Lecture #4- Teach Standards as Part of What You Do!
Lecture #4- Teach Standards as Part of What You Do!
Many of you will remember a basic set of basic Bible knowledge you learned as you grew up -that is if you went to Sunday School. You knew certain verses like John 3:16, location of many of the Books of the Bible and so on....
More than ever before we need to teach these as we teach the lesson.
For example: Let's say the lesson is about Zacchaeus. As you begin to talk you can say this is a story about Jesus and Zacchaeus. Is that in the New Testament or the Old Testament? The story is found in Luke - let's name the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John-..... There are red letters in my Bible in this story - What does that mean? - Yes that means Jesus is talking.
Do you get my drift? You make teaching Bible basic standards as a part of the conversation of each lesson. They learn as they go. It becomes a way of life.
To develop a set of standards you might think of a teenager. What should he/she know about the Bible if that teen has been in your Sunday School all his/her life?
What persons?
What places should be common knowledge?
How many Books of the Bible should that teen know?
Bible stories?
What abilities should that teen possess in being able to find chapters and verses?
Plan of Salvation-
Remember when your student is in worship it is vital they can understand the basics.
Nazarene Publishing House is faithful in giving them the "big stories" and "big ideas".
We must be faithful in helping them deepen spiritually. We are helping them navigate through a forest of information.
We do this by being intentional in how we add Bible basics or standard to the lesson.
Assignment: Report some Bible basics you want your class to know.
Name at least 2 you can teach as you talk about the next lesson. You are welcome to use the standards in the example. Turn them in next Monday and tell if you have already used them.
posted by Naz Class @ 9:03 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
A few weeks ago I was teaching a children's class on a Wednesday evening. The subject was the story of Zacchaeus. I mentioned the song, "Zacchaeus was a wee little man" and not one of the children had ever heard of it. I mentioned it to one of the ladies who works with the children's music program. Since then, the kids have been learning "old classics" like, "Jesus loves me".
My Pastors wife has started a bible study for the kids, We are currently studying the life of Abraham. This is working great. The kids are learning the bible, not just stories that teach a biblical message.
So far, this class has caused me to focus more and pray more about the Sunday School. I can see a difference already.
One bible basic I want every child to know is the greatest
commandment,(Matthew 22;37-40). I want them to understand that if they do this they are pleasing God and if they are not doing this they are missing the mark.
I also want them to understand how to pray. Many young kids think that you have to close your eyes and fold your hands to pray. I want them to understand that you can pray any time, anywhere, no matter what else you are doing. I want them to understand that they should never feel that they are too ashamed to pray. I stress that God already knows everything we have ever done and he wants us to confess it to him so he can forgive us.
Jeani-Chandler-Primary class: Stan's comment reminds me of Phipippians 4:8 "...think about such things." God can speak to us when we have our lessons and students in mind throughout the week. So thankful Nazclass is helping you.
Speaking of Zaccheus, here is another perspective. A little girl in my class for 2 yrs. went onto 4th-5th grade class without knowing who Zaccheus even is. She came to Sunday School in 2nd grade. Though she rarely missed a Sunday, she missed the week we studied Zaccheus.
Every Sunday school hour with our students, at any age, is important. When my chatter boxes get too far from the story, it helps to remind them "this is Jesus' hour."
Stan has described several ways for even the youngest child to begin a true relationship with Christ. Sounds also like a great team effort is happening in your children's ministry.
Kenton - Junior High-
I too am aware of what kids at the Jr High do not know--The old classics are just that because in the case of the song mentioned by Stan - Zacchaeus was a wee little man -- it it tells the story
Good going Stan
Jeani is right - every week counts!
The two areas, other than wanting every child to know how to find a chapter/verse in the Bible (which many children do not understand how to do) and knowing the basic Bible stories, that I want to weekly focus with my children on are each week being presented in some form the plan of salvation. This does not mean that each week I have a chance to pray a prayer of repentance but each week I try to bring salvation, heaven, hell, repentance into my lesson. Example: all Bible lessons on a healing, miracle, etc. are a message of salvation or deliverance or something life changing so why not relate this to how Jesus came to deliver us from sin, how Jesus cleanses us from sin,how Jesus can work a miracle in our lives through salvation, etc., etc.. The second area is how we are to live as christians: this is done through bringing out an attitude from the lesson, how to pray, how to read our Bibles, how to follow the ten commandments, how to tithe,etc. By bringing each Bible story into a present day example for their life we make the Bible come alive to them and make them desire to know more. These are things that I try to do every week and it always is different. Sometimes my thoughts on these things are planned and sometimes they just come out as I share what I feel God is leading me to say.
I would like for each member of my class to know where each book of the bible is located. I would also like each one to know who most of the major people are that we talk about in the bible.
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