no Sunday School. This week, in preparation for whenever the renos start, we cleared out the Sunday School rooms. It only took one morning, and was faster than we thought to get everything sorted, packed, and hauled out to the van. One of the teachers is going to store it all at her house.

In the process, we found:

• curriculum that had never been used
• other curriculum books that we do use
• still more curriculum that belongs to another ministry
• many pencil crayons
• so many erasers
• a very nice pen
• another assortment of pens
• crayons
• crayon bits
• more pencil crayons
• registration forms from 2014
• several pack of goggly eyes
• a VBS kit that came from who-knows-where and included a VHS tape
• piles of photocopies for worksheets that we no longer use
• seriously, where do all these pencil crayons come from?
• multiple pairs of scissors

In short, I am never listening to teachers again when they insist that they need more materials. What we need is to look closely at what we already have!

I told the elder who does the shopping for me to check if I ever again order pencil crayons, crayons, or erasers.

Anyway, that's done. Fall will be strange without Sunday School, but I'm thankful for the renos because they mean more room for Sunday School. I'm also thankful for a year to rest and revamp our program. It's good, but with the influx of children over the past few years, we need to make sure we're serving them well. We also need to go over all the curriculum, making adjustments and making sure we're ready to start strong next fall.

The Last Sunday

Yesterday was the last Sunday School for the year. It was a wild year; we had some illnesses go through in February, making things more complicated. Then a wee, sweet, very early baby came in March, leaving us short two teachers as his parents were more focused on him than on the students (go figure!). But we all survived, 33 weeks of teaching, and now we get a break!

This year I taught my kids theology, focusing on Bibliology and Theology Proper, with some Christology and Pneumatology thrown in. We covered everything I could fit into the time we had and looked up piles of Scripture references. We also had 2 missionary weeks, taught by my helpers.

The kids did a good job on their memory work this year. They got a prize for every 10 verses, for a potential total of 3 prizes. Most of my class received at least one prize, and 9/15 received all 3 (and to be fair, 2 of them stopped attending part way through the year, so really it's 9/13). I was very pleased with them.

The last week is always more relaxed. Some teachers do a short lesson, most of us do review or trivia, and everyone has snacks. 

My class of 11 and 12 year olds had some excellent cupcakes and some acceptable juice boxes. There was a rousing game of Bible trivia, followed by ocean trivia because we had time and it was the first box I grabbed. The Bible trivia winners had first choice of a pile of treats; for ocean trivia, answering a question correctly and first meant I threw a candy at you. I did eventually make most of the class stop answering so the quieter students had a chance for prizes! We ended with me throwing the remaining candy at them and the wild scramble. According to one student, that was his favourite part, completely overshadowing the 32 hours and 45 minutes of Sunday School leading up to it!

And now it's summer, and we all get a break. I'm resting for three weeks, and then I'll start to think about next year.

Another Young Teacher

Another one of my former students has joined the ranks of Sunday School teachers. Officially, he's a helper as he was unsure about teaching this year. I spent the summer trying to recruit him (while the music leader was also trying to recruit him); I was sure, from teaching him, that he had the makings of a good teacher. He learns well, thinks well, and communicates well.

For most of the year, he's been taking care of the attendance chart, keeping score during quizzes, helping children find Scripture passages, and once or twice getting things started when I was called away to deal with various Sunday School issues.

In April, I brought up the final missionary lesson of the year. I gave him and the other helper the option of teaching it if they wanted to; otherwise, I would make it a homework lesson. My young helper said that he wanted to teach, and I was very pleased.

He taught this past Sunday and did an excellent job. He was clear, engaging, and linked ideas from the life of Adoniram Judson to what we've been studying. With more practice, he's going to be an excellent teacher.

That gives me 4 young men and 2 young ladies who were in my Sunday School class once upon a time and who are now involved in teaching Sunday School. I'm quite pleased that the next generation is stepping up. 

Spring Fever

Spring fever has struck Sunday School!

The little ones have been excessively chatty. One wee girl who hadn't said a word to her teacher all year has suddenly found her voice and become rather voracious.

Many of them have become more forgetful and can't remember the lesson by the end of the hour. This is probably in part because of the constant interruptions from children who have something very important (and irrelevant) to say.

One young student took up whistling during the lesson. 

Even the older kids are affected. They seem to be forgetting how to think. We read a verse, ask them about the verse, and they have either forgotten what they just read or heard, give an answer that has nothing to do with the verse, or just read random words from the verse.

We spent the entire hour talking about glorifying God, and they took turns reading a verse (or a couple verses) followed by the question "How do we glorify God in this verse?" Many students answered some version of "worship Him" regardless of what the verse said and had to be prompted to look at the verse.

The 12th student read 1 Peter 4:10-11: "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

When asked how we glorify God in this passage, she did not say "worship Him". No, she tried "the manifold grace".

Three more weeks until we break for the summer. We can do this!

Sunday School

The Sunday School curriculum I'm writing does 5 lessons, then a review, in the hopes that they'll remember something. Each review focuses primarily on what they've learned in the past 5 lessons, along with some general questions, and then some sword drills also focused the past few weeks. For everything after the first review week, I also include some "if you have time" questions at the end from previous review weeks.

We have fun on review weeks. The whole thing is set up as a quiz with different teams trying to win the great prize of having won (the competition and glory of winning are enough for them). Some of the questions have one answer, some have multiple answers and more than one team can get points, and some of them are done as hangman or fill-in-the-blank.

Yesterday was a review day in Sunday School. We had a lot of fun and there was a lot of laughter, especially when they were trying to name everything that proved Jesus was human in their attempt to get the ones on my list ("He had birthdays parties and presents and went to the bathroom!") They remembered most of what we learned over the past five weeks and some of what they learned before then.

At the end, I was going to tell them what the next week's lesson would be and realized that I had no idea! I've been trying to finish the full year's curriculum before I get busy again next week (barring interruptions, it should be done within 2 day). I could tell them what we're doing in May, since that's what I was working on last week, but that was it!

After a bit of thought, I told them I was pretty sure we were starting name of God. I checked when I got home and I was correct! 

Sunday School

I've been working on a curriculum for Sunday School on theology/doctrine. This is the first year, so our focus was first on bibliology, to lay down the basics of where we get our authority, then theology proper. Over the past few weeks, we've talked about the existence of God, the Trinity, and the hypostatic union. Next week is about the Holy Spirit: He is God, and He is not an impersonal force.

I'm enjoying writing the lessons and digging deeper into doctrine and Scripture. I have three main resources: Biblical Doctrine by John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue; Reformed Systematic Theology by Joel Beeke, and Basic Christian Doctrines by Curt Daniel. I also have piles of old lessons that I've developed over the years that sometimes overlap with what I'm writing.

It's a pile of work, but a lot of fun, both writing lessons and teaching the kids. This week I asked them how we would prove that Jesus is fully God and fully man, and they answered, "By looking up a lot of verses in the Bible!" That pretty sums up what we're doing!

The goal is to have a 4-year program, taking the children through as much Biblical doctrine as we can teach in 4 years. There is so much I have to leave out, partly because of time limits, and partly because they're children and not quite ready for everything I could throw at them.

My main concern is that I'll enable a generation of Pharisees who have knowledge without faith, or zeal without knowledge. I don't want to raise a group of children who know all the right answers and can argue theology, but who don't know God Himself. 

My biggest goal is to teach them to know God and to desire to know Him more. It's a lot, but it is my prayer for them. 

Well, It's Something

Sunday School started again yesterday, after a 4-week break. 

My current curriculum is set up so we teach 5 lessons, and then do a review lesson. The review lessons are in a quiz format, and I break the kids into teams. The questions sometimes have a single answer, so only the team who is "up" answers; sometimes have many answers, and we go around the room with the teams taking turns getting as many answers as possible; and are sometimes turned into hangman, where each team takes turns picking a letter and guessing the answer.

Yesterday was a review week and I wasn't sure how much they would remember after the break. They did pretty well. Their main retention, though, was saved for my lesson on how to best guess letters for hangman from the last review week! They did much better this time; the man was never in danger of being hanged.

At least I have evidence that they listen to me! 

Sunday School!

Yesterday was the first week of Sunday School for the year. I had many, many things to accomplish to be ready, and by Friday I had finished my list and felt ready for the first week. 

Sweet, optimistic me. No one is ever quite ready for the first week. The service went long and then there was a very important announcement, and then there were 12 minutes before Sunday School started (instead of the 25-30 that I normally have). Any other Sunday it wouldn't matter, but this was the first week with all its craziness.

I had emailed the class lists to parents. I had sent a second email with some reminders and pointing them back to the first email. I still had children unsure of where they belonged, thinking they should be in a different class (adding a new class confused some), and attending the wrong class (because it was chaos and too late for the library class to make its way to the rest of us when they realized they had extra children, so they taught them this week and we'll have things sorted out for next week). 

Things weren't quite ready in the library (they had to find the tables and bring them upstairs). Because time was extra tight, the nursery class wasn't set up (because we have to wait for the babies to be picked up before taking over), so people decided that the class that I told them would be there wasn't actually going to be there and wandered off to look for it.

In the end, everyone ended up in a class and we were able to teach. My class was only about 10 minutes late getting started, which was pretty much normal for the first week. And I love my class. They are, for the most part, lively and inquisitive and willing to participate in discussions. 

The first week is done and the rest of the year is going to be so much fun!

Teaching Children

When I was working on my masters degree in Biblical Studies, one of the advisors was helping me decide on electives when he used the words "You'll just be teaching women and children." 

No. Absolutely not. I am not "just teaching women and children". I am teaching women and children. This is not a lesser ministry than teaching men. Yes, it's not at the same level as the pulpit ministry, but it's not somehow less important than every other ministry in the church.

Mostly I teach children, so that's probably a level under teaching women. After all, it's mostly just child care with some nice little Bible stories and games and crafts and cute songs, right? 

I am so thankful for a church where Scripture is so important and is part of every ministry. Our women's study is on year 2 of an in-depth study of 1 Corinthians and the women are in the word weekly. 

The younger half of the Sunday School program are learning Bible stories so they know what is in the Bible while getting to know about the God of the Bible. The older years are building on that and learning about salvation and sanctification. I've started creating a new curriculum that goes through biblical doctrine and teaches the children to know Scripture more fully.

Teaching children is a huge responsibility. They don't have as many critical thinking skills and can't go to the Bible to see if what we say is true (some of them can't read yet). Everything we teach them needs to be backed by Scripture and we need to make sure we're clear and precise. 

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility. I have 114 children under my care this year (I don't teach them all, but I do oversee the Sunday School program). We're helping raise the next generation of godly men and women who will then help raise the next generation....all the way until Christ returns. They need to know God and His word so well that they can stand firm for the truth, boldly, courageously, in the face of opposition.

No, I am not "just" teaching children. I am teaching children. 

Curriculum

It is July, so it is time to think about Sunday School curriculum! I continue to be very picky about what we teach and to have issues with every single curriculum I can find, even the good ones. I always want something more or different or better.

This year the plan is to rearrange our current curriculum somewhat. One program (for the 4-7 year old gang) will be reduced in parts, combined in places, and expanded in the final year. We're turning a 3-year curriculum into a 4-year curriculum that meets our needs better. And to be clear, this is a very good program; it's just not entirely right for what I want. The other program (for the 8-10 year old group, which is actually only two classes until we have more room) will be adjusted as well to make things flow more smoothly. And I will be starting on a whole new curriculum for the upper half of Sunday School, trialing it with my 10 and 11 year old class.

And even the new curriculum that I'm writing myself won't be perfect, but it should meet our needs better. Also, once it's done, we won't have to pay licensing fees, and that's always nice.

Sunday School

Another year of Sunday School has come to an end. It was a good year and we go Christian to the Celestial City by the second last week.

I am pleased by how much my children remember of The Pilgrim's Progress. The boys were over last week (the girls will have their party this week) and we watched a truly terrible version of the book. They were able to notice not just the big changes but even the little ones, such as Christian and Faithful being caught in the Flatter's snare much too early; in fact, they knew it should be Christian and Hopeful. Then yesterday we did a quiz about the book and they were pretty good at remembering details. They also know that John Bunyan was born in 1628.

We ended the year with the quiz, cupcakes, juice boxes, trivia games, and mini chocolate bars. It was a good celebration!

Now I'm on break for a bit before I start to plan next year!

It's an Allegory!

All year I have been trying to explain "allegory" to my Sunday School kids as we read The Pilgrim's Progress together. All year we've been working on "no, you probably won't literally meet Apollyon/get locked in a dungeon/go to Vanity Fair/whatever is happening". So far they seem to get it fairly well and can see the meanings behind the allegory.

And yet they are convinced that Christian and Faithful have to drown in the river because they have to die before they get to the Celestial City.

On Sunday Christian and Faithful will cross the river. My job will be to make the kids see that the river itself represents death, no matter how you actually die, and yes the characters are dead even though they didn't die in the river.

Also, no matter what happened in the movie, Christian and Faithful will not meet Apollyon in the river. I am gaining a deep dislike of that particular version of the story.

Sunday may be a challenge.

The Pilgrim's Progress

I've been reading The Pilgrim's Progress to my Sunday School class this year. Someone gave me a curriculum that I can use with them, complete with vocabulary and worksheets. We've been enjoying it, but they have found the 17th Century English a bit much (although they like some of the new words).

Yesterday I finally broke down and started reading to them from a slightly updated version. It's the only one that I approve of so far as it only updates a bit of the language and sentence structure. Much of the very good vocabulary stays, but there's a remarkable lack of "whither" and "goest" and "wherefore" in it. The children were happy and focused better than they had been; while it wasn't that different, it was enough that they thought it was much, much easier to understand.

I only had one complaint. We were up to Faithful's trial in Vanity Fair. In the original, one of the witnesses was called Pickthank, which means someone who flatters. In the new version, his name was updated to Flatterer. While it means the same, Pickthank is a much better name. One of the kids even said that he preferred it to Flatterer. I fixed it as I read, in part because the worksheets used Pickthank.

Overall, it was successful and I've decided to keep with the easier version. They've heard enough of the original to at least be introduced to the language.

My approved text is this one: https://www.crossway.org/books/the-pilgrims-progress-cob/ It seems to be very faithful to the original, it doesn't dumb things down, and it has great illustrations.

Sunday School

Yesterday one of my younglings suggested that I could go teach another class and Pastor James could come in and preach for them. I confirmed that he was not suggesting a one time substitution; no, he was ready to replace me with Pastor James!

I considered being offended, but I was laughing at how calmly he suggested the change! Also, I was thankful that we have pastors who take time for the children rather than focusing only on adults as the important people. I have seen Pastor James (and sometimes the others) talking with the youngsters who have very important things to tell him and sometimes pictures that they have drawn for him. He's very patient with them and interested in all they have to say.

Side note, the rest of the class was willing to keep me around!

Anyway, I explained to my young student that Pastor James already preaches twice on Sunday and he would not be able to teach Sunday School as well. I did tell him that I would ask Pastor James if he would like to teach, or at least visit, one Sunday when he isn't preaching.

He seemed to be okay with the possibility of a visit from Pastor James and that he's stuck with me!

Accidentally Training the Children to be Early

My Sunday School room is set up with two rows of tables facing the front and a table along the side. For reasons I still don't understand, there is a group of boys who love the side table. As soon as first service ends, they rush into the room and toss their Bible's on the table to save their spot, then run off the play or whatever until it's time for the class to start. (First service ends at around 10:30 and Sunday School starts at 11:00.)

I have told them that if they're not back in time for Sunday School to start, I'll move their Bibles and let someone else sit there. I have on other occasions threatened to mix up the boys and girls if they don't behave.

Totally unrelated to the children: I am trying to get the teachers to understand that 10 minutes early is on time. We need to be in the classroom to greet the children and be ready to teach. Because I need to keep an eye on everything, I get to the class early to get ready and then go and check on the other rooms and deal with other issues, so I count on my helpers to be there to make sure the children are settled if I don't get back until closer to start time. I tell them often enough that 10 minutes early is on time.

I've noticed the boys getting there earlier in the past couple weeks; yesterday, they were talking outside the door and when they saw me coming down the hall, they shot into the room and were seated by the time I got there.

One boy's sister told me what is going on. While my teachers are still sometimes late, the boys have taken "10 minutes early is on time" to mean that they have to be in the room 10 minutes early or I'll probably make them sit with the girls.

I'm trying to decide whether to tell them that they don't have to be there quite so early, or enjoy having most of the students settled and ready to go when I get back!

Sunday School

A new year of Sunday School started last week. Things seemed to have gone well for the first two weeks; there were a couple changes to be made (some of the 4-year-olds weren't quite ready for Sunday School after all, so I moved some people around and fit in everyone on the wait list), but overall it went smoothly.

I'm teaching my children The Pilgrim's Progress this year. Someone gave me a curriculum that breaks it up nicely into sections to read to them with worksheets already prepared. Each chapter also includes vocabulary, very useful since it's in the original 17th Century English. The children have enjoyed learning about having a surly carriage and deriding people. 

It's a bit of a change. For the past several years I've written my own curriculum. Even when I reused material, I was always updating, changing, and trying to improve it. Having it all here in front of me is nice. To prepare, I just have to read it over, go over the Scripture verses, and go through the worksheet pages. There's still work, but much less of it.

Also, I love The Pilgrim's Progress and I'm delighted to be sharing it with the kids.

Scheduling Woes

I thought, when I left my last job, I'd be done with scheduling issues. Back then it was parents who did not send in their summer and/or fall registrations on time and then were upset if I couldn't get them in on their preferred days and times. Or who set up times but then changed them. And changed them again. And again. Oh, and this one more thing came up. And then there were teachers who were definitely available on certain days until suddenly, with little or no notice, were not.

At my current job, for the most part, the scheduling is easy. Most of the parents at my current job are flexible enough and my schedule is flexible enough that we can set up meetings. They're pretty good at responding to emails and the only glitches comes when someone gets sick. It's much easier.

Sunday School has given me new scheduling issues. These ones aren't related to time but to classes. After registration day I sorted and organized and figured out how to make the classes work and to fit in all the students.

The next day, I had 3 more requests to register students. One I could accommodate; the others went on the wait list. Then this week there were two families who suddenly can't attend Sunday School. The kids are the wrong age, though, so I was only able to get one of the wait list families into the classes (and that by putting their older child in the class a year below his age group). And again I wanted to point out to parents that they should figure out if Sunday School will work for them before they register their children! On the other hand, at least they let me know rather than just not showing up.

I think that there will forever be scheduling woes to deal with; it's just a part of my life now!

Sunday School Time Again

It isn't quite time for Sunday School to start; that will be the middle of September. It is, however, time to get ready for Sunday School. I've been looking over curriculum, ordering supplies, making up prize boxes, and sending email. 

Yesterday was the annual Sunday School Registration. Because there are a lot of children at the church and not enough room for everyone, registration day is a big deal. Registration opens online at 10:00 and there are moms sitting by their computers waiting. Within the first minute, I had 10 emails; within 7 minutes, there were 33 emails. It slowed down after around 10 minutes, with only the occasional email after that. I went through the registration forms, organized the information on my spreadsheets, and tried to figure out classes. After a quick reminder to people, there were a few more emails, and then in the early afternoon I closed registration.

We have 90 students from around 40 families registered this year. There are 7 classes of between 9 and 16 students each (depending on the class and the size of the room). 

Now it's time for teacher meetings, handing out class lists and supplies, making sure everyone is good to go, and more emails.

Only 24 days until Sunday School starts for the year. 

On Researching Sunday School Curriculum

 I have been doing a lot of research into Sunday School curriculums lately, mostly to ensure that we are using the best I can find for my students. I have plan for their time in Sunday School and want to cover things in an orderly manner. 

There were some curriculums that I didn't bother with, not because they were bad, but just because they weren't what we needed. I have a curriculum for the first 4 years that covers the narrative parts of the Old and New Testaments, giving them a broad overview of the Bible and how God has worked. For the older students, I wanted something that would allow them to dig deeper into Scripture and that would focus in on specific areas. For that reason, I skipped over anything that was basically just Bible stories.

At the same time, I came up with a short list of things that will make me completely reject a Sunday School curriculum:

1. Bad theology (that should be a given)
2. "The Netflix of Sunday School"
3. Bad names, including “Harvest Kids Now” and “Kids Kount” (problematic for different reasons)
4. No easy option to see a sample of the curriculum (either no option at all or the need to give them too much information so they can put me on a mailing list). Also, no outline, scope/sequence chart, or anything that lets me check out the curriculum. If I can't see what I would be teaching, I won't even consider it.
5. Focusing too much on "fun" rather than learning (News Flash: Children can learn from simple, straight forward lessons taught by teachers who love what they are teaching and who love the children; while extras are fun, they should be an add-on once in a while, not a key part of the teaching.)
1. Too much superfluous “extra” that has to be waded through (5 pages of fun activities with puppets, drama, object lessons, and video clips and only 2 pages of exploring Scripture)
2. The idea that we have to gain their interest in the lesson through slightly related activities before we can start to teach them
3. “Creative gizmos help your volunteers teach like Jesus"
4. The option to have them watch the Bible story on DVD
6. No worksheets/activity pages/anything children can do to reinforce the lesson and take home so their parents can see what they are learning.

Obviously not all of these are equally bad; some are just opinions (especially point 4 and 6). Part of my problem with the other points (aside from bad theology; that's just plain wrong) is that it makes Sunday School less serious and less important than the studies that adults do. Our focus in Sunday School, just as in all the ministries of the church, is Scripture. And yes, we have fun while we do it, but if my focus is on making the lessons fun and easy with creative gizmos and puppets, then the children will find the rest of church boring. If our focus is on Scripture and worshiping God together, then they will find that the rest of church is not that different and they'll grow more naturally into the adult studies.

Teaching about Zwingli

It's another Reformation lesson in Sunday School this week. I'm teaching them about Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation. Zwingli is interesting: he was only involved in the Reformation for around 12 years, and he was only 47 when he died. He had a huge influence as a leader of the Swiss Reformation in a short period of time.

The interesting things that will come up in my teaching:

1. The disagreement between Luther and Zwingli about Lord's Supper, in which we will side with Zwingli and learn that no one (not even Martin Luther) is perfect. We may also discuss the issue of when to divide over an issue (since they agreed on the other 14 points).

2. The Swiss war between the Protestants and the Catholics, in which Zwingli was a soldier (although likely a chaplain). In this one, we may end up in a discussion about whether Christians can go to war, which is always interesting (although in reviewing my current class, I don't know that anyone is going to be as opposed to the idea as some students were when I taught it some years ago).

I like the Reformation weeks.