On Sunday School

I’ve been helping out with Sunday School at my church. There are approximately somewhere between half a dozen to a dozen 5^th and 6^th graders that show up on a given week, and it has been absolutely wonderful working with them. It has been a privilege to teach them about defending their faith – about learning more about what it really means to be a Christian so that their faith is theirs, not that of their parents, not simply a canned set of answers to questions that they’ve heard at church. It’s been fascinating to see how their minds work to process new concepts, and I’m always amazed by how they are able to simplify and capture the true essence of what they’re learning in just a few words. It’s humbling to see how open they are to sharing their faith with friends and classmates – none of this worrying about how others will react just yet. Each week they challenge me – without even knowing it – to grow in my faith, to ask more questions, to take all that I learn to heart. And when they ask me questions, it forces me to really process the abstract concepts so that I can come up with a concrete example that they can understand. I’m starting to understand why Jesus used a lot of parables even with grown-ups. When we have a concrete example, an application, something that we can relate to, whatever we are learning at the moment becomes so much more real and it becomes ours.

By watching Mr. L lead the class, I’ve learned a lot about structuring content and asking questions to guide kids to the answer. And I’ve appreciated his support as I’ve tried to learn how to teach. Several of the key lessons so far:

•  Prepare a lot and expect to cover about 10% of what you’ve prepared.  
• Always. Always. Always provide a real-world analogy. Example: explaining that the authors of the Gospels likely have slightly different accounts because they had different perspectives probably won’t get across too well. What might work: tell them to imagine that people are standing on different corners of an intersection when a red car hits a white car. When the policemen interview them about what happened, witness 1 says one of the drivers was wearing black shoes. Witness 2 says that one of the drivers was wearing a baseball cap. However, the important question is whether the red car hit the white car or whether it was the other way around. If the witnesses disagree on which car hit the other, we’ve got a problem.
•  Stay away from abstract concepts. If you find yourself heading down the path that leads to an explanation of what is circular logic, RUN.

Yesterday was the last class for the school year. Next week, I will set out to try and teach this group of happy, curious, fidgeting kids without Mr. L. I expect to be stretched. I expect it to be a very humbling experience, and I expect it to be hard. All prayers would be much appreciated.