Part 1: How NOT To Teach Sunday School

Why we need not a revival or reformation, but a revolution

Teacher's Guide

Obviously that title has a dual meaning: the teacher's Guide should be the Bible, the Holy Spirit. But we have traded this Guide for the ubiquitous "repeat these words" teacher's guide, without which most Sunday Schools would come to a screeching halt. Seriously, if we took away those printed materials that come from the denomination's approved publisher, how many teachers would be at a complete loss? I have the sneaking suspicion that the number is alarmingly high.

While the people who write the guides and student quarterlies are probably sincere in their desire to promote Christian education, they are forgetting the old saying: give someone a fish and they'll eat for today, but teach them to fish and they'll eat for a lifetime. We don't train teachers to teach, we just train them to follow written instructions. Anyone who can read can "teach" from these books, not because they open up the depths of riches found in the scriptures, but because they tell us exactly what to say and do in order to cover the material in 40 minutes.

Pardon the crude analogy, but it's like a mother bird regurgitating predigested food for the babies in the nest. That's fine for the newborn hatchlings, but we never kick them out of the nest and teach them to fly or to find their own food. The typical Sunday School student never learns how to study the Bible but only how to follow a lesson book and fill in the blanks. And how could they learn any more, since the teacher has been fed the same baby food and told to leave the meat for the theologians? At best, when facing the world with our lightly-held convictions, we defer all questions of faith to the pastor, deacon, or approved author. Hence the lament of Hebrews 5:11-14:

"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."