The use of THE BIBLE in the Sunday School curriculum
Part I: The problem
What if a student can attend a Sunday School class and never
have to handle or touch the Bible itself?
What if kids’ only contact with the Bible in Sunday School
is memorizing isolated verses to win prizes?
What if students do not bring their own Bibles to class and
therefore are not able to write in them, highlight text, stick in them post-it
notes, and familiarize themselves with where verses are?
What if a student only reads the Bible passage with his eyes
or listens to it but is not prompted to comprehend its meaning nor think
critically about its message?
What if a Sunday School lesson does not create the space and
provide the guidance for students to prayerfully consider how to apply the Word
of God, in community with others?
What if just the Bible Stories are taught but no reflection
follows and no prompting is given to help students see its connections with daily
life and with other stories of the Bible so that they see God’s meta-narrative
and grapple with how they fit into His-story?
What if Sunday School does not help the students develop a
love for their own Bible such that they are motivated to read it and see its
relevance in every day decisions?
What if parents, whose responsibility it is to teach their
children scripture (Deut. 6), renege because they themselves do not know how to
study the Bible?
What if students don’t read their Bible at home because they
have not been shown how to study and understand it for themselves in Sunday School?
What if the Bible is no longer the textbook for Sunday
School?
What if these statements are true, what would happen?
What might happen is that students graduate from years of
Sunday School without ever learning how to handle the Word of truth correctly,
in the sense meant by 2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV): Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does
not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of
truth.
Ever since Alfredo and I have been in charge of Sunday School in our local church, I have been on a quest for Sunday School materials. This quest, combined with some of my classes at Trinity, has prompted me to take a look at exactly how the Bible is used in curriculum. The product thus far has been an in-depth analysis of how the Bible is handled, what difference it makes, and what should be done about it. I invite you to peruse the paper I've written about it, which can be found in the links below.
Part I of my paper analyzes how the Bible is used in Sunday School curriculum through the lenses of curriculum theory. Part II presents a specific methodology, called the Flower/bee overlay, by which you can customize existing commercial curriculum to build your own lesson plans with a greater emphasis on helping the student present themselves to God as believers who can correctly handle the Word of truth.
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