image by Jordan Whitt from Unsplash Note: First of all, this is not a rant, though to some people my attempts at humour may come across as angst. I am not attacking anyone; these are simply general observations from years of experience, not just as a Sunday School teacher, but also from observing the attitudes other people and especially parents (from various churches) have towards Sunday School. As with secular teaching, there have been the good, there have been the bad, there have been the negatively neutral (by which I mean the silent hands-off kinds.) Which should be no surprise to us. But that doesn't mean we should settle for it. We should try our best to encourage healthy and theologically correct attitudes in order that God's work will be furthered without disruptions. So here is my two mites' worth. If, like most people, you've not taught Sunday School before, or you've not had much to do with it, I hope this post will change your mind. That first of all, you too have a part in how you contribute to creating a healthy culture for Sunday School to flourish. Regardless of whether you're single, or a parent. Regardless of whether you're actually actively "involved", or not. Personally, I've had a wonderful experience teaching Sunday School. Overall, I've been blessed with supportive and understanding parents as well as dear students which made this role a joy more than a duty. My hope is that everyone will contribute to creating this kind of environment for the teachers and ultimately, for the children, so that the ultimate goal for Sunday School--helping them to know and love God, and to believe in Jesus--will be joyfully made possible. 1. Realize that if you're a parent, the primary responsibility for your child's spiritual education and health does not rest on the Sunday school teacher, but on you. The best Sunday School teacher in the world cannot replace your role as a parent. Are you spending time to pray with your child, to listen to their questions about God, to read the Bible and discuss what they don't understand? Knowing this is the foundation for changing unhealthy and unhelpful attitudes many parents may have towards Sunday School, and for making the Sunday School teacher's work incredibly more effective. If you have no idea what your child has been learning in Sunday School, or if you see their weekly one hour there as their main spiritual education, it's a pretty good indication that you may need to reconsider the way you see Sunday School. 2. Be involved. Talk to the children about what they learn, and show an interest. Encourage them to tell you what they learn, if they're past the stage where they don't spontaneously want to tell you. Engage them in discussions about those topics and how they can relate what they learned in Sunday School to their everyday lives. This helps them to remember and apply what they learn, and it also shows the Sunday School teacher that you're taking an active role in supporting them and helping the child during the rest of the week. After all, they only go to Sunday School once a week; how much do you expect them to absorb and retain in just one isolated hour every week? 3. Be slow to complain and quick to see how you can support. Whether this means being involved in the children's ministry, Sunday School events, or just being understanding. Very often, the only times teachers hear from parents is when they have something they want to complain about. Teachers out there, am I right? Obviously, this doesn't encourage us to see you as an ally. Their lack of involvement also means that the complains sometimes come across as unreasonable, or don't take into account the context and background, since the parents are not aware what the situation is like. This is the norm for the teaching industry. When it comes to Sunday School, however, please remember this is a whole different ball game. Some parents' attitudes almost suggest that Sunday School teachers are being paid to ensure their children are saved. I'm not sure exactly why, since I've never been offered any money, but there it is. (That was a joke, by the way, if you weren't sure.) We want them to come to faith, as earnestly as you do. We struggle to do our best teaching them and nurturing them despite multiple challenges and many ineptitudes of our own. With this common goal, parents and Sunday School teachers should be working together, joyfully, with mutual respect and appreciation. You are our partners, not our clients or consumers. We are not service providers--we are simply trying to serve God. Would you feel equipped to teach other people's children about God? (who does?) So help us, when we struggle, and be kind, remembering that we share a common goal. 4. Pray for them. The kids, and the teachers. Too often people take the Sunday School ministry for granted. If it's struggling, they complain and often blame it on the teachers. If it's doing well, they forget to pray for it and assume everything will continue status quo because of the teacher's capability. Remember that even though the children may be young, it is just as important to pray for the Spirit to start moving and changing their hearts. It is just as important to pray for the Spirit to guide and enable the Sunday School teacher with wisdom, just as we always pray for the pastors and Bible study teachers. I am always touched and encouraged when people--regardless of whether they have kids in Sunday School, or have kids at all--remember to pray for the Sunday School ministry during prayer meetings, because it is easy to be overlooked, especially if you're not personally involved in it. 5. Encourage them. Tell them when your child tells you excitedly about a lesson they learnt, or seems to be remembering and applying what they learn. Too often, parents get used to Sunday School teachers as Sunday babysitters, or assume that their children are in good hands without needing any of their intervention--until they suddenly get worried about something and are up in arms. Sometimes this can be discouraging; complete silence from the parents/other members for months (except complaints.) It is hugely encouraging when parents come up to you to tell you what happened at home, how their child told them about what they learnt, or when the topic you taught was relevant to something the child faced at school. It shows us that what we teach during that one hour on Sundays actually resurfaced during the rest of the week, and reminds us that we are working alongside in nurturing the children--you at home, us in Sunday School. Or when other people in church encourage us that the children seem happy and engaged with their Sunday School, and ask how they can help. I have wonderful people in my church who, without actually being the parents of kids or personally involved in the Sunday School work, never fail to offer their help for Sunday School outings and events, take initiative to pray for it, ask me how the work is going and what challenges I face, and pass me materials/resources for it. One sister often gives stationery, sweets, or other small items to distribute or use as prizes/gifts, for example. Another collected a copy of the chords for Christian children's songs for me in case they might be useful. Some offer to help send and pick up the children for Sunday School events if their parents are busy. The Sunday School ministry is not just something "for kids," "for parents of kids," "for people who like kids/have a gift for working with kids." But I'll save that for another post.
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image by Jeremy Perkins from Unsplash "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” Exodus 3:1-4 Okay, so that was the desert. Why did Moses make so many excuses when God finally, after what must have seemed years of silence, revealed Himself to him? God told him, in words that couldn't be any clearer, that yes, He had chosen him to save the people of Israel. After years of self-doubt and disappointment, Moses' pet dream and life goal suddenly exploded into reality. Why didn't he scream "YESSSSS FINALLY I KNEW ITTT"? After the humbling desert phase he went through, Moses had fallen into the other extreme--the crippling fear of unworthiness and failure. Like Moses, the excuse of unworthiness often keeps us from serving God. We don't need to look far. A common protest when it comes to finding new Sunday School teachers/Bible study leaders is always "But I'm not spiritually mature enough!" Humility, as we can also see in Moses' life, is an essential quality for every servant of God. Yet often when it comes to serving God we can be manipulated by fear disguising itself under the pious cloak of humility. When we feel crippled by a sense of self-doubt and unworthiness, instead of panicking we need to ask ourselves several questions: 1. Are we willing? Under all our fears, are we even willing to serve God in the first place? That should be our first self-examination, because that after all is what matters most to God. Our flesh is weak, and will always be weak; but is our spirit willing? 2. God, if He sends us, is sending us with His presence and His help. As with Moses, He promises to be our sufficiency. He repeatedly tells Moses: I will be with you; I will help you; I will help you speak, I will teach you what to say. (and yet, Moses' fears are louder than the Living God speaking directly to him--actually out loud at that!) 3. It's not just us. Everyone is unworthy to serve God. Let that sink in. God delights in using and transforming unworthy people. He has always used common, unskilled people to do His work. It is the process, not the end--or He would not bother using us at all, since He has the power to accomplish His plans without us. Hence, we see God's patience in addressing all Moses' fears, as this is also part of God's plan for Moses' own spiritual life, for growth in his relationship with God. God's outburst was not the irritated banging of a sticky TV remote, but anger against Moses' overwhelming fear and lack of faith, even in the face of God Himself. God was not just prepping a clumsy tool for His great plan; God was shaping His child. image from Unsplash Those of us who serve in our churches--no matter what kind of ministry we're involved in--will know that challenges come thick and fast with serving. Always, whether in teaching or arranging chairs, the temptation is to treat it as any other task--manual housework; finishing an assignment; organizing an event; giving a presentation. We take the same business-like approach to serving in church that we take to our offices, our classrooms, our kitchens. Get the task done. Plan for the next time. Do it faster, better. The problem is it's not the same. Success, efficiency, productivity, self-worth, approval, rewards--these things, foundational to the mindset we take to any other forms of work, should not be our motivation and goal here, at least not to the same extent. We treat them as standards and methods through which we achieve success and make progress, through which we evaluate ourselves and our serving, the same way we assess our work in school or in the office. This misguided application is often the reason behind us falling into discouragement and despair. Bitterness. Self-pity. Guilt. Resentment. Burn-out. We need instead to consciously cultivate and focus on the true essentials for serving. 1. prayerfulness. This is so often repeated that it's become trite; but really, is it just because we can't draw a clear line between prayer and its benefits? If someone made an argument that for every hour of prayer, we would experience n amount of blessing on our ministry, I think prayer would actually appear on our schedules as something we took seriously. Too often we rush through prayer, itching to get to "the real work," massively confusing our priorities. If we feel that the benefits of prayer are vague, that very fact indicates how we've lost sight of it as the basis of our spiritual life, and how enslaved we've become to a results-oriented mindset. Like a husband who calculates the benefits of talking to his wife. 2. a Biblical attitude towards serving, and understanding God's role in enabling us. This is so much more important than we realize. It enables us to deal with burn-out, disillusionment, ungrateful or difficult people, feeling lonely, unappreciated, or being taken for granted. Why do we serve, and how are we able to in the first place? (Fyi, Jerry Bridges discusses this concept of enablement and serving in his excellent book, True Community. But more on that another day.) 3. a right perspective and focus on people instead of goals, individuals instead of numbers, hearts instead of conformist external behaviour. It is so easy to look to these temptingly concrete things for assurance and certainty. Whether congregation size or skirt lengths. But God's ways are different from man's ways, and we need to let go of the standards we use to measure success, the need to constantly measure (and reassure ourselves of) success. 4. humility so you are able to receive and benefit from constructive criticism--and not be devastated when it's...not constructive. Also, to keep you from seeing this role or ministry as "yours," becoming possessive--seeing it as an extension of your self-image and worth, the way we tend to with our jobs and academics etc. I've realized this can be a real challenge, after working in the same ministry for many years. It is a very real and natural temptation to make it an extension of myself; seeing any praise or encouragement of it as a reflection of my skills/worth, any criticism as a personal attack that threatens my self-image. 5. heart of peace that stems from trust in God, and relying on Him. It helps us to cope with stress, anxiety, and to rest intentionally. Purposefully planning rest--and being able to truly rest, not just physically but mentally and emotionally--is something that many of us need to learn. It helps us also not to blow things out of proportion, to micromanage/stress over not getting exactly the outcome we want. 6. actively growing in our relationship with God, and keeping a clear conscience before the Spirit. If we are clinging to idols, finding excuses for pet sins, neglecting our time with God, harbouring bitterness, or refusing to forgive someone, how can we expect to serve in ministry? How can we expect God to enable us? Many of these are interrelated--cultivating one helps you in developing another--because they are all aspects of spiritual growth. Which in turn shows us that one of God's means of helping us grow spiritually is through serving. Dear friend, as you stifle a sigh and try not to be anxious, struggle with burn-out and discouragement-- --try to see beyond merely the task at hand. It is so easy to simply focus on what needs to be done, and forget that God could have chosen any way, in His infinite power, to accomplish this work or meet this need. Instead, He chose you. He chose you, knowing full well there would be challenges, limitations, imperfections, mistakes. He knows, and He chose, for a reason, and it is so much more than just getting this task done. This task is nothing compared to His passion for your growth; it is only His tool. |
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