Teaching with Fire

DO I REALLY CARE?
     That is the question we must all ask ourselves. I can tell you almost everything you need to know about Sunday school teaching. I have done it for years. But classroom techniques and instructional strategies are a waste of time unless you deeply care for the young people you are attempting to reach.
     It starts on the inside. Without a fire that burns in your bones, it doesn’t matter how many teacher’s quarterlies you have read or how many years you have been in the classroom.
     Henrietta Mears, an author who spent a lifetime in Christian education, has said, “The teacher has not taught until the pupil has learned.”
     How do they learn? When children love the messenger, they are open to the message. That is why caring must always precede communication. If people don’t like you, they’re not going to listen to you. It’s that simple.
     The answer to a successful Sunday school program cannot be found in the careful lesson plans that have been written and published for decades. Some people treat their teacher’s manual as if it were inspired and ordained by God – but most of the time it has never been tested on kids!
     Every week the lesson plan at Metro Sunday School becomes written curriculum that is used around the world. It is not published before it is presented but only after it has been designed, developed and demonstrated.
     What we have developed may be the most exciting, effective material you can find, but it will be as boring as 4 A.M. if it is not presented by people who have a fire burning within their spirits.
     If you don’t “feel” the lesson, your classroom will become as dead as a funeral parlor. It is only when your “thus saith the Lord” is accompanied by a heart of compassion and caring that the message comes through. People of every age will respond by feeling what we feel. When we don’t care, they won’t either.
     Every week when I deliver what we work so hard to prepare, I treat that hour as if it were heaven or hell – because that is exactly what it is.
     Speaking to a group of Christian educators recently, I was rather blunt. “If you look at your class as anything less than life or death, you do not deserve to be a teacher. If you walk into the classroom ten minutes late, week after week, you need to resign. You wouldn’t come in late on your job all the time, but I’d venture to guess that some of you do it on Sunday.” There is no excuse. I’m sorry, there just isn’t.
     What does this have to do with Christian education? Everything. Sunday school teachers need to come face to face with the depth of their love and concern. If people don’t know how much you care, they couldn’t care less about how much you know.
     You can be a teacher for 30 years and have a dozen achievement certificates on your walls, but they are meaningless if you don’t have a heart for your class. Do you cry when they cry? Are you touched bye their feelings? The Bible says Jesus was not only touched by people’s infirmities, but by the very feelings of the infirmities.
     The world has grown tired of the games being played in many churches. What they are searching for is something they recognize instantly. It is called reality.
     As Christians we have learned the right words to the right songs and have become experts on the topic of love and forgiveness. We have practiced how to smile and how to show concern. We can even yawn and praise the Lord at the same time. Isn’t that amazing? There is just one problem. People recognize a phony when they see one, and shallowness is exposed faster than most people imagine.
     The days of attempting to “Fake it ‘til we make it” need to end. Either we are in this thing for the right reason – and for the long haul – or we need to get out of the way and let someone else take over.
     The world is watching. They’ve seen enough scandals. Now they want to see if what we believe really works. A hurting child is only looking for one thing – something with compassion and concern. They are looking for love that is shared heart to heart.
     Are we teaching because lives need to be transformed? Or are we there only because no one else would take the class? It’s hard to believe that some teachers can present a lesson week after week and never take the time to talk personally with one student. In most cases they’ve never been in the kids’ homes or don’t even know the kids.
     What conclusion can I draw about a Sunday school teacher who never visits a home, never phones an absentee and never invites someone to attend the class? Do they really care?
     Life is too short and the problems are too great to hurriedly spend fifteen or twenty minutes every Saturday night putting some slop-job lesson together. It is time we stop thinking about teaching the lesson and begin to consider how we can reach out with love and concern for a child.
     We’re not supposed to be teaching lessons; we’re teaching people.

Quote from ; Bill Wilson – Whose Child is This