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Table of Contents
How
Does Sunday School
Fit Into The Student Ministries Purpose?
What
Content Are We
Teaching?
Why Are We Teaching
This
Content In This Manner?
How Do We Teach This
Material? |
Teaching Sunday School:
The How's, What's,
and Why's
How Does Sunday School
Fit Into The Student Ministries Purpose?
Student Ministry Purpose
Wellington Presbyterian Church is deeply interested in
seeing Jesus have a profound impact in the lives of middle and high school age
students during these critical years. It is the purpose of our Student Ministry to
serve Christ by equipping parents and volunteers to move into the lives of
student families through personal relationships and intentional discipleship to
build up Christ’s body in spiritual maturity and through the addition of new
believers.
This purpose seeks to be accomplished through a
five-component structure with each facet contributing a different yet
complementary element in order to holistically disciple students to be servants
of Jesus.
The five Components and
their contribution:
-
Monthly activities – Initial outreach and relationship building
-
Campus Nite– Outreach with worship and gospel message
-
Sunday School - Foundational teaching of the Bible and theology (Biblical
world view)
-
D-Groups
– Personal discipleship for maturity and ministry as member of the body of
Christ
-
Leadership Development – Advanced discipleship for students to be trained for
ministry
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What
Content Are We
Teaching?
1. Survey of the Old and New Testament books
The
Old Testament study is a historical survey of God’s plan of redemption for
mankind prior to Christ’s arrival. The entire history of the OT is contained
between Genesis--2 Kings, and Nehemiah. All the other books (poetry, minor and
major prophets) were written within this time period. The middle school will be
taught the first part of the history of God’s unfolding covenant with mankind.
The High school will be taught the second portion of this history with the
addition of Psalms at the end because of its natural importance to Scripture.
The
New Testament will survey the different types of books (Gospels, epistles of
various authors, and apocalyptic) and their importance to theological
development. The middle school will study the fundamental books, which present a
basic theology. The high school will study a broader and more in-depth view of
the Gospels and focus on theologically important books.
2. The Doctrines
of Christianity
Middle School:
High School:
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Why Are We Teaching This
Content In This Manner?
Our approach seeks to
train believing students in the necessary knowledge of Christian faith in a
manner that is both personal and relevant. The survey of the Bible and the
theological topics are chosen to move students into a deeper and broader
understanding of God and His work through Christ. It seeks to help students
understand the connectivity of all of Scripture, God, and the life of a
believer. Much of this content is new to students who have grown up in the
church and know all the stories, yet do not realize that all these stories are
connected into a beautiful real-life picture of Jesus Christ moving to redeem
sinners. It is in the Sunday School setting that provides the theological
groundwork by which our small groups, weekly meeting, and student leadership
operates.
No curriculum,
paradigm, event, retreat or sermon will make a student’s life turn out right.
Christ alone molds and shapes students through his word and its transmission
through others’ words and deeds. Discipleship is a process that extends over a
period of time – the giving of one life to another. But for that transference to
occur, the lives must be in connection over a period of time. This
process-oriented discipleship makes Sunday school, small groups, preaching, and ministry
very effective for deep impact and long-term change.
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How
Do We Teach This
Material?
The teaching year is
divided up into four 13-week quarters. Each quarter will contain a book of the
bible, a theological topic, and a current event or cultural issue. The book of
the bible will be studied for the first 5 weeks of the quarter, the second 5
weeks of the quarter the theological topic will be studied, the remaining 3
weeks of the quarter will cover one or more current or cultural events.
Each quarter:
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Surveying a Book of the Bible
The
book Talk Thru the Bible is used for this portion of
teaching. When looking at the book you will notice that it is not a curriculum
in the typical sense. It is not broken into lessons and not really structured
for teaching it. Although it is an incredible reference tool that is very well
laid out for the purpose in which we use it. The purpose of surveying a book of
the Bible is to look at the book as a whole rather than the typical approach of
looking deeply into the minute content. Although looking deeply into the
specifics of a book is important, people need to understand the big picture of
Christ’s plan of redemption for mankind in which those specifics are couched. In
fact, to read detailed specifics of our faith and life without understanding the
purpose, intent, and structure of book would be to gain an understanding of a
passage out of context.
In looking at the book
as a whole, the teacher must keep in mind not to get too detailed with the
content or you will never finish the book in time. When surveying a book there
are a few questions that you are going to present and facilitate the students to
answer. The Talk Thru book is laid out in that fashion.
The questions would
be:
-
Who wrote the
book?
-
Who was this
person?
-
When did the
author write it?
-
What type of
historical situation or setting?
-
Who is the
audience of the book?
-
What is their
historical setting?
-
What is the
purpose of this book?
-
What are the major
themes?
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How is Christ
portrayed in this book?
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How does it
contribute to the Bible as a whole?
-
What is the
structure of the book to convey the point? (Chart from the book)
Remember that you will
always have too much information than you can convey in 5 weeks. You need to be
concise. The first week I have always taught as an introduction to the book.
This lesson was done in a question and answer format to help the students to
flesh out things they know but forgot. Many church kids have the answers; they
just do not know where to plug them into life. It is here the teacher helps to
guide them along. As an introduction I would cover everything except the
structure. We would talk about the author, audience, setting, purpose, themes,
how Christ is represented, the key verse, and briefly introduce the book’s
structure as shown in the chart and the outline.
The next four weeks we
cover the structure of the book and how it builds to the overall purpose of the
book. I would begin each class with a quick review of the introduction so that
they see how each week is connected to the previous. When teaching the different
a segments of the structure, which are broken down in the chart and the
corresponding outline found in the Talk Thru the Bible book, explain the point,
have several students read passages that reflect it, then have them connect it
to the main purpose. Always keep the main purpose of the book before them. That
is primarily what you want them to remember long after the class. Finally, draw
your point of the week to an application to life today.
It would be important
for you to read through the Bible book entirely before you teach it. Then you do
you are able to add a very rich flavor to your teaching. When teaching the Old
Testament portion, be sure to read the history leading up to your book, best
found in the book preceding it. It is the teacher’s responsibility to convey
this information in a manner that reflects our Lord who is personal and
relevant. |
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Teaching a Theological Topic
The book Systematic Theology by Wayne
Grudem is for this portion of teaching. Again this book is not designed to serve
as a classroom curriculum, although it too is structured very well for our
purpose. Each chapter begins by asking questions that many people have about God
and his creation. These questions are a very important resource to be used in
discussions. Many times when I teach theological topics, I ask several probing
questions to help surface people’s wrong thinking or assumptions. Grudem does a
good job of raising the street controversies and questions.
Next, I divide my 5 weeks among the different outline points
that Grudem proposes. Not all outline points break up evenly into your 5 weeks.
Some of the points are short requiring only a portion of class while other may
require two classes to fully cover. Use your discretion in teaching the major
points of each theological topic.
For each point presented, Grudem supplies the passages that
apply. Be sure to read them prior to class to be sure that you understand his
point. Grudem handles the Scripture in a very evenhanded manner. He does not
imply what is not in the biblical text. If the passage is confusing, he usually
states that it is not clear. In explaining your point you will traverse a large
portion of Scripture. This is good. He is showing that this theology is not
developed from just one verse or our own concepts, but rather how all of
Scripture agrees and testifies to it.
You will come across a few chapters in which Grudem have a
different theological stance than our denomination, particularly the chapter on
Baptism and the Millennium. Grudem maintains a Baptist theology. However, he is
immediately up front with his stance and he graciously provides a great argument
for both sides of the argument. Use this to your advantage and have the student
debate to two sides or you take the opposing stance and have them defend their
belief against you.
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