Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Eight Great Purposes of Sunday School

 The Sunday School Teacher 6



If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Put another way round, if your church is having Sunday School to have Sunday School, you will accomplish practically nothing. Without objectives, an army, no matter how well trained, equipped, and led, is useless. With objectives, however, you can protect yourself from the hamster wheel of meaningless activity. Objectives also function as guardrails, disciplining your curriculum and staffing choices.

What then are these objectives? What should you seek to accomplish with Sunday School? In this chapter, I am going to offer you eight categories or concepts, though it is not wrong to have additional ones directly related to your specific context.

Any Sunday School class's first objective should be to lead people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Before the teaching aspect of the Great Commission can be applied, the reaching aspect must be accomplished. The new birth is where everything begins. Absent such a foundation, it is pointless to construct anything on top. A good teacher will make sure he has personal knowledge of the state of the soul of each one of his students. He will not take others' word for it. He will ascertain this directly via an individual conversation with each person in his class.

Second, an effective Sunday School aims to guide each Christian into a continuing and committed relationship with the local church. As a lifelong Christian and pastor for nigh on three decades, I have met numerous genuine Christians who have little to no attachment to a particular local church. Not a single one of them has been a strong Christian. Wandering alone apart from the flock, and the watchcare of a shepherd, an isolated sheep is easy prey. A Sunday School class is not the only answer to this problem, but it is a good one. Like Legos built one upon another, connected at numerous points, a student inserted solidly into a Sunday School class should automatically become an integral part of the larger structure of the church. If your class is not doing that, you need to rework some things to achieve that.

Third, a good Sunday School class seeks to develop in each Christian a solid practice of personal devotions. So much of the Christian's life revolves around their relationship with God's Word. Some years ago, I undertook a study of Psalm 119, and that was my major takeaway. Absent regular time in the Word of God, the Christian will remain stunted, a pygmy where he could have been a giant, a hollowed-out, shambling concentration camp victim where he could have been the very specimen of health. Yet our flesh fights us every step of the way between here and Home. We need constant reminders, constant emphasis, constant discipline. You will do your students a great turn if you show them how to interact privately every day with God's Word and then help them build the steady practice of it.

Fourth, one of the primary tasks of a Sunday School class is to deeply embed age-appropriate basic stories and doctrines of the Bible into the mind of each student. It is not that we are not to aim at the heart, for that is always appropriate and necessary. It is that Sunday School should also equip the mind, furnishing it with the mental props necessary to fill out sermons decades yet in that child's future.

Think of a green screen, if you will. Increasingly, movies and even television series are filmed on an otherwise empty set in front of a green background. That background is then digitally filled in with whatever setting is necessary for the scene. What is placed onto that green screen can vary widely, but it becomes the context required to understand the dialogue taking place between the actors properly.

If you do it right, for the rest of his life, a child will be able to listen to almost any sermon, and instantly furnish the green screen necessary to interpret and apply the sermon he is hearing correctly. David and Goliath. The Trinity. The Rapture. Stephen being stoned. The Tabernacle. Each one of those short sentences fills the mind of the lifelong Bible student with immediate visual and or mental information. Children soak up information like a sponge. The wise teacher takes advantage of that fact and the time given him to cram his student's head full to bursting with biblical information.

Allow me to take a moment to expand on the doctrinal side of this. There are some people who object to any formalized theological system. "Just preach the Bible!" they holler, as if explaining sanctification in depth is somehow damaging. But it is neither sinful nor unwise to organize biblical information and convey those truths to children systematically. Indeed, I would argue it is eminently necessary.

As independent Baptists, we do not catechize our children at home. (Perhaps we should, but let us set that to the side for the moment.) How then is that child supposed to hold to, let alone defend, the faith in which he has never been grounded? Is it any wonder that they grow up independent Baptist but have no apparent problem switching to a jelloish evangelical non-denominational worship center as they hit adulthood? And I could furnish similar illustrations ad nauseum, world without end. A ten-year-old child in the Junior Boys' Sunday School class can and should learn theology. If he does not, we have no call to fault the Jehovah's Witnesses when they snatch him up in later years.

Fifth, a good Sunday School class will help develop in each child both the desire and the ability to serve God actively. We will speak more to this later in the practical section of this book, but a well-organized class provides both opportunity and instruction in such service for the Lord. Students need to sit down and hear the Word taught, certainly, but they need to get up and do something with it just as certainly. The Dead Sea is so named precisely because it is constantly taking in and never giving out. The carnal Christians that stare blankly at me from their pew in the sanctuary on the rare Sunday morning they choose to grace us with their presence are the enfleshed example of this. They attend, erratically, but do not serve. And their Christianity is a clogged-up, useless sort of thing. The best place to defeat such fleshliness is in the child. He is young and impressionable. Teach him to serve the Lord with a happy heart.

Sixth, a good Sunday School class… perhaps I should say teacher here… helps people not only to see the Word of God as relevant, but helps them see how to do so. A good Sunday School class teaches the child how to apply the Word of God to their own lives.

Take Proverbs, for example. The teenage Sunday School class should focus heavily on this book. In the process, students should learn not only what to do and what not to do as they make their daily choices, but they should also learn how to interpret and apply the principles and concepts taught in the wisdom books. If my student only knows what I tell him individually, I have failed him. He must learn how to apply biblical principles to the specifics of his own varied condition as the years roll by.

Seventh, a good Sunday School class will equip the child to answer the great faith questions and objections that inevitably come to each thinking person's mind. In other words, the teaching should include apologetics at some level, especially as the child ages.

In the now-outdated book, Youth and the Church, Roy Irving nevertheless furnishes us a still relevant passage on precisely this point. "Young people may sense conflicts between their own beliefs and the information they gain in school or hear from teen and adult friends with different beliefs. Teens' increased ability for independent thinking may make them critical of beliefs taught in childhood, especially if those beliefs have been taught in an authoritarian, unnatural, or bigoted manner. Doubting is an indication that one is maturing. Doubting can be healthy, for it can lead youth to come to a personal firsthand acceptance of truths. For most adolescents, the period of doubt does lead to a revision of some of his religious beliefs. The change is often in the direction of a more carefully thought-out and a more tenable faith. ...This aspect of adolescent development challenges youth workers to help guide youth through this turbulent period with an attitude of loving acceptance and understanding. This period of religious muddle suggests that youth be given opportunity to engage in discussion (with individual leaders and groups) in a permissive atmosphere. A dogmatic 'we don't discuss such things' attitude may squelch a teen's honest search for adequate reasons for believing what he does."

I am not here backsliding on my opinion that the Sunday School class should be taught authoritatively. I am, however, balancing that with the necessary understanding that teenagers, especially, should be given a time and place to question what they have been taught. They are going to do it eventually anyway. It is much better if they do it in a guided manner by an intelligent teacher prepared for each objection. It is the shield of faith that quenches the fiery darts of the devil. Faith in what? Not just God's Word generically, but God's Word specifically. Biblical writers were masters at bringing up their opponents' arguments first so they could furnish the proper defense against them. It would be wise for us to do likewise.

Lastly, a good Sunday School class helps the student to develop a biblical worldview. In the proverbial tale of the man looking at the world through rose colored glasses, everything took on a reddish hue. It literally colored everything he saw. In a similar manner, I want the children in my care to look at every single thing in their lives for their entire lives through a biblical lens. Politics. Economics. Sports. Money. Marriage. Parenting. Ethnicity. Crime. Priorities. Amusements. Music. Sexuality. Religion. Social media. The Word of God informs our understanding of all of these and more. The Holy Spirit will find much biblical ammunition to use when he rummages around in the mind of the well-educated Sunday School pupil, regardless of the topic in question.

"Well, Pastor Brennan, that all sounds good, but I'm exhausted just reading this list. How in the world can you possibly expect me to accomplish all of this? I'm just a Sunday School teacher, not a miracle worker."

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. As my college president, Wendall Evans, said so well, "Set your goal, plan your work, work your plan, and don't get sidetracked." If your approach to each week is to casually develop whatever biblical truth comes to mind, you will not come close to accomplishing this. Remember? If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. On the other hand, you can take this list and from it develop a plan of attack that covers the entire arc of the years a student spends in your care. You may not get it all done, no, but you will undoubtedly come much closer to accomplishing it if you aim at so doing than you will if you never think beyond this coming week's lesson.

Sunday School is an exceedingly valuable time, not just in the immediate slot this week, but in the aggregate of a twenty-year horizon. If you are wise, you will use it to the fullest possible effect.

Aim at something important. 'Tis the only way to hit it.

 


Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Should You Teach Sunday School?

 The Sunday School Teacher 5



I do not believe every Christian is cut out to teach Sunday School. I do believe every Christian is cut out to teach. Paul makes the latter point here quite clearly. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God. (Hebrews 5.12) Every Christian should teach someone else what they have learned and are learning about the Lord. As we have already mentioned, parents and soul winners are both examples of this, and neither position is a gifting; they are responsibilities.

Having said that, it does not then follow that since every mature Christian ought to be teaching in some way that every mature Christian should be teaching Sunday School. Teaching is, after all, a spiritual gifting. (Romans 12.6-7, I Corinthians 12.28, Ephesians 4.11) Think of a choir, if you will. Should every Christian make a joyful noise to the Lord? (Psalm 81.1) Of course. Should every Christian sing in the choir? Of course not. If you are not gifted in that area, the best thing for all involved is for you to enjoy their music ministry from your pew in the sanctuary.

The answer to the question posed in this chapter is two-fold, I think. There is first the need to discern whether teaching Sunday School is the direction in which your gifting lies. The second is how to develop that gifting once you have discovered it. Let us examine each in turn.

To discern this, I propose five questions and three ideas. I want you to first ask yourself whether you have evidenced the gift of teaching in other areas of your life. Are you a trainer at work? Do you have a natural knack for teaching young men how to do car maintenance or young women how to make sourdough? Do you find yourself readily explaining complex concepts to those around you? Is this something you have already done to some extent, even if only instinctively?

The second thing to ask yourself is whether teaching Sunday School is something you want to do. One of the marks that a man is genuinely called to the ministry is this very thing. This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. (I Timothy 3.1) I am not talking about a fleeting thought, a passing fancy. I am talking about something more continual. "You know, I would kind of like to try teaching a class someday." And the thought comes back to your mind repeatedly.

The third question is this: Are you patient in dealing with young people now? When you are handed a class roll book and a "Go get 'em, Tiger," you are not going to get patience automatically thrown in on top. Most Sunday School classes are children's classes. Almost every Sunday School teacher has taught children at some point. If little people get on your ever-loving last nerve simply by breathing, it might not be the ministry for you.

The fourth question to consider here is whether you are willing to meet your church's requirements for the position. I will speak more to the specifics of this in a later chapter, but suffice it to say, if you bristle at maintaining a specific standard or two, then perhaps you should limit your teaching to other venues.

The fifth question can only be asked further down the line. After you have been teaching for a bit, ask yourself, "Is there any evidence that God is blessing this work on my part?" Such evidence can be as simple as the class listening to you with apparent interest. In plain language, you do not bore them. Beyond that, however, and more importantly, are any of the students showing any signs of applying what you have been teaching? Is anybody's life being changed for the better? For that matter, is your own life being changed? Are you growing as a person and as a Christian in this process?

The three ideas I have for you include two practical and one spiritual. The first idea to help you discern whether teaching Sunday School is suitable for you is to enlist as a teacher helper first. Almost every Sunday School teacher could use an aide to do such things as help keep rowdy children quiet, take someone to the restroom, or help the teacher act out a Bible story. This will put you in a classroom on a regular basis. Your desire for a class of your own will either grow or shrink. Either way, it will be enlightening.

The second idea is to enlist as a teacher in a limited way, in a format that has an end date. Teach the Junior Boys class for four weeks about Joseph, and then analyze how it went. Think of this as a trial run or a shakedown cruise. Offer yourself as a substitute teacher for the summer. You can cover a number of teachers who are gone for a Sunday or two on vacation. It will be a good taste of what having your own class will be like. Give it a whirl.

The third idea has probably already occurred to you. If you think the Lord may want to use you in this area, ask Him to show you. I do not mean to ask Him for a specific miraculous sign. Just tell Him you are willing to do what He wants, and ask Him to confirm in your heart that this is what He wants. In all things spiritual, it is always appropriate to pray about it.

Let us turn now, briefly, to the second part of the question at the core of this chapter. If you have determined the Lord would have you teach Sunday School, that you are gifted at it, and you have undertaken it, how can you develop that gifting? Having set out to become a teacher, how do you become a good one?

          I offer you four suggestions here. First, teach. One of the most important things I did when I surrendered to preach the gospel 38 years ago was to begin preaching immediately. I preached my first sermon a week later, and I kept hoovering up every possible chance to preach that I could. Children's Church? Check. Youth group? Check. Nursing homes? Check. Street corners? Check. Church bus rides on the way home? Check. I preached at the drop of a hat and carried a hat with me everywhere.

In music and sports, we call this practice. In the speaking arena, we do not for the simple reason that the people sitting in front of you are real people. But the effects are quite similar. It is impossible to improve in any area solely by watching other people do it. You have to get out there and do it yourself.

The second suggestion sounds immediately contradictory, yet it is not. Find a good teacher or two and watch everything they do. When you have a question – and always come up with a question – pull them aside and bounce it off of them. Do this often enough, and you will have developed a mentor, someone who will pour into you all they know. As I have just made clear, this alone is not sufficient. But if you pair the second with the first, I can almost guarantee that your progress will be rapid.

Third, commit yourself to a course of continuing education. This can be as formal as enrolling in an actual class on teaching or as informal as reading a book about it. (Hey, I wonder where we could find a good book? <grin> ) If books are not your thing, put your earbuds in and dial in a podcast about teaching. YouTube University can be an absolute waste of time, but the amount of good content on there is staggering. Find some. Watch some. Try some of what you see in your class.

The point here is not the particular means of educating yourself but rather the importance of the decision to always be learning. The vast majority of Sunday School teachers plateau because they are satisfied with the status quo. Do they want a bigger class? If a few more came in, that would be fine, but there is no passion to see it grow. Do they want to see lives changed? Of course, but not at the cost of fasting and prayer and hours spent with that student one-on-one outside of class. Would they like to be a better teacher? Sure, if you could wave a magic wand and make it happen. Curiously enough, it never happens. Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh And intermeddleth with all wisdom. (Proverbs 18.1) To the extent you want to be a better teacher, you will be. To the extent you can live without it, you will not.

Lastly, I cannot close without again mentioning prayer. In prayer, we live by faith, depending on the Lord to help us. This pleases Him. If it is right to pray when we are trying to determine whether we should teach, it is absolutely right to pray once we have launched our frail craft upon the waters. Pray for the Lord to help you as you decide what to teach. Yield yourself to Him as you sit down to write your lesson. Take each student in your heart one at a time, and lift them to the Lord. Ask Him to bless them, help them, grow them, meet their needs, and move them to yield to the Spirit's work in their life. Speaking of the Holy Spirit, plead with Him to empower your teaching. Ask Him to give you a clear mind and a passionate heart as you teach. Ask Him for the heart of those young people. Park out in front of their house late at night and weep. While the tears roll down your cheeks, beg the Lord to raise up a generation that will love Him and serve Him and bring Him great glory.

Jesus was the best teacher the world has ever seen. The more time you spend with Him, the more like Him you will be.

If the Lord wants you to teach a Sunday School class, you should. Further, you can. And you can do it well. Tell Him yes, and you will never regret it.

 

 

 

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Why Sunday School?

 The Sunday School Teacher 4



Why do we have Sunday School? Why does it exist? Why is it a thing? If we cannot answer those questions, it goes a long way in explaining why so many churches are dropping it. Alternatively, we could ignore the questions and just holler more loudly that every church should have one. I find both of those approaches far from satisfactory. If you will allow me, I would like to give you answers to those questions that have helped me over the years.

           My favorite subject as a child in school was history. Decades later, it is still my favorite academic subject. History teaches us how to avoid mistakes that show up in each generation. In addition, by revealing how and why something began, we can trace the DNA and identify the underlying concepts that drive it in the modern day.

Robert Raikes' statue, Victorian Embankment
Gardens, London, England

Robert Raikes (1735-1811) was an 18th-century newspaper publisher. As a religiously minded humanitarian, Raikes' attention was drawn to the disastrous state of English prisons. After a tangle with a particularly unruly gang of boys on the rough side of Gloucester one Sunday afternoon in 1780, he came to think that crime was better prevented than prosecuted, and the best criminal reformation was to avoid producing criminals in the first place. This led directly to his desire to work with the boys running the streets in his city.

A life of learning led him to educate them as a means of improving their lives immediately and permanently. Yet many of those boys held full-time jobs Monday through Saturday. Ergo, Sunday was the best option. As a religious man, he instinctively understood that the Bible was the best textbook, as it best tells boys how to live. In some cases, he even had to teach them to read first before he could teach them the Bible. And teach them the Bible, he did. In his own words, "The children were to come after ten in the morning, and stay till twelve; they were then to go home and return at one; and after reading a lesson, they were to be conducted to Church. After Church, they were to be employed in repeating the catechism till after five, and then dismissed, with an injunction to go home without making a noise."

In this, Raikes found his pastor, Thomas Stock, a great encouragement and help. Together, they enlisted lay people as teachers for the rapidly growing group. After several years perfecting the program, he began to publicize Sunday School as a concept in his newspapers, and point to it as a potential solution for what had become an England-wide issue. Amongst other people, it caught John Wesley's attention. Latching on to it, he declaimed, "There must be a Sunday School wherever there is a Methodist society." By 1784, organized Sunday Schools enrolled 225,000 English children. Twenty years after Raikes' death in 1811, a statue to his memory was erected in London and financed by the gifts of 1.25 million British Sunday School students.

It was not long before the cousins across the pond noticed. William Elliott launched the first American Sunday School in 1785 in Oak Grove, Virginia. It spread rapidly up and down the Eastern seaboard. In each town, as a newly started Sunday School drew children from all kinds of churches, those churches, in turn, began their own Sunday School departments. By the early 1800s, the American Sunday School Union spearheaded a massive push to organize Sunday Schools all over the Mississippi watershed. They sent out eighty missionaries, involved such luminaries as Daniel Webster and Francis Scott Key, and circulated a million books in small libraries. To give one particular example, a little girl named Mary, attending a Sunday School in Illinois, wanted to get a star for bringing a visitor. She persuaded her father, Stephen Paxson, to attend. He came to Christ and was fired with a passion to establish Sunday Schools. Before the tale of his life was told, he had traveled 100,000 miles all over the Midwest, started 1,300 Sunday Schools, and was directly responsible for seeing 83,000 converts come to Christ. Between 1824 and 1874, 61,229 Sunday Schools were launched in the United States. Those Sunday Schools were being staffed by over 400,000 teachers and contained a cumulative attendance of 2.6 million children.

Sunday School Parade, Dubuque, Iowa
c 1900

As the 19th century drew to a close, American Sunday Schools were stronger than ever. The International Sunday School lesson was born, and entire curricula were circulated replete with homework assignments and grading systems. Enormous Sunday School conventions were held yearly. Sunday School parades marched down Main Street in many a town. Conservative estimates in 1884 reported 9 million children enrolled out of an entire United States population of 22 million under the age of fifteen. That is not quite one out of every two children in the country.

What happened? Because there certainly are not one out of every two American children attending Sunday School now. The short answer is liberalism happened. Just as it killed seminaries and through them, their denominations, it also killed Sunday Schools. As Methodists and Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Lutherans lost their theological moorings, their Sunday Schools died or turned from teaching the Word of God to an embrace of the social gospel and community activism. The great historic Protestant denominations withered just as Catholic immigration exploded. By the mid-20th century, fewer and fewer American children were being taught the Word of God.

Independent Baptists are not theologically perfect, but our movement is marked by a fervency for souls long missing in other religious expressions. Following World War II, Sunday School as a local church ministry experienced a resurgence, led by the giant independent Baptist megachurches of the era. Popularized by Elmer Towns, long associated with Jerry Falwell, men such as Lee Roberson, Jack Hyles, and John Rawlings organized massive churches primarily around the Sunday School. In the process, they elevated it again, rekindling a love for boys and girls in the hearts of churches all across the country.

As this is penned in 2025, the Sunday School is proving remarkably hard to kill. The contemporary church movement has largely abandoned it, but that movement has its own deep problems. Small groups as a concept are having a hot minute. I will discuss that in the following chapter. On the other hand, there are still hundreds of thousands of Sunday School classes meeting each Sunday morning all over the country. Indeed, the world, if you factor in growing independent Baptist missionary movements in Asia, Africa, and Central America.

We come back then to the question at the heart of this chapter. Why Sunday School? Well, it was founded to offer hopeless boys and girls the only trustworthy source of hope there is – a life built on Jesus Christ and the Word of God. The obvious follow-up question is, are there still hopeless boys and girls, children growing up without an understanding of the Gospel, without any biblical foundation?

To ask the question is to answer it. The need in our day is just as staggering as it was in Robert Raikes' England. In our generation, very few parents teach their children the Word of God. For most parents, it has never occurred to them to do so. They are unsaved themselves. If they are saved, they are often carnal and have little to no appetite to read and apply God's Word to their own life, let alone to their children. Other parents, a bit more spiritually mature, instinctively understand the need to teach their children, but do not know how to do so. Though they have a direct biblical responsibility to do it themselves (Ephesians 6.4), the only way they practically fulfil that instruction is to bring their children to church. Thus, if these children are not taught the Bible at church, they will not be taught it.

Additionally, in our generation, very few schools teach children the Word of God. In previous centuries, even public schools did so, and I could furnish whole swathes of evidence that they did so. But as American culture was hijacked by paganism via materialism in the 1950s and rock music in the 1960s, the Bible as a textbook was shoved out of the public school system. In 1962, in Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court kicked prayer out of schools. In 1963, in Abington Township School District v. Schempp, the Supreme Court ruled that public reading of the Bible in schools was unconstitutional. In 1992, in Lee v. Weisman, the court prohibited clergy-led prayer at high school commencements. Lee v. Weisman, in turn, was the basis for Santa Fe ISD v. Doe in 2000, in which the Supreme Court extended the ban all the way to school-sanctioned student-led prayer at high school football games. If you want to learn about Jesus Christ from the Bible, you are not going to do it in an American public school. It is true that in some school districts, moments of silence are held daily. It is also true that in some school districts, classes about the Bible as literature are offered as electives. But in the main, if American public school children are not taught the Bible in church, they will not be taught it.

Why Sunday School, beloved? Because boys and girls by the millions need to hear about Jesus, need to be taught the Word of God. And it is as true now as it has ever been.

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Huzzah for the Traditional Sunday School

The Sunday School Teacher 3



    In any honest examination of the modern Sunday School, one of the first things we notice is that the traditional Sunday School as a concept seems to be dying a slow death. Increasingly, churches of all types and sizes have shifted from the long-followed schedule – Sunday School followed by a morning worship service, chased later in the day by an evening worship service – to a more contemporary type of weekend with the same service being repeated multiple times. In this latter style, Sunday School got left on the chopping block. At the same time, such churches realized they needed a smaller teaching venue. Cue the massive rise of small groups.

I make no secret of the fact that I prefer the traditional Sunday School model over the more recently popular small group model. I intend to make just that argument in this chapter. It does not then follow that I am against the small group model. I am most definitely not. I have spent thousands of hours teaching in such settings, and I intend to continue to do so. And they have been highly beneficial hours.

I believe in the power of personal investment, in the power of time spent one-on-one or in slightly larger groups. For example, just last week I awarded a New Testament to a young man in our church whom I had trained how to witness. We completed that training together, sitting across a table, one hour a week for eight weeks. I have trained nearly a hundred soul winners over these years in the same manner. Our church practices discipleship in a similar manner. New Christians are paired with mature Christians and undertake a set of eight small-group Bible studies over a two-month period. I have done hundreds of these myself. Members are only added to our church after a meeting with me in a small group setting. Additionally, I have spent an enormous amount of time mentoring younger preachers in a similar setting, one-on-one at a table working through a book or concept or doctrine or practice essential to the Christian ministry. Indeed, I hope some will use this book in a similar manner, a mature teacher coming alongside an inexperienced one, helping them to grow into all they can be for the cause of Christ.

The small group model has some genuine strengths. It often increases participation and thus thought and personal ownership of thought between the learner and the teacher. Small groups help people to become involved and feel valued. They often do a better job of building relationships between students than the traditional Sunday School model does. Church plants can emerge from small groups. And when they are done right, a properly led small group can eliminate many, if not most, of the weaknesses inherent in the model.

If I am so obviously for it, how then can I be against it? I am not against it so much as I am against small groups replacing the model traditionally used in Sunday School – a teacher standing up before a class and taking them through a planned course of study. When you replace the traditional model entirely with small groups, you leave good stuff on the table. Some things are taught better in the conventional model. In fact, I would argue that most things are taught better.

Consider the broader educational implications for society. In modern American culture, a child progresses from Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade over a thirteen-year span. He then often undertakes advanced studies at a college, university, or technical school for some years afterward as well. I may be mistaken in the following sentence, but I cannot think of a single example where all that education is conducted via a small group model. Are the secular equivalents of small groups used in schools, from kindergarten to a doctoral program? Yes. Are they used exclusively? Not on your life. In point of fact, the traditional model of a teacher delivering a lecture in a classroom is still found much more often than not. Why? Because there are some things that are taught more effectively via the traditional model.

I am not asking you to eliminate small groups. I am not on a crusade against the concept. I am asking you to realize the superiority of the traditional model in many instances, and to use small groups as a supplement to such classes rather than a replacement of them.

Having explained my point, let me now attempt to make it. To do so, I want to look at the negative risks one runs in a church context by shifting to small groups exclusively, and from this, highlight the unique strengths inherent in the traditional Sunday School model.

Small groups, by definition, cultivate commentary from everyone. While I believe a good Sunday School class includes much interaction, these two concepts are not the same. The former essentially places the opinion of the carnal Christian on par with the experienced perspective of the spiritual Christian. If a simple person (in the Proverbs sense of the term) comes to a passage of Scripture with a neutral mind, and thus hears two competing viewpoints in the discussion, he is left to choose for himself which one sounds good. This is problematic at best, and something you would find only rarely, if ever, in the traditional Sunday School model.

Put another way round, expressions of pooled ignorance are weaker than a carefully studied lesson in every context. I do not deny that small groups can be led well by carefully studied men or women, but the weakness inherent in a discussion format is that the thoughtful, prepared voice is put on par with all the voices around them. Leading a student to grasp a biblical truth always involves thought, but it does not always require discussion. Yet small groups only sometimes have the former, yet always have the latter.

The Bible is an authoritative book. It needs to be taught graciously but also with a sense of authority, an authority not inherent in the teacher but rather inherent in the Book because it is God's Word. If my chosen manner of transferring truth does not convey that authority, I am incorrect in how I handle the Word and in the inferences I leave in the mind of the listener. On the authority scale, the biblical emphasis begins with preaching, flows on to teaching, and finally descends to conversation and discussion. It is easiest to form the student's concept of doctrine and practice in the weakest of those three categories, easiest precisely because our culture has become so enamored of equalizing everyone's voice and pulling down anything that smacks of authority. But easier seldom means better.

In addition to the philosophical weaknesses inherent in the small group structure, any honest observer must also acknowledge the practical risk that any church faces in fostering small groups – a potential church split. The traditional Sunday School class model almost never splits a church; the small group model does so often, it has become cliché. In some sense, this is related to the authority concept discussed in the previous paragraph. The institution Christ founded to perpetuate His teaching in His absence was the church. Attempts to transfer scriptural truth on the edge of a church model and largely lacking church supervision are not wrong, per se; they are just wrong-headed. And if that sentence is too strong for you, roll it back in your mind and at least have the intellectual honesty to admit the risks run in a small group scenario.

"Sure, there are risks in the small group setup. I'll admit that. But there are just as many risks in the traditional Sunday School model."

I disagree. I do not disagree that Sunday School classes can and have often been poorly led, with the spiritual results negligible at best. In point of fact, this book exists in order to help combat that. But in the main, even a badly done Sunday School class still contains more potential for good and less risk of bad than the equivalently led small group. A poorly conducted Sunday School class is still held at church during a church service and is led by someone who carries the authority of the church and the Word of God. Attendance is taken, an unspoken practice which emphasizes the importance of the occasion.

Jack Williams, shortly before his graduation to
Glory earlier this year.

I can still remember each Sunday School teacher I had as a child. Mary Lou Tyree. Alice Reeves. Jack Williams. Joe Wetzl. Rick Bartel. Each one stood before me with an open Bible and taught a prepared lesson. Their intellectual, spiritual, and emotional capacities were different. Their ability to connect with me varied. Decades have passed since then, and the specific things they taught me have mostly faded from my memory. But their elevation of God's Word still rings in my heart, and their shining example of a love for God and His people still touches me all these years later.

I am not opposed to biblical discussions, nor to small groups gathering around a table to converse and learn about the things of the Lord. But few are the lives transformed by a discussion, while many are the lives changed by a teacher.

The traditional Sunday School model is still best.


Tuesday, March 18, 2025

The Primacy of Teaching

The Sunday School Teacher 2 


One of the wonderful things about the the human race is its altruism, its built-in drive to do something to help somebody else. Even unsaved people have it. It manifests itself differently based on culture, aptitude, opportunity, health, and other factors. Sometimes, it produces volunteerism that is only marginally useful – for example, a chap who donates his time to help park cars at a local festival. But in other cases, it results in a monumental contribution – volunteer firefighters come to mind here. It is my considered belief perhaps the greatest example of this just might be Sunday School teachers. What could be more important?

          The primacy of teaching is rooted in biblical example and instruction. For the first, Jesus Himself immediately comes to mind. Early in Jesus' ministry, Nicodemus approached Him and, while seeking advice, expressed a clear understanding that Jesus was a teacher. Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. (John 3.2) Yes, Jesus taught the multitudes, but He also mentored individuals extensively. How else did He transform a ragtag group of twelve Jewish commoners into men who would turn the world upside down? (Acts 17.6) He taught in the synagogues and on the streets. He taught in personal conversation and private interactions. He taught in sermons and parables. He taught each time He answered a question. He taught with words and works. He was everlastingly at it, ceaselessly offering the most helpful instruction in the most helpful way.

          Not only was Jesus a teacher, but the second greatest figure in the New Testament, Paul, was also a teacher. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity. (I Timothy 2.7) It comes through quite often in his writing. He layers arguments like bakers layer cake, one balanced precisely on the other, raising us to truly tremendous heights. Clear, convincing writing comes only from careful thinking, distilled most often through numerous teaching repetitions. Paul knew how to make an argument, how to move a man from obstacle to skeptical to convert. He reasoned the man from one thought to the next, connecting them like steps in a staircase. Paul was a master teacher.

          In addition to both of these, Moses, the greatest figure in the Old Testament, was a teacher. And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. (Exodus 24.12) His case is particularly interesting. He neither expected nor planned to be a teacher. He wanted to rule. It is quite obvious what he had prepared himself for and what he believed he was best suited to do. Yet along the way, by giving Moses the Law, God brought to him the responsibility and ministry of teaching. Whether you think you are suited to it or not, once you have custody of the Word of God, you have a responsibility to teach it to others.

          In point of fact, parents are a classic example of this very thing. When couples date, they rarely contemplate parenting at all, let alone factor in just how large a part of their life it will become. Yet to be a parent is, by definition, to be a teacher. Everything the child learns for the first few years of his life comes via his parents. Even when other teachers enter his life, his parents remain and will remain so for as long as they live. Even after his parents die, their teaching will continue to guide him, especially if they did it right.

          Parents teach their children how to talk, how to walk, and how to dress themselves. Parents teach their children letters and numbers. Parents teach their children manners and character. Parents teach their children how to care for themselves and how to befriend others. Parents teach their children about money and politics. Parents teach their children how to throw a baseball and catch a football. Parents teach their children consciously and unconsciously. Above all, parents are to teach their children the Word of God. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6.6-7)

          As if the family responsibilities were not enough, the other institution God started, the church, also places a priority on teaching. It is specifically included in the three New Testament lists of spiritual gifts. (Romans 12.6-7, I Corinthians 12.28, Ephesians 4.11) The implications of that clearly identify teaching as an absolute necessity, just as much in the church as in the home. In fact, teaching is included twice in the church’s mission statement: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. (Matthew 28.19-20)

          There is not a single spiritual grace, doctrinal concept, or practical outworking of our faith that does not have to be taught. If we are instructed to do it we are instructed to teach someone else how to do it. Nor is anyone exempt from this. Naturally some will be better at it than others but if the Great Commission is for all Christians – and it is – then teaching is for all Christians.

          If God's people fail to understand this and apply it, Christianity will become extinct in one generation. Put another way round, the only reason we have Christianity in our generation is that every generation prior to ours, for the past two millennia, have lived up to their responsibility to teach their converts. Beloved, we dare not drop the ball in our generation or Christianity will die with us.

          Clarence Benson, in his 1940s-era book on Sunday School, summed it up this way: "Christ Himself was a great teacher. Sixty out of the ninety times He was addressed He was called 'Teacher.' In the 'Great Commission,' His last charge to the disciples, our Lord twice commands them to teach. In laying down the qualifications for the pastor, Paul stipulates that he should be 'apt to teach' (I Tim. 3:2). The apostles went everywhere teaching and preaching, and preaching and teaching. The early church was a teaching church."

          Teaching is not the only good thing we are called to do, but we are most certainly called to do it. Failure here will lead to failure everywhere in a matter of years. In a non-doctrinal context, it is a fundamental of the family and of the faith both.

          It is a wondrously good thing you do, Teacher. It is a marvelously wise thing to seek to grow in your ability to teach. May God long bless you in the doing of it.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

The Sunday School Teacher: Introduction

 Note: The past two books I have published began as blog series and later were edited/expanded and published as books. In the case of this series, I am planning to do so upfront. In other words, what you will read on my blog over the balance of the next year is a serialized book. As I complete sections, I will post them on this blog. Eventually, it will be published as a book. 


The Sunday School Teacher 1, Introduction


I must confess something right here at the outset. I was tempted to title this book "Making Sunday School Great Again." I have not, primarily because this is not a book about organizing, promoting, or building a great Sunday School. I do not know how to write that book, and others in previous generations have already written it better than I could. Yet, in a sense, I am still tempted by that title, for in helping you to become a better teacher, the result will absolutely be a great Sunday School. Class. As Lee Roberson said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Your Sunday School class will rise or fall on you.

          …which is why you picked up this book, is it not? Perhaps I should say why this book was handed to you. Perhaps you have a desire to become a better Sunday School teacher, or perhaps someone else has that desire for you. I am grateful either way. God is honored when we seek to improve our usefulness for Him. While nothing will increase your ability to teach like actively teaching, it is also true that your teaching skills can be sharpened by studying a book like this. Like your students, you will encounter information you had not previously known, take ownership of that information, and then change your life. In the process, you may well help the lost to be saved and the saved to be edified. And if that happens, I am amply repaid for my labors.

          Having established that my desire is to perfect you for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4.12) and that your desire is to be perfected, let us turn now to how this book intends to do that.

On these pages, you will find three sections. First, there is the spiritual aspect of teaching Sunday School. While some teaching disciplines cross schools, teaching the Bible to people is definitively a spiritual process. In this section, we will examine the history and necessity of Sunday School, the primacy of teaching, the superiority of the traditional Sunday School over the trend of small groups, seek to answer whether you have the gift of teaching, expound on the qualifications necessary to teach, emphasize the spiritual purposes of Sunday School, explain how to be a spiritually powerful teacher, look at Christ as our example in teaching, and close with a discussion of the Sunday School teacher’s best aide, the Holy Spirit.

Second, we will examine the philosophy behind teaching as a craft. Drawing primarily from other men's work here, I will seek to show you how the teacher, the learner, the language, the lesson, the teaching process, the learning process, and the review all intersect to produce excellent teaching. We will close this section with a discussion of the proper mental approach a teacher needs, how to become a long-term teacher, the appropriate approach for an assistant teacher, whether team teaching is valid, and the benefits that fill a Sunday School teacher’s life.

Third, we will turn to the practical. How do you choose what to teach? How do you write a lesson plan? How do you emphasize specific applications? How do you build a relationship with your students? How do you create a class spirit? How do you get your students involved? How do you grow your class? How do you maintain control? How can you successfully tailor your teaching to little children, young children, older children, young teenagers, older teenagers, single adults, young married couples, mature Christians, a men's class, a women's class, etc.? How do you get the students to study at home during the week? How do you build a culture of Bible memorization? How should illustrations be used in your teaching? What about record keeping? Prayerfully, you will find help to deal with subjects such as these and more.

My overall intent is to keep each chapter or section of a chapter relatively short. I want you to be able to read this in quick snatches of time here and there throughout the week. I want it to provoke thought, yes, but more so to move you to action. I want you to consciously try something new each week or month over the next year. I want you to grow as you internalize what you read and gradually begin to put it into practice. I want your capacity and ability as a teacher to expand. I want you to be more useful to the Lord and more edifying to your students.

Finally, a brief word about sources. A number of good books are available that touch on different aspects of Sunday School, including teaching. I gathered several of them. As I read, I culled them for helpful ideas and applications, many of which have found their way into this work. I will list them for you below. In bold are the ones I found more helpful than not. 

 

-Spiritual Power in Your Teaching, Roy B. Zuck, Moody Press, 1963, 188 pages

-The Seven Laws of Teaching, John Milton Gregory, Baker Books, 2003, 128 pages

-The Sunday School In Action, Clarence H. Benson, The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1941, 327 pages

-The Successful Sunday School and Teachers Guidebook, Elmer Towns, Creation House, 1980, 400 pages

-What Every Sunday School Teacher Should Know, Elmer L. Towns, Gospel Light, 2001, 180 pages

-Youth and the Church, Roy G. Irving and Roy B. Zuck, Moody Press, 1972, 442 pages

-Mentoring and Modeling, Dr. John Goetsch and Dr. Mark Rasmussen, Striving Together Publications, 2002, 199 pages

-101 Tips For Teaching, Mark Rasmussen, Striving Together Publications, 2007, 205 pages

-Building A Standard Sunday School, Arthur Flake, The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1934, 171 pages

-World's Largest Junior Church, Dr. Jim Vineyard, self-published, 1981, 133 pages

-Teachers That Teach, Amos R. Wells, The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1924, 138 pages

-Biblical Youth Work, Jim Krohn, self-published, 2005, 355 pages

-May I Suggest; For Parents and Leaders of Teens, Thomas J. Vogel, Bird Publishing Company, 2000, 224 pages

-Teaching Sunday School Teachers to Teach, Dr. Jeff Owens, Owens Publications, 2012, 223 pages             

 

You can be an outstanding Sunday School teacher. Together, let us turn the page and learn how.       


Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Introducing The Christ Conference

      For several years now, I have had a growing burden to develop a preaching conference with a singular focus on Jesus. We have conferences uncounted in the independent Baptist orbit, and I am not against them. Conferences on prayer, on church growth, on missions, on separation, on preaching, on leadership, on addictions ministries, on bus ministries, on marriage, et al. We have conferences for pastors, for teenagers, for single adults, for ladies, for men, for missionaries, and for colleges. I repeat, I am not against them. I have been to more of them than I can count and I have always found a blessing. I am not saying our conference will be somehow better or superior to any of those. But as I grow older I find an ever-increasing burden to center the emphasis of whatever ministry I have around Jesus Christ. So as spring turns to summer here along the banks of the Mississippi River, the Bible Baptist Church of Dubuque, Iowa, plans to try to do exactly that.

     When is it? The Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of Memorial Day week, May 27, 28, and 29. We will run two preachers each morning and two more each evening, twelve sermons in total. The only instruction each preacher has been given is to bring us a message about Jesus. Who is preaching? Nobody well known, really, but we are good with that. Joel Bible. Chris Birkholz. Tom Brennan. Paul Crow. Donald Link. Cole Mahle. Ed Mast. A. J. Potter. Ben Sinclair. Keeton Wainscott. How much does it cost? Nothing. We're working at providing accommodations. At the least, we should be able to point you in the direction of a discounted rate at a decent hotel. We'll tell you as soon as we can. As a church, we are new at this so be patient with us. We plan to provide lunch each day of the conference since good fellowship is an essential part of the edification of such things. 

     The Christ Conference. Ten men. Twelve sermons. Every message about Jesus.

     We invite you to join us.   

They ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Acts 5:42

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

My 2025 Travel Schedule

      My primary ministry responsibility is the pastorate of Bible Baptist Church in Dubuque, Iowa. For years, I resisted almost all invitations to speak elsewhere. But a couple of years ago, the Lord led me to change my mind about that for a variety of reasons. I now open up a limited number of slots each year to teach and preach other places. All my available slots for 2025 are filled. I am sharing that schedule with you because meeting my readers is one of my chief joys when I travel. If I am in your area, and you are able to attend a service where I speak, I would be delighted if you would come up afterward and introduce yourself. 

February 7-9, Marriage Matters, Hunt Valley Baptist Church, Cockeysville, Maryland

February 14, Valentine's Banquet, Gospel Light Baptist Church, Marion, Iowa

March 3, Super Conference, Northside Baptist Church, Davenport, Iowa
March 24-28, Ambassador Baptist College, Bible Conference, Lattimore, North Carolina

April 15-16, Baptist College of Ministry, Menomenee Falls, Wisconsin
June 30-July 4, Commonground Baptist Camp, Butler, Pennsylvania

November 2, Calvary Baptist Church, Beaufort, South Carolina

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

From My Mailbag...

      From time to time, I receive questions of one sort or another. They work their way to the bottom of my to do list. In fact, today's question has been sitting in my inbox for nine months. As you can see, I'm trying to discourage you from sending me questions. <grin> At any rate, in between blog series I like to answer one or two, especially if I think they might benefit a wider audience. 

    Here is today's question: "Could you please send me maybe 4-5 tips you have for organizing your time and ideas with writing and reading when you have a moment? I’d really value your input. A while ago you challenged me to write (maybe you do with everyone I don’t know??) but I’ve taken it to heart."

    I do plead guilty to being a writing evangelist. If you have ever spent time around me, and expressed above average intelligence, I have probably urged you to write. Of course, that is relatively easy for me to do. I don't have your schedule, priorities, commitments, or challenges. Then again, you don't have mine either. So what I have learned in relation to writing and ideas and schedule that might be helpful here?

    First, I have found it helpful to commit to blogging regularly. Weekly, in my case. My first year writing I blogged daily. That was a mistake. <grin> But a worse mistake is to tell yourself you will write when you have time, or to sit down when you feel the urge. Like with the question that produced this blog, such an attitude will drive writing to the bottom of your to do list. I know men who are at least as good of a writer as I am, if not better, who blog a half dozen times a year about some random thing or other that strikes their fancy. Not only will they never develop momentum in a readership, they will not develop any momentum in writing either. Like soul winning or prayer or a date with your wife, if you put it on your schedule and you are a person of character it will get done. So commit to writing something at least weekly.

    Second, I have found it helpful to write in a series. A book is a series, at least the kind I write. I also blog in series. 

    This has several advantages. You can explore a subject in depth, and I think there is staying power in that kind of study and teaching and writing. Then, too, it protects you from over-reacting to the current zeitgeist, the news of the day, and writing throw away pieces that have little use in months or years to come. It will also help you gather a readership. People who like the subject you are discussing will bring in other people who like it, and your readership will grow. Most of all, though, this allows you to plan ahead what you are going to write. Which is my next point, actually.

    Third, I have found it helpful to plan ahead of time what I am going to write for the next year or so. This developed first in my preaching, and I found it to be so beneficial I brought it to my writing as well. This allows you to research/study/outline something well ahead of actually writing it. Why does that matter? Because you will write better what you have thought about longer. Additionally, if you are in the ministry there are some seasons of your calendar that are busier than others. In the slower ones, you can do your immediate writing for that week, and some prep for future weeks. In the busier ones, since your prep is already done, you can limit yourself to just the writing. And everything I am saying here applies to book writing as well. 

    Fourth, I have found it helpful to take one particular time each year to do nothing but plan ahead, to put everything else on pause while you meditate and pray on the directions the Lord would have you go as you seek to edify His people. What does He want you to emphasize next? What do the people you influence need most in the near term future? How does this fit into your responsibility to preach/teach/write the whole counsel of God? When your life draws to its close, what will you wish you had used your influence to accomplish? Answer those questions, and the questions that spring from them, formulate your plan, work your plan, and don't get sidetracked. 

    For me, I have found my prayer retreat to be a good week to accomplish this each year. In case you needed another reason to go on a prayer retreat. <grin> 

    Lastly, I have found it helpful to repackage things I have previously studied and taught. I may take something I taught in Sunday School ten years ago, deepen it and widen it, and turn it into a Bible Institute class. Perhaps a series I did on Wednesday nights some years ago could be repurposed/retailored for a Sunday School class or a blog series. Etc. If your audience in this particular venue has little to no realistic chance of having heard that from you before, and it would benefit them, give it to them. A well produces good water for many years to all who draw from it. You dug a good well back yonder; it is ok to draw from it again. 

    I am not sure about everything, but I am sure about two things. I do not have all the answers. It is right to ask questions designed to pull wisdom out of people. So good on you for asking, just don't think my answers are the only good ones. 

    I hope something here may provoke a thought that might help you. And keep writing. Well, if you are of above average intelligence that is. <grin>