I just came across this pyramid that every teacher needs to be reminded of. HOW we teach our children matters. So much of our Bible Club teaching is lecture. We need to work to make it more active and less passive.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
How do we teach our kids about the Bible?
I just came across this pyramid that every teacher needs to be reminded of. HOW we teach our children matters. So much of our Bible Club teaching is lecture. We need to work to make it more active and less passive.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Ministry to Children is a Privilege
Good teachers have three qualities: They are disciplined, submitted, and teachable.
Disciplined:
In preparation
In attendance
In cleaning up
Submitted:
To God
To the pastor, elders and their vision for the church
To the leader of your ministry
To one another in love
Teachable:
And not prideful
When we teach, we must speak the truth in love.
Love alone is sentimental (based in feelings).
Truth alone can be too strong and doesn't give life.
Love and truth is agape love (divine love) and thinks about what is BEST for the other.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Life to the blog
I just found the best page for adding life to my blog...although it doesn't help much with Bible Club preparation. Anyway, if anyone happens across this blog, the page is http://www.timshen.truepath.com/christian/christian.htm and it has tons of great gifs.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Teaching the Children
Teaching the Children
It is not a small thing. Jesus put it as a high priority.
How happy would it be if ALL parents thus felt it to be their privilege to present their children to Christ!
Mark 10:13-16
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
The job of parents is to care for the spiritual health of their chidren. To bring them to Jesus…to introduce them to Jesus…to encourage them to have a relationship with Jesus. Our job is to help the parents in this.
Deut 6:6-7 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
What are we to teach? Ps 34:11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
· An awesome reverence for God
· A hatred of sin.
See the promise. Prov 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
And the promise goes on. Joel 1:3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
Preparation:
1. Spiritual We should prepare ourselves at home and arrive on time for Bible Club as teachers at 9:15. We always have a devotional to focus ourselves in God and a time of prayer and it helps us be prepared spiritually.
2. Practical If we are teaching a part of the lesson, or if we are in a drama, we should ALWAYS prepare ourselves for the teaching of the story. We may already know the story, but if we approach it with familiarity, we will not have life in our teaching. We need to make the story or lesson ours and pray over it before we teach it. Some of us have the capacity to do this quickly, such as the morning of Bible Club, but we should ALL take the time to do that.
3. Understand the flow of the lesson
During:
1. Be flexible In teaching, you need to arrange things according to the group that you have. Since we never know what kind of group we will have, we need to be sensitive to how we can change things to have them work better, and be willing to be flexible for the sake of the children….or because the logistics in a certain situation will work better.
2. During the welcome activity Our focus is to make the children feel welcome, special and capable. As far as helping them feel capable we need to let them do everything they can do and help when they can´t do something. This does not mean that they can do it to our standards. A paper poorly cut by the student is much more valuable than a paper perfectly cut by us. Ex. Scissors.
3. In the worship time Our goal is to help children enjoy worshipping God and to learn Scriptures and Scriptural principles through these times. We need to all participate and interact with the children while not being a distraction to the children. We need to help refocus the children on the leader.
4. In the Bible lesson We need to all be working to help the children have the best chance of receiving the lesson and keeping the children focussed on the person who is teaching. EVERYONE is important during this time.
5. The Bible teacher must be sensitive to the attention span of the children. DON’T just read the Bible story. That is why we need to prepare. If the students are interested in a point we can expand upon it. If they are bored, we probably need to do one of a number of things to grab their attention.
· Shorten the story
· Change our volume level or voice tone
· Do more to dramatize the story with our voices
· Do more to dramatize the story with our bodies
· Use children to act out the story…tell them where to go and what to do
· Grab a child who is acting up to be a part of the story…this is often the best thing to do if you are only losing one child.
· DO NOT SIMPLY CONTINUE WITH THE STORY
· It is ALWAYS better to use one of these methods than to begin disciplining the children…although there are children who need to be removed from the room if they are a distraction. Our goal is to have every child listen and we want to gently encourage them to do so.
6. During a Salvation message all must work to communicate that this is an important moment. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO DISTRACT. Move in to help control children who are not listening. PRAY. The person giving the salvation message must make it short and sweet.
After:
7. Obviously it is a priority to get the kids safely home, but also we need to store the lesson properly. They take a lot of time to prepare and often are left strewn all over the place.
It is not a small thing. Jesus put it as a high priority.
How happy would it be if ALL parents thus felt it to be their privilege to present their children to Christ!
Mark 10:13-16
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
The job of parents is to care for the spiritual health of their chidren. To bring them to Jesus…to introduce them to Jesus…to encourage them to have a relationship with Jesus. Our job is to help the parents in this.
Deut 6:6-7 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
What are we to teach? Ps 34:11 Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
· An awesome reverence for God
· A hatred of sin.
See the promise. Prov 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
And the promise goes on. Joel 1:3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
Preparation:
1. Spiritual We should prepare ourselves at home and arrive on time for Bible Club as teachers at 9:15. We always have a devotional to focus ourselves in God and a time of prayer and it helps us be prepared spiritually.
2. Practical If we are teaching a part of the lesson, or if we are in a drama, we should ALWAYS prepare ourselves for the teaching of the story. We may already know the story, but if we approach it with familiarity, we will not have life in our teaching. We need to make the story or lesson ours and pray over it before we teach it. Some of us have the capacity to do this quickly, such as the morning of Bible Club, but we should ALL take the time to do that.
3. Understand the flow of the lesson
During:
1. Be flexible In teaching, you need to arrange things according to the group that you have. Since we never know what kind of group we will have, we need to be sensitive to how we can change things to have them work better, and be willing to be flexible for the sake of the children….or because the logistics in a certain situation will work better.
2. During the welcome activity Our focus is to make the children feel welcome, special and capable. As far as helping them feel capable we need to let them do everything they can do and help when they can´t do something. This does not mean that they can do it to our standards. A paper poorly cut by the student is much more valuable than a paper perfectly cut by us. Ex. Scissors.
3. In the worship time Our goal is to help children enjoy worshipping God and to learn Scriptures and Scriptural principles through these times. We need to all participate and interact with the children while not being a distraction to the children. We need to help refocus the children on the leader.
4. In the Bible lesson We need to all be working to help the children have the best chance of receiving the lesson and keeping the children focussed on the person who is teaching. EVERYONE is important during this time.
5. The Bible teacher must be sensitive to the attention span of the children. DON’T just read the Bible story. That is why we need to prepare. If the students are interested in a point we can expand upon it. If they are bored, we probably need to do one of a number of things to grab their attention.
· Shorten the story
· Change our volume level or voice tone
· Do more to dramatize the story with our voices
· Do more to dramatize the story with our bodies
· Use children to act out the story…tell them where to go and what to do
· Grab a child who is acting up to be a part of the story…this is often the best thing to do if you are only losing one child.
· DO NOT SIMPLY CONTINUE WITH THE STORY
· It is ALWAYS better to use one of these methods than to begin disciplining the children…although there are children who need to be removed from the room if they are a distraction. Our goal is to have every child listen and we want to gently encourage them to do so.
6. During a Salvation message all must work to communicate that this is an important moment. DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO DISTRACT. Move in to help control children who are not listening. PRAY. The person giving the salvation message must make it short and sweet.
After:
7. Obviously it is a priority to get the kids safely home, but also we need to store the lesson properly. They take a lot of time to prepare and often are left strewn all over the place.
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