One of the Hebrew (causative) words for ‘to
teach’ in the Bible is LAMAD and it means to cause to learn. Whether child
or adult, that’s what our goal is when leading or facilitating a Bible study.
We want to cause people to learn something new or challenge them in some way so
that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, their faith grows or deepens. There are
four areas people (children and adults) change or grow through education (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung,
2011):
- skills (they learn how to do something new)
- behavior (they choose to do something
differently)
- knowledge (they have more information to apply to
their lives)
- attitude (they come away a changed person).
Education is a vital part of God’s church as we
are told in the Great Commission to baptize and teach (Matthew 28:16-20). Parents
are to teach their children as they sit in their homes, or as they go by their
way, when they lie down and when they rise up (Deuteronomy 6:7). Before there
were books or Sunday School lessons, every parent was to tell the story of
their people, our people. It’s the story of a God who never turns away. As Russ
Ramsey describes it in Behold the Lamb of God (2011),
“It
is a story of evil against good, of darkness locked in an epic struggle to
snuff out the light forever. It is a tale filled with people in trouble, all
living somewhere between wandering and homecoming, between devastation and
restoration, between transgression and grace. Every mortal character in the
story needs rescue, but they have all turned aside, and together they have
become corrupt. After clearing away all the levels of intrigue, conflict, and
suspense facing mankind, this story is a story of divine love. It is a story of
the one true God calling a people his beloved, though they’ve lived in
perpetual rebellion against him. Though their lives were a ruin of their own
making, God swore a covenant oath to redeem them. Everything wrong with the
world he would put right. He would remove their hearts of stone and give them
hearts of flesh, putting a new spirit within them. And he would never, ever
stop loving them.”
This is the story we are to pass down to our
children so they can pass it down to their children.
To help parents pass down this story of salvation,
congregations developed Sunday school programs, youth groups, opportunities for
adult Bible study, etc. How can people share this story or parents pass the
story down to their children if they do not know or understand it? They are
their child’s greatest influence and the cornerstone of a faithful home.
In a recent education insert for the LCMS Reporter,
a study by the Institute for Religious Education at Concordia University,
Nebraska stated that pastors report spending 23% of their time working on the
educational ministries of the congregation. The same insert also challenged
congregations to focus on lifelong learning and gave a list of the types of
practices that “healthy” congregations exhibit (June, 2015). While these are
all good things, the question is, if pastors are not trained educators and are
not trained regarding education in the seminary, how are they to train the
parents? How are they to train their volunteer teachers?
This book has been written for two
simple reasons, the first being that most Sunday School teachers receive little
or no training. It is not that they are not provided a curriculum. It is not
that they are unfamiliar with Bible stories. It is that nobody really knows how
to equip them. Pastors and other church professionals can be very helpful in
providing background information about the Bible, history, or topics to be
covered, but how does the volunteer translate that information to the
appropriate age level? Sometimes teachers are given opportunities to go through
the curriculum and ask questions, but for the most part, volunteers don’t know
what they don’t know about educating the age group they teach, so they don’t
know what questions to ask. They also often struggle with discipline at different
developmental levels. One certainly doesn’t discipline a sixth grader the same
way they discipline a first grader. What does one do with a disrespectful seven
year old in the middle of a once-a-week lesson?
The second reason, and the more serious of
the two, is that the purpose of having a building that we call a church is to
have a common place to encourage and equip Christians through sacramental worship
and Bible study in order that we are strengthened and equipped to bless our
families with knowledge of the Bible and the confidence to go out into the
world and live and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order for this to
happen, we must equip those who teach and lead Bible study at any age. What do
they need to know?
Over the years, Sunday School has been
simple education. Teachers follow the curriculum they are given, assuming that
it will be adequate. The questions are:
- Is what
has been done working for children?
- Are
our current methods of teaching adolescents and adults working?
- How
can we more appropriately prepare those who teach them, including our leaders?
- What
is a good teacher of the faith?
The first chapter of this book is about how the
brain develops or matures and learns. Without understanding how we learn as we
mature, we miss out on opportunities to share in ways that people learn best. After
the first chapter the book is broken into five stages of learning or spiritual
development: Narrative, Knowledge,
Understanding, Reason, and Wisdom.
In the Lutheran Church we call spiritual
development teaching the faith. We teach people of all ages what the
Bible says, and why we believe what we believe. Teaching the faith can begin at
any age and can have a profound effect on faith in any number of ways. As
teachers of the faith we may have students in a class who have had years of
exposure to the Bible and those who have never owned or opened one at any age
or in any class. They may have strong faith, but are a little behind in their
spiritual development.
There is a distinction between spiritual
development and faith. As we grow our ability to understand complex issues and
themes grows; we find we can understand some of the deeper meanings in the
Bible and the complexities of theology (the study of and attempt to understand
God). We are able to question and discuss complex and often seemingly contrasting
Biblical and theological issues. Our ability to understand, however, is not
connected to our faith. Faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit that even newborn
babies can have. Ironically, we can have our greatest faith when we are young.
Narrative
is the stage for
children from preschool through second grade. These are the wonderful years
when great stories turn into great learning; when they become a part of the
child’s world view. Young children become familiar with the Bible by learning
its stories and there are a lot of them! It’s not important that they
understand everything about them, it’s not important that they can think deeply
about them, but it’s important that we lay the groundwork and they become
familiar with them. It’s not just God’s story, it’s their story.
Knowledge is the stage for children from third
through fifth grade. It is the time of learning more detailed Biblical facts of
the stories and talking about them, laying the groundwork for advanced study. Children
at this age are seeing a bigger, more complex world and have questions. Who are
the disciples and what was their purpose? Who is Noah and what can we learn
from his story? Where did Paul go on his journeys and what happened to him? They
start asking who God is, why Jesus died for us, and who or what the Holy Spirit
is. Going over the same stories they learned about when in the narrative stage,
students see them as bigger and more complex than they were before and begin to
understand more of the details.
Understanding is the stage of sixth through eighth
grade; the confirmation years. It’s at this stage that we begin to think more
analytically. While still important to know, the facts become less important
than why things happened. Students think more logically and notice when things
don’t make sense to them. Why did God flood the earth? Why were the people so
evil? What does it mean to be righteous? Why does God need us to be holy? Couldn’t
God just make everything okay? The implications of the stories begin to have
much deeper meaning and we want to encourage questions. Students seek to understand
the Bible more fully as it taps into how they feel or think about what they
know about the Bible and the world.
Reason is for ninth through twelfth grades and
college students. It builds on the first three stages, using knowledge and
understanding to really dig deep and try to see how what we know applies
directly to our lives. In high school students begin searching for the truth of
life, which is directly related to the scriptures. A lot is going on in their
bodies and lives at this time as they begin to become independent. They no
longer want to be told what to do, think, or believe. They want to believe it
on their own. They are developing reason and judgment and deciding what is true
or false. The world and a lot of untruth is at their feet, or more accurately,
their fingertips. At this stage allowing them to ask, and answering their
questions becomes very important. How do we do that? How do we ask questions
that will really get them to think? How do we challenge their faith so that
they become comfortable and confident in it?
Wisdom
is the stage of
adulthood. The brain has fully matured, we know the stories, have thought about
them and learned from them and have finally reached the point of wisdom. We’re
done! Not at all. The truly wise know that where faith is concerned, learning
only ends once we are in the presence of the Lord. Only then will we truly
understand. Teaching or learning as an adult, however, is different from when
we were children or teenagers. It is in this stage that we shift from having to
attend Bible study because we are told to by our parents, to wanting to learn. As
He draws us to Him, we have a desire to know more and the only way we can do
that is to dig deeper into scripture.
How do adults learn? What keeps them
coming back? Can how we teach affect their desire to learn more? How does one
create an atmosphere that piques their interest, challenges their comfort in
what they believe, and encourages them to continue coming to learn more? From
the stories we’ve heard our whole lives, as an adult they become infinitely
more fascinating and interesting. How do we equip and encourage people to teach
as if they believe that? These questions are what this book is all about.
So, dear teachers of the faith, whether
you teach five year olds, teenagers, or adults, this book is what you’ve been
hoping for. It will give you confidence that whatever curriculum you have, you
can use it to its fullest. It is time to set aside the dry read-a-story-and-paste-paper-together
lesson and begin something that will be meaningful to each child at every grade
level, from preschool through adult.
Curious? Find the book on Amazon this spring.
For years when I was living in MN we sold bedding plants each spring as a youth fundraiser. It was our best fundraiser great because so many people buy annuals, it's not focused on getting more money from the congregation (a detriment to many small congregations regular giving), and the youth can make as little or as much as the effort they put in. One year I had a girl make over $600 because she not only asked her family, but tons of people in her community. We used Gertens because they always provided good, healthy plants and a lot of choices. Guess what? Gertens has a poinsettia funraiser too! Some people sell Christmas wreaths or other greenery and that is nice, but so many people buy holiday flowers that this is a no-brainer for youth fundraising.
