Resources for Christian Education
INTRODUCTION
My name is Nathanael Vissia and this page combines ideas from a workshop presentation I led at the UCC 2015 General Synod and a summary of what I’ve learned about writing Sunday school lesson plans.
The slideshow to the right will introduce the structure and content of the rest of this page. As always, if you have thoughts or comments, send them my way.
How To Write Sunday School Lesson Plans
Section 1
Relevancy
What do stories that were written 200 to 3000 years ago have to do with me? That is the question relevancy seeks to answer.
But using relevant examples / analogies is only half of the task. The other task is to prioritize the new content that is added to the lesson in the name of relevancy. I eventually developed an order of operations, which I discuss in the slideshow to the left.
Section 2
The Bible Story Is Superior Content
There is no better content to build a Sunday school lesson around than a Bible story.
If there is anything that I hope to encourage and promote in the world of Christian education, it is this: Let’s put the Bible story at the center of our planning and teaching of Sunday school programs, curriculum, and classes.
See the slideshow to the right for why I’m such an advocate of the Bible story.
Section 3
Transformation of our students
It is stunning to me how many of my friends and congregants carry perceptions of church that were first shaped and formed when they were children in Sunday school.
These are smart, grown, successful adults who think they can’t attend a Bible study because they don’t know enough about the Bible. Or, who struggle with the same questions they tried to ask in Sunday school but were either shamed or silenced by their teachers and therefore, in a mild way, carry those questions but with a chip on their shoulder.
Conclusion
An Example Lesson
The frustrating thing about educational theory is that it is often difficult to apply in the classroom.
Just about every lesson on this site, though, is built around the theories and ideas expressed in the previous slides.
In the slides to the right, I highlight and explain how certain components of each lesson are implemented to support the ideas listed above as well as a few other educational goals.