Eight Evidences of Erroneous Education

Thoughts on Teaching Children in the Church

Through the years, I have read many different lessons for children.  I have seen enough problems in teacher’s manuals that I sometimes cringe when I am handed a manual and asked to teach.  Fortunately, people who know me know that I will refer first to the Bible and later to the manual. They expect that, so I am blessed that I am not expected to take the manual and use it exactly as it is presented.

At the same time, I know there are people who may be teaching for the first time.  They will usually take the materials and use them in the way they are presented.  So when I read something that misses the mark, I think of all those teachers who do not realize that the material they have been given is inadequate.  They think they should follow it as written. 

In order to alert teachers to the need to carefully examine their teacher’s materials, let me give you some of the main errors that I see in children’s curriculum.

1. Leave out or undervalue the main point of the Bible story.  What is the main point of the “Feeding of the 5,000?”  It is that Jesus, who looked like just an ordinary man, could take a little bit of bread and fish and feed more than 5,000 people with it.  He was not an ordinary man after all, but the Son of God.  A miracle happened that day!  Yet too often that story, when it is told to children, focuses on the need to share.  The story is not about sharing.  It is about a miracle.  It showed the people the power Jesus had.  We should teach the story with awe and wonder, not make it a moral about sharing.
2. Make the lesson one that will build up the children’s self-esteem by assuring them that they are at the center of God’s love.  Yes, God loves children with a love that goes beyond our comprehension, and nothing can separate a believer from that love.  However, we do not need to encourage a child’s self-centeredness.  Instead, if we help the children to understand God and His amazing plan of redemption, then His grace, mercy and love will naturally create a healthy view of God and a healthy view of themselves.
3.  Focus too much on the human characters instead of the supernatural One.  David killed the giant, Goliath!  Yes, he did.  But David was the first to give credit to the One to whom credit was due.  “I come in the name of the Lord.”  God was the one who put David there that day.  God was the one who gave David the ability to shoot straight.  God was the one who responded to David’s faith.  If we leave out God, why are we asking our children to come to Sunday School?
4. Waste time by using filler that has nothing to do with the main points you are trying to get across.  We have so little time in our children’s ministries that not one minute should be wasted.  Yes, we can teach using games, songs, crafts and other activities.  But we need to ensure that the activities actually teach something important that will help them remember the lesson.  For example, does the song, “Father Abraham” really help to teach children something about the lesson?  When the child walks away from Sunday School, will they go home talking about an amazing God or something much less important?
5. Focus on good behaviors instead of dealing with spiritual issues.  Too many lessons encourage children to act right rather than helping them realize that without God’s grace at work in us, none of us can ever measure up.  God has set a perfect standard before us.  Good behavior is not enough.  When children are old enough to understand their own sinfulness, we need to help them depend upon the God who can change them rather than asking them to change themselves.  We want to see what God can do in their lives, not what self-discipline can do.
6.  “Dumb it down.”  Too many people assume that children cannot learn the great theological truths of God’s Word.  True, it is very hard to teach those truths in simple terms, but if a teacher will give careful thought on how to present those truths, it can be done.  Since children are trusting, they will often believe these truths even more quickly than adults, and those truths will stay with them for a lifetime.
7. Forget about the whole counsel of God.  I have used curriculum that uses the same Bible stories over and over and thereby neglects huge portions of Scripture.  I have been in churches where the same lessons were being taught on Sunday and Wednesday, but the repetition was accidental, not intentional.  There was no attempt to say, “If this child stays in our church until they are eighteen, will they be equipped for adulthood when they are done?”
8.  Ignore the fact that the child is part of a family.  If we are going to do a good job of teaching children, we must also teach the family.  We have very little time with the children who come.  Their families are able to teach much more than we can.  Therefore, we must reach the home and help the parents teach their children.

God has given us a book.  That book is about Him.  When we teach it to children, we need to be sure that we are teaching in such a way that what we teach will not have to be unlearned at a later date.  We want to provide a solid foundation that will last a lifetime.