Lamb Food

By Kevin Crosthwaite

In the Gospel of John, Jesus three times admonishes Peter to "feed my sheep." Theologians suspect the three repeats harken back to Peter's three denials. I think it simply underscores how important it is to build and nourish the worldly flock. All Christian leaders must nourish and grow their respective flocks. However, when facing a group of youth of various ages, this can be daunting. How do you keep their attention? Particularly for modern social media-addicted youth who are so easily BORED. Our solution has been to look for a hook to gain and keep their attention. In that spirit, this book collected the ideas that worked for us. Also, when planning a Sunday school program, you will occasionally need to inspire, encourage, and support other adult leaders. This book is a collection of those stories, along with youth activities and games. While we did use scripture and Bible stories in our programs, the focus of our approach was to draw on examples from nature and popular culture that point to God. Then once you can grab their attention, together you can lead them to a deeper understanding of Scripture while they open new insights to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646702305

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sunday School

Admin, Curricula, Discipline

Program Ideas

Children Stories

Teacher Stories

Organization and Administration

Sunday school is a business—God’s business. Like any regularly occurring function, there needs to be some planning and routine to make things go smoothly. Some of your teachers, students, and parents may be very free spirits, but most will want some structure. Even the most spontaneous people need a cue on when to be spontaneous. Your Sunday school hour is usually set by the minister, the church session, some other board, or just by tradition. Generally, the timing is up for negotiation and occasional review. Our church had two worship services with the Sunday school hour sandwiched in between. Students and teachers could attend either worship service and still be at Sunday school. I thought this arrangement was ideal, but then that is the tradition that I am used to. Some churches offer multiple Sunday school hours that run concurrent with worship. God can work in many and mysterious ways.

There are numerous excellent references on how to organize a Sunday school. Your local Christian bookstore will have a selection; this is an excellent place to start. I will not attempt to recount or plagiarize too much from the books that I have read, but two points need to be addressed. The first deals with organizing the Sunday school into grades; the second refers to classroom size.

For very small churches, you may need groups to have three school grades per class (i.e., first, second, and third.) You will want to have a critical mass of five to ten students in each consolidated class. Curricula are available to support various groupings, although the spread in ages and reading ability can create challenges. There are some advantages to having a broader mix of ages as the older kids can help the younger. As your church grows, you can add more classes and shrink the age spread to two years per class. Curricula will support this, and the narrowed grouping helps with the classroom dynamics. With a two-year age spread per class, some continuity is maintained from year to year as only part of any class graduates. If your class size grows too large to maintain the two-year spread, you may want to reorganize into departments based on age groups with multiple classes per age grouping. One of the benefits of this is that the Sunday school teachers within the same age groups can compare notes and exchange ideas for a better overall lesson plan. You may also divide up the extra energetic and boisterous young lambs.

Another key planning feature is classroom size. Reference books will list an ideal amount of classroom space per student. This is interesting information, but unless you are in the middle of a building project, you are stuck with the facilities that you have. A key point to remember is that classrooms with younger children need more room per student. For the youngest students, you also need room for toys and a play area. In the middle years, space is needed for crafts and skills. For older youth and us sedentary adults, you only need room for a seat at a table. These factors need to be considered when assigning rooms to classes.

A last important administrative detail is the attendance numbers. We keep weekly attendance numbers by class. There are various types of attendance books to log these numbers into. Select one that seems to suit your needs. Consistency in accounting for attendance was always most important to me. If you count teachers and helpers, always count them. Visitors should be counted or not included in the totals the same way throughout the year. Numbers will not make any Sunday school program successful. The Holy Spirit can work just as effectively in a small group as in a large group. Do not confuse numbers with a successful Sunday school program. Nonetheless, the numbers will help you justify expenses to church boards, order materials, plan for events, and determine how many teachers you need. Over the years, you will develop a feel for attendance trends. I have found that the best attendance is usually Palm Sunday (I guess, on Easter, more people are away visiting). When Christmas morning falls on a Sunday, attendance is rather low. Often, we have planned a special joint assembly or activity on those expected lower-attendance mornings because some classes will not have sufficient numbers or teachers to hold a regular class. The numbers provide some such useful insights for your particular church. Possessing this attendance data can also help to provide an impression that the Sunday school program is organized better than it actually is.

Curricula

There are several excellent Christian curricula available. Your own denomination probably has a recommended one. You could select that curricula, material from another denomination, or supplies from non-denominational publication like Scripture Press or Standard Publishing. The most critical factor in selecting curricula from one of these qualified Christian sources is input and feedback from your teachers. Your teachers are the most important part of any Sunday school program. They are all volunteers. Their time and preferences are vital to keep them happy and focused on their students. Some of the curricula have a straightforward story and easy to set up activities or crafts. On the other hand, some curricula—while well-meaning and theologically solid—require much more thought, research, and preparation time before class. For many of even the best teachers, the preparation time often happens Saturday evenings or early Sunday mornings.

I recommend letting individual teachers pick their curricula. One idea is to offer a variety of sample curricula for teachers to browse or take home. This can be done at a summer meeting, prior to the beginning of a new class rotation. Often, your local Christian bookstores will have multiple copies available. My experience has been that they will gladly provide samples free of charge for reviews, particularly if the lessons are leftover from a previous quarter. With each teacher potentially picking different curricula, it becomes difficult to coordinate lessons across the Sunday school program. A method to transcend this challenge is to assign some specific focus areas to each class. We also had success assigning themes and important passages for memorization as a mission for each class. Throughout the year, the teachers can return to these passages and focus areas as time allows. The passages should be selected to be progressive as the students grow through the program. By the time a student has graduated, in addition to numerous individual lessons, they will have focused on a succession of key topics and memorized many important fundamental verses.

This organization of themes and passages chosen for memorization was formalized by our church in a statement of church policy and objectives. This is shown on page 9. The topics and verses listed were carefully chosen to present a sample of essentials of the Christian faith. Different verses or topics are certainly adaptable for your church. You may also want to expand the number and challenge the length of verses to be memorized. I do not believe that there is a single best answer, but I do believe that initiating some level of Sunday school program-wide objectives will provide a constructive, unifying objective for your church.

Some other curricula ideas may work for older youth and adults. One year, after a rather poor attendance for a senior high class using traditional curricula, we elected to try a different option. A specific book, The Bible as History, was selected for the class. The book was organized in several chapters discussing various archeological finds that highlighted different Bible stories. The book offered additional insights and a new perspective of scientific proof that could augment many traditional stories. A teacher was lined up to teach from this book.

The book was not organized and set up for a Sunday school class. There were no lesson helps or prepared leading questions. Preparation for weekly lessons put a premium on the teacher’s ability to develop their own lessons as they go. The benefit comes from the youth’s appreciation of the fact that they have some say in the class and feel their inputs are respected as being equally important to the teacher’s, and that they are not being talked down to. Often, students offer the best insight during the class, putting a premium on the strength of a teacher who can roll with the insights that the students present to enrich the overall classroom experience for all of the students.

A successful aspect of preparation for this class was given through a personal touch by the superintendent. Each of the potential classmates was visited over the summer. The approach for the class was explained. The stated purpose of the trip was to get the student to commit to the class before the church went out to purchase the hardback book (about ten dollars). The combination of the visit, the commitment to the class, the fact that the church had bought each student their own book, and a lot of parental follow-up pressure significantly boosted our senior high attendance that year. Since the books lasted the entire school year, the actual additional cost to the church over the traditional quarterly curricula was not significant. The Bible as History is indeed an excellent book, and I highly recommend it; however, numerous other books on a wide variety of topics are suitable for this approach. Your local Christian bookstore can yield lots of ideas. They may even be able to suggest books that other churches in your area have used successfully.

For our adult classes, we use different approaches. We are fortunate to have three different adult Sunday school classes. One class does straight lectionary Bible study with the Pastor. Another class covers current Christian books on various topics of family, children, spouses, and spiritual living. The other class focuses more on theology. They have covered the various confessions of the churches through the ages. They have also used several Bible study guides from the Kerygma program. Each of these options has much to offer to deepen the students’ faith and understanding. Different approaches appeal to different people at different stages of their lives. Some people prefer a straightforward lecture, while others prefer a more participatory discussion. Having many choices when determining what to study is a true blessing.

One approach that we have tried for adult classes—with some mixed outcomes—is a summer reading program. Typically, our church suspends Sunday school over the summer. For the youth, we offer a variety of camps and vacation Bible schools. For the adult program, we purchase a small group of contemporary Christian books. These books are handed out to participating adults. The intent is that they read the book and write out a few of their thoughts about the book (one paragraph not a whole book report). They are then supposed to deliver the book to another class member to read. This continues throughout the summer. The purpose of the summer reading program is twofold: first, to encourage reading and faithful devotion through our off months and, second, to force some level of fellowship between class members as the books get passed around. Both aspects of the program can yield positive fruit. Also, when the class comes back together in the fall, their reading has created a link to prompt discussion and connection.

Sunday School Policy and Objectives—Marysville First Presbyterian Church

The purpose of this section is to describe our general Sunday school objectives and to specify individual class emphasis areas coordinated to achieve these objectives.

The congregation has established a Sunday school to instruct members in the Christian faith and to pass on Christianity to the succeeding generations. Presbyterians desire to bring to God their whole person in faith, specifically including their intellect. Thus, we have traditionally placed strong emphasis on education and knowledge. The Sunday school program seeks to build a foundation for knowledge about the Christian faith. It is our conviction that gaining knowledge of Christianity will deepen an individual’s faith, providing more effectual guidance and comfort. The aim is to "see Thee more clearly so we can love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly day by day."

The curriculum that our Sunday school uses is selected from several professionally structured curricula. These curricula may be denominational or interdenominational. All of the curricula have been prepared by a board of theologians. The lessons have been chosen to expose students to a wide range of Bible stories and ideas. At the newly created end of the Sunday school, we encourage parents to bring their infants and toddlers to the cradle roll. Infants and toddlers will develop socially through interaction with the other children, and they can participate within the nursery class to the level that their attention span permits. As our senior high school students approach their emergence to the adult end of Sunday school, they increasingly participate in the selection of their study subjects. In the adult classes, we emphasize Bible study and doctrine and we also offer a new member class periodically to familiarize new adult members with this church.

In addition to the regular weekly lessons, the various classes have theme areas that are assigned for greater emphasis throughout the year. Also, special subjects or Bible passages are assigned to each class for memorization. These theme and memorization subjects (shown in detail below) will be incorporated in classroom decoration and in student aids.

Themes and Memorization Subjects

In one hour each week, the Sunday school program can provide a valuable supplement to the family’s Christian education. We encourage parents to ask about lessons and review take-home papers to extend the lessons into the home. We ask our parents to support the efforts of our teachers by showing Christian love while teaching the Christian message.

Discipline

Sunday school is like other school in that there needs to be some modicum of discipline for everyone to learn. However, Sunday school students are still kids. Now granted, the Sunday school population will, on average, be the best kids and the best behaved. But that’s not the same as always being good and attentive. The students are all still young, with diverse attention spans, interest subjects, and desire to show off for their classmates. Situations will arise when particular teachers have problems with some combination of students. So how should this be handled?

Discipline is an area that everyone expects someone else to handle: They ought to do something about this. Well, in this case, the they should be the Sunday school superintendent. The discipline question is sort of delicate. The students each come voluntarily, albeit with some parental prodding. The teachers also have volunteered their time, energy, and faith to perform this specific service. The teachers deserve the support of the superintendent. If the Sunday school teachers also teach in public or parochial schools throughout the rest of the week, then they have a tremendous advantage of knowing how to manage a classroom. However, for most Sunday school teachers, this will not be the case. Teaching will be a new experience for most of them. They are entering with little more than faith, hope, and high expectations. They are performing a service in response to a calling—quite possibly, a direct call—from the Sunday school superintendent. They cannot just be abandoned to the wolves, even if these wolves are only three- to four- feet tall.

So how do we employ the iron fist of discipline in a Christian manner on volunteers? Unfortunately, there is not a simple answer that works in all situations. However, I will describe a few escalation actions that I had used with some level of success. Please feel free to mix, match, or innovate as your situation and temperament allows.

The first step is to have the student visit the superintendent. This is analogous to a visit to the principal without the stern spectra of a board of education. However, this can work particularly for me because I am a big man and can appear to be intimidating—at least if the students do not know me too well. During the Sunday school hour, I usually attend an adult Sunday school class myself. The teachers must know where to find me. The teacher with the offending student then comes to this class. Class discussions are interrupted, and a variety of eyes focus on the student as they