Part 1: How NOT To Teach Sunday School

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

Comfort Zone

Sometimes being "in the zone" is a good thing, but that doesn't apply to our comfort zone. It all boils down to this: we don't change because we don't want to venture out into the unknown. This is especially true of our teachers, who have no examples to go by, no role models in modern life. We are slaves to the book publishers, to the calendar, to the public school system, to tradition, to checking off all the old boxes so we know we've done our religious duty. As science tells us, a body at rest tends to remain at rest. But Jesus hardly had a "body at rest" in mind as we read in Matthew 28:18-20:

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

You know the drill: each quarter we start a new theme, we cover exactly one lesson per class, we finish in the allotted time, and we buy the next booklet in the series. Next year we'll start a new series, and on and on. This is not "motion", it's spinning our wheels. Christians get older but not deeper, conditioned but not committed. We think we are holding students' interest by changing topics on a regular schedule, but boredom sets in anyway. But change is unthinkable. Anything, even boredom, is better than being challenged.

It's all about fear. We fear because we are untrained, and we're untrained because our teachers were untrained, and their teachers were untrained. We'll take a look at one more problem area, then I think we're finally ready for being open to a solution.