Become an Excellent Bible Teacher Course
Session One: Reminder - Who You Are
**The text and videos have different content, so be sure to read and watch all the parts for each session. CLICK HERE for your Session Notes. You will have all of the notes for the five Sessions.**
You are a Bible Teacher.
God has called you. That’s a personal thing. Congratulations!
God has asked you, while armed with the Holy Spirit, to join Him in the process of changing the lives of people. That’s amazing!
In this session I want us to explore some scriptures that I hope will implant upon your heart how important your job or ministry is.All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ~ 2 Timothy 3:16
As you teach, you must always keep in mind that it is the scripture that causes change. God spoke the very words you teach. His words are not your opinions. His words rebuke, correct, and train. Let His words work in the children. Your job is to teach the words of God.So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. ~ Romans 10:14Let’s break this verse down: God’s Word + Hearing = FAITH
Your job is to speak the words of God.
And one more…Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. ~ 2 Peter 1:3God has given you everything you need to teach the Bible to kids. As you learn more about Jesus, the more you will be able to share that knowledge with others. God has called you. That’s a personal thing. That’s a relationship. It’s not like a stranger yelling out, “Hey you, with the green shirt!”
No.
The God of the universe has called you into a relationship with Him. He knows you intimately. He made every fiber of your being. If you want a good relationship with God, then you want it based on truth. Jesus is Truth. If you want a good relationship with the children you are teaching, then it must be based on Truth. If you want the children you are teaching to have a good relationship with God, then you must teach them Truth.
Therefore, your job is to teach the Word in the context of the personal.
Your job is important. Why?
Because every time you teach the Bible, the children must be presented HOW the lesson affects them personally.
What does the lesson have to do with their relationship with God?
Salvation and a change of heart is not to be taken lightly. God doesn’t take it lightly.
He thought salvation was important enough to send Jesus to earth to die for the sins of all mankind.
That’s a big deal.
And the children you teach need to hear that message.
AND…One more scripture:“To whom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
“For He says,
‘Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’” ~ Isaiah 28:9-10God’s word takes time to learn. You, an adult, should still be learning about God through Jesus in the Bible. So, do not expect the children you teach to thoroughly understand and know your objectives after one lesson. It takes time and repetition.
The Word of God is active.
Because of this, children will understand and know what they are spiritually mature enough to understand and know. When scripture is repeated, the Active Word teaches just a “little bit more”.
What you do as a Bible Teacher is extremely important.
1)YOU get to share God’s word which changes lives.
2)YOU get to show children HOW to have a personal relationship with God.
3)YOU get to share Truth with children over and over as they grow and mature in the faith.
Before we move on through this course, I want you to think about your job as a Bible Teacher.
How do you view yourself?
After you think through that question, choose one of these verses to read (Psalm 119:9; Romans 10:14; 2 Timothy 2:24-26).
Think about how that verse applies to your teaching.
Once you do that, fill out the following sentences.
My name is __________ and I teach children the Bible. This is important because_________________________________.
Example: My name is Anne Marie Gosnell and I teach children the Bible. This is important because I am called to share the personal message of salvation so they might know Jesus and then make Him known to others.
Once you have created your Bible Teaching sentences, write them out on a notecard and place them somewhere you will see them regularly.Be sure to watch the video below that goes with this lesson.
Then SESSION 1 will be complete and you have focused on your purpose and value as a Bible Teacher.
Session Two: Hindrances to Effective Bible Teaching
In Session One we talked about the importance of being a Bible Teacher.
Even if you *know* why it’s important, sometimes it is good to REMEMBER that what you do is eternally significant.
So, now that you remember, you are ready to begin teaching the Word of God. HOWEVER…
There are some hindrances to effective Bible teaching, and we want to stay away from them.
When I was in college I was given the task to teach Bible at a church summer camp. Sounds great, right?
Wrong.
I was given no curriculum.
None.
And no guidance from church leaders.
Granted, I was in college and knew my Bible. I’d been in church my entire life…But that doesn’t mean I was ready to teach kids about Jesus.
Hindrance #1 – NO PLAN
Whether you use a boxed curriculum or write your own, you must have a plan.
I can remember staring at those kids in my class one afternoon wondering what in the world I was going to do with them for the next hour.
You need to know your time limit.
You need to know the ages of the kids you are teaching.
You need to know the topics you are going to teach.
· Are you going to teach the Bible chronologically? (I recommend this!)
· Are you going to teach the life of Jesus?
· Are you going to teach about certain people of the Bible?
· Are you going to teach character traits?
· Are you going to teach a certain book of the Bible?
How long will each lesson last? Are you going to do an entire month on the life of Paul? Or one week?
HINDRANCE #2 – THINKING YOU KNOW IT ALL
There is no room in Bible Teaching for arrogance. The more you teach, the more you will realize how much you do not know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. I know that when I hear a Bible Teacher who answers questions with short answers and with all confidence, I run away from them and their teaching.
FAR away.
It is OK to say you do not know the answer to something.
It is OK to say, “Let me tell you what I think might be an answer…”
People who are arrogant in their teaching are not teachable themselves. They think there is no room for improvement. The last I checked people make mistakes.
I know I do. I also know I do not know everything, which is why I love communities like the Bible Lessons for Kids group.
You are not a perfect Bible Teacher. In fact, on your best day when everything goes without error, you still come up short…
…Because we live in a fallen world.
And anything good that we do is because of God’s grace. But perhaps you fall into the category of our last hindrance.
Hindrance #3 – THINKING YOU CAN’T TEACH AND AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH
Every Christian should, in some way, attempt to teach others. (Matthew 28:20) But everyone has different talents. And everyone has diverse ways for communicating with different age-groups.
Have you ever thought about the types of people God has used throughout history?
While you may have a different talent than me…. that does not mean it is inferior. It’s different. You are unique. You have a voice that children need to hear. Maybe you rock it out with preschoolers and puppets. Maybe you feel more comfortable rocking in the chair with a 6-month-old. Maybe you enjoy praise music with 4th graders. Maybe you enjoy intense Bible study with high school young adults. Maybe you have a heart to listen to a confused middle-schooler. Maybe you feel more comfortable teaching adults.
Whatever your talent, you have a place in the church to teach.
You CAN teach.
You ARE good enough.
Your assignment for today is to think of a person from history who, in our eyes, would seem unqualified to teach or lead in the church. (Don’t choose Paul. That’s too easy!)
Once you think of your person, go to the Facebook Group from above, introduce yourself, and share that person’s name in a post and explain why he or she was unqualified yet used by God anyway. Also, feel free to post what you have discovered about your role as a Bible Teacher so far and if you have any hindrances to work through.
Don’t forget to watch the video that goes with this lesson.
Anne Marie
EXTRA HOMEWORK:
In the video I talk about 4 scriptures to mark in your Bible when teaching kids about following Jesus and the Salvation experience.
The first verse is Romans 3:23, then 1Corinthians 15: 3b – 4, Acts 16:31 and Hebrews 13:5b – 6a.
Be sure to highlight the verses and label your sticky notes with the numbers one through four.
Then when a child comes to you asking questions about salvation and following Jesus you can have the child read those verses if they’re old enough to read. Then let the Holy Spirit do his work.
Session Three: Practical Evaluation
During the last two sessions we have discussed WHO you are as a Bible Teacher and the hindrances that can cause you to be ineffective.
You might be wondering…
What SHOULD I be doing as a Bible Teacher?
In this session, I am going to help you evaluate yourself and set you on a path towards effective teaching.
Many families and churches evaluate their success by the number of salvations that take place. Think about it, are ALL your children saved? If you are a church volunteer, how many salvations have you had in your ministry?
I am not saying that this should not be considered. I think it is important to notice if children are deciding to follow Jesus.
HOWEVER…..
There are times when kids will say they want to “pray the prayer” because of who the teacher is instead of there being true repentance. As Bible Teachers, we must be careful that we do not lead in such a way that WE are the ones bringing salvation and not God. God is the only One who can save our children from sin. If keeping track of salvations is not the main way to tell if you are an effective Bible Teacher, then what should you do?
1. Evaluate your own walk with the Lord.
Are you excited about Jesus? Are you reading your Bible regularly? Excitement is contagious. If you love Jesus, the children will see that and wonder if they should love Jesus, too.
2. Do you enjoy teaching children?
If you feel sick (seriously) every time you are supposed to teach children, then maybe you need to rethink what you are doing. Does preparing a lesson for children excite you? Or do you dread it? Do you homeschool and it’s like hitting your head against a wall every. single. day? Not everyone is cut out to teach children. Try something different, a new strategy, or a new book, etc.
3. Prepare for each lesson.
When you receive the curriculum to teach, do you prepare the night before? How much effort do you put into your lesson? Life happens, and there are times when planning becomes skewed. But for the most part, Excellent Bible Teachers put hours of planning into one lesson.
4. Evaluate each lesson.
Even with the best planning, there are lessons that fail to go well. After each lesson ask: What worked? What didn’t work? How can I do better? How did the children respond? Did they have fun? Did I have fun? Retrospectives allow you to improve week after week and hone your skills as a Bible Teacher.
The key to today’s lesson is to not be “set in your ways”.
Are you willing to do what it takes to be an Excellent Bible Teacher? Are you willing to change something in your teaching that will better meet the needs of the children you are teaching?
We’ve already established the importance of this job. It should not come as a surprise that the requirements for being an Excellent Bible Teacher should cost you time and effort.
When I begin to plan a lesson, I read the scripture. I read it 2-3 times and meditate on it.
I think about it.
I pray through it.
I ask the Lord to give me wisdom about the scripture.
I ask Him which Truth He wants me to focus on.
Only then do I sit down and plan out my lesson for the week.
It usually takes me about 3 days to create a lesson.
And then I teach it and share it on the FutureFlyingSaucers website or YouTube.
So, it takes me about 5 days to offer quality, and effective, Bible lessons for you to use.
If you have used any of my lessons, then I’ve taken some of your work upon my shoulders. But even still, I hope that you would take 2-3 days to plan how you are going to teach your group of children, whether you have two or twenty. If you homeschool and you have a set curriculum, then you have the planning stage taken care of. But as you plan your curriculum for the year, pray through the decision. As you proceed through the year, are you seeing spiritual growth in your children?
If you desire Family Bible Times, pray through which devotional you should use. Should you read through a book of the Bible instead? Maybe you need to consider doing a family mission project.
Then after you teach, evaluate yourself and the lesson.
Your homework for today is to think through, and fill out, the Bible Teacher Evaluation Form for this lesson. After you do that, describe, or give an example of, how you answered one or two of the evaluation questions in the Bible Object Lessons Group. What improvements can you make? Today’s homework might take you some extra time. Really pray through it.
You can do this!
Anne Marie
Session Four: Presenting a Bible Lesson
In this session I want to walk you through how I teach a Bible lesson.
How I do this will not necessarily fit how you teach, but there are some basic principles that I think should be in every Bible lesson. This is where things really get fun!
What this lesson is NOT going to talk about is worship music, or Bible games, or crafts, or curriculum.
I want to totally focus on the Bible Lesson itself.
Before a group of children comes in to see me, I am a nervous wreck. My heart is beating fast. I double check to make sure I have everything I need.
I sit in my chair and pray.
And take some deep breaths.
Because as soon as those children enter the room…
I am ON.
And so are you when you begin teaching. In fact, if you aren’t mentally exhausted by the time your lesson(s) is/are over, then I might argue that you didn’t give 100% of yourself.
Let me explain.
1. As the kids come into my Bible room, I greet them with a smile. I ask them how they are doing.
2. All outside pressures and stresses of my life are put on the back shelf in my mind because I want my entire focus to be on the spiritual growth of that group of kids.
3. The first thing I do is give a small reward to those children who brought their Bibles.
4. Then I tell them which scripture we are going to learn from and I have all of those who have a Bible find the reference.
5. As they are searching for the reference, we sing the Books of the Bible song that matches the Testament we are in.
6. If needed I review what we learned last week, or we discuss where the scripture for this lesson falls in the Bible timeline.
7. I like to sit in a chair with a small table beside me while the children sit on the floor. This allows me to be on a similar plane as them and I have a table to hold my Bible or any props I might be using.
8. If I am teaching my own kids at home, then we all sit around the kitchen table. If we are doing family Bible time, then we all sit together on our couches.
I like the idea of everyone being together.
Now if you have LOTS of kids and you must use a stage, then the atmosphere for teaching is a little different. But even then, I like to sit on the edge of the stage and have the kids sit around me on the floor.
You do what is comfortable for you.
The HOOK –
You must gain their attention in some manner. This could be a strange question you ask. You could tell a personal story. You can do an object lesson. Science experiments are good.
Whatever you choose to do, you MUST ask questions and get them interacting with you. If you can do something that involves children volunteers, all the better.
The LESSON –
When I teach scripture, I have prepared so well that I don’t have to read the words. Instead, I tell about the event. However, there are some Bible events that are so fun that reading them right out of the Bible is fantastic! You decide how to tell the Bible event when you are planning.
When telling about the event, I try to incorporate as many senses as possible. And again, I ask questions: What would this person have seen? Heard? Smelled? What emotions would this person have felt?
**Remember, you want the lesson to be PERSONAL. So make the event as real as you can.
The APPLICATION –
During lesson planning, I have thought and prayed through application questions. (We’ll go over these in our video.)
After discussing the lesson, most of the time, I bring my HOOK back into the lesson. I link it to the Bible Truth and then to their lives. Usually the application has something to do with the gospel message.
What I do to teach the Bible is not difficult. Each lesson I teach lasts about 20-30 minutes.
The hard part of teaching the Bible to children is the preparation work.
YOU can do this.
See….
Here’s the secret to Excellent Bible Teaching…
If you have prayed throughout your planning time…
And you have read through the scripture and learned it yourself…
And you realize you don’t know everything and you are relying upon the Holy Spirit to guide you…
Then when you are ready to teach, let the Holy Spirit take over your words.
If your heart is right with God, then the Holy Spirit is going to use your efforts to reach someone. Now, you might be thinking, what about discipline? I can’t get the kids to sit still, yet alone listen. What about those kids who are bored all the time? In this course we’re going to discuss these issues and some practical teaching skills you can apply this week to your lesson.
Here is your assignment for today. Look up the scripture for your next Bible lesson. If you don’t have a lesson coming up, then choose a Bible event.
Read through the scripture, pray, and ask God to show you the Truth He wants you to learn.
God is good and will show you something new!
Anne Marie
Session Five: Presenting a Bible Lesson
Wow.
We’re just about done with the training to help you become an Excellent Bible Teacher.
You might be starting out, or you have been teaching for a while, but the fact is that you KNEW you could improve something and now you have some tools to do that.
This session is going to be easy…but super important.
I want to talk about Jesus.
As Bible Teachers we get to teach the heart of God’s redemptive program.
SALVATION is the process of God calling a human being into a relationship with Himself. God does this because He wants to teach the human about Himself; and by doing that, brings the human’s behavior into conformity to His own. The teaching that we do is a process. We get to take another person, or people, to a place where we already were in our spiritual lives.
JESUS is the standard we must always use when we are teaching. Jesus was the perfect teacher and He did it with the right balance that only God can give.
The right balance of what?
Jesus had the right balance of knowing what the people needed to know and how to effectively communicate to them.
He understood that the people needed an accurate picture of themselves.
In the same way…are you effectively communicating to children an accurate picture of who they are? Our children can’t hate what is evil if they don’t know what IS evil. Sin is real. Sin permeates everything we do. The only good we do comes straight from God. Do our kids know this?
Jesus knew the hearts of those He was teaching. He told them the Truth about sin and how to deal with it. How well do you know the children you are teaching? If they are your own, then probably well. But if you are teaching at church, what do you know about the home life of your kids? What about the cultural patterns that surround them? The better you know those whom you are teaching, the better teacher you will be…
…Because you will know what they need to hear.
THEN you will be able to communicate to them how to GET RIGHT and STAY RIGHT with God.
Faith comes from hearing.
It’s your job to tell them…
…then step out of the way as the Holy Spirit does His thing.
Repeat the process.
Over
And over
Again.
And as you continue to teach, you will “pull” your children along a spiritual path as you help guide them to know more about God. How does that make you feel?
I really want it to sink into your soul how amazingly awesome your job as Bible Teacher is.
A Bible lesson is not something to throw together. It shouldn’t be an afterthought.
Your homework today is to get with God. Pray over your Bible Teaching job, whether at home or church.
Pray for the children you teach and ask God how you can better connect to them.
Don’t forget to watch the video for this last section. (Enjoy those bloopers at the end!)
You made it!!
Now go teach your children about Jesus…effectively!
**Please email me at [email protected] and tell me what you think of this course. I would also love to know if there are other topics you would like to see covered in a Bible Teaching course.
BONUS
Who doesn’t like a bonus?
Now that you have completed the five sessions, it’s time to implement some of the techniques you learned.
Below you will find links to three of my popular Bible Study Packs worth $9.00.
Here is an exclusive Resources List of some of my favorite Bible Teaching tools for children.
**Please email me at [email protected] and tell me what you think of this course. I would also love to know if there are other topics you would like to see covered in a Bible Teaching course.