Over the years I have had the privilege of teaching God’s Word to many different people. I have also had the privilege of being taught God’s Word by many different people. Most of the time I walk away either feeling edified, rebuked or encouraged to continue running the race. But unfortunately, there have been times when I have walked away feeling like “what was that person trying to say?”
Teaching is a gift given to us by God. But, like with most gifts, they don’t just happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and practice. In this blog I would like to give you some tips about how you can become a more effective Bible teacher.
- Maintain your relationship with the Lord Jesus
This is important for every Christian, whether they are teaching the Bible or not. But the reason why this is especially important when it comes to us as Children’s Church teachers, is because we can’t teach what we don’t know.
There are three things you can do to achieve this: Personal Devotions, Church and Accountability.
As Christians, we should be spending quality time in our own personal devotions, regularly reading our Bibles and spending time in prayer. This is good for our own Spiritual growth and knowledge.
Unfortunately, this is not enough. We are all fallen and sinful and we don’t always know, or understand, God’s Word on our own. So it is good and even important for us to be taught God’s word by others. God didn’t design the Christian faith to be individualistic. We are all a part of the body of Christ – The church. So we should be going to church and even be involved in some sort of small group Bible study so we can be taught by others and teach each other. This will help to correct and deepen our understanding of God’s word.
Going to church isn’t just about learning God’s word (as important as that is) it is also about fellowship with other Christians and for accountability. It’s no good if we, and I include myself in this, are teaching others that they should be living lives that are in line with God’s Word and yet we ourselves are not doing this. We can’t expect others’ lives to be changed by God’s Word if our lives aren’t.
So I come back to what I said earlier. We can’t teach what we don’t know, whether that be in knowledge or in action.
2. Be true to God’s Word
Children aren’t as discerning as adults; we need to take special care to teach the Bible accurately and faithfully to them. When simplifying a passage, we need to make sure that we don’t take out important information that will end up changing the meaning of the passage. Likewise, if we distort a Bible passage by adding to it in an attempt to make it more exciting, we may be surprised to find that the children remember our additions thinking that they come from the Bible. Then in later years when they realise that the details that we added are not in the Bible, they may look back with mistrust of our teaching as well.
Another reason why we need to be careful to teach faithfully is because we, as teachers of God’s Word, will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)
3. Do the hard work and practice
Teaching the Bible to children is often more difficult than it seems because a lot of the time we need to simplify the passage, bringing the message of that passage down to their level of understanding, without distorting the meaning, while still trying to make the lesson fun. This is hard work and takes a lot of practice.
As you get to know me you will notice that there is one concept that I will repeat often and that is that when we teach the Bible we need to make sure that we are teaching it accurately and effectively. There is no good teaching a passage so well that your children remember it for the next 50 years if what you are teaching is not truthful. Likewise, it is no good doing all the hard work of understanding a passage if you don’t teach it in a way that the children can understand.
There is a saying which goes something like this: “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” We need to work hard at not only telling the Bible lesson, but rather involving the children in the lesson so that it is not only one that they will remember, but one that they will understand and accept for themselves. There is a lot more that can be said under this point, but we don’t have enough time in this short blog post. (Please feel free to check out my courses where I deal with this in great detail.)
4. Always be truthful and reliable
We should not only be truthful in our teaching of God’s Word, but we should be truthful in everything we say. We need to be trustworthy. The children need to know that they can trust that we mean what we say and that we will follow through with any action.
One way in which this can play out is when a child asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to. Instead of trying to make up an answer, rather go away and look it up. But please DON’T FORGET. You may even want to write it down in a notebook. You could use this as an opportunity for the children to do a little homework too.
This can also play out in a situation that requires discipline. The children need to know that you will not make empty threats and that you will follow through on any consequences for misbehavior. (Feel free to read more about this in one of my previous posts specifically on discipline in the classroom.)
5. Build relationships
Get to know the children in your class; their background, where they are coming from, what games they play, what books they read, what they watch on TV, the toys they play with, the music they listen to and even the lingo they use. All these things will play a part in you understanding them better and knowing how best to teach them.
Let me give you an example: If you know a child in your class comes from a divorced family you will be more sensitive when talking about divorce or even trying to explain how God is our Father. If you know that their father is not in the picture you will know how to help them understand it better.
Children need to be taught on their level of understanding, when they are they are more likely to understand and remember what we have taught them. What children are capable of understanding will vary from age to age, from class to class and even from individual to individual. So it is important to get to know everyone in your class.
6. Pray regularly
Prayer is a very important part of preparation, since it is God who both enlightens us to understand his Word and who opens the hearts of the children to respond to it. So we need to be praying regularly for ourselves and for the children that we teach. We need to ask Him to help us understand the passage as we prepare and as we teach it to the children. We also need to ask God to help the children to understand what we have taught them and to accept it for themselves.
Before we wrap up I would like to mention three common mistakes that people make when teaching children.
They are only kids
A lot of people take on the attitude, “They’re only kids”, but this is a big mistake. Children are like sponges; they hear and soak up most of what we say. And in my experience they usually remember and repeat the things that you wish you had never said. So you need to be careful about what you say and even how you say it because it could be misunderstood.
The younger the person, the easier it is to teach
The second mistake that people often make is that the younger the person, the easier it is to teach. In my experience, each age-group comes with their own set of difficulties.
When teaching younger children you will spend most of your time simplifying the passage, being careful not to distort the meaning. When teaching older children, however, you won’t need to simplify the passage, like you would with a younger age group, because you will read it altogether in your small group time. But you would need to be prepared to answer more in-depth questions that could arise from the teaching that you wouldn’t have to answer with the younger ages.
Whether you are simplifying the passage for the younger kids or you are preparing for those difficult issues that might arise, none of these can be done off the cuff. They both require a lot of prayerful thought and preparation. It means working hard to understand a passage fully yourself first, so that you can then bring it down to level.
Thinking you know the passage backwards
What usually happens when you think you know the passage backwards is you get there on the day and try to teach it, but then you land up mixing things up, like getting places, days or other details confused. This makes it confusing for your group of children.
The next thing that might happen is that you get asked questions that you don’t know the answers to. I know there will be times when you will get questions that you genuinely don’t know the answers to after doing sufficient preparation. But I’m talking about simple questions that you should have anticipated and would have known the answers to if you had prepared well.
The last thing that I am going to mention that could happen when you think you know the passage backwards is that you don’t go through all the words or concepts from the passage that you might need to explain to someone in your group, either because they are new or because they just don’t understand its meaning.
In this blog we have looked at some tips on how to be a more effective Bible teacher. First, it is important to maintain our own personal relationship with the Lord by having devotions, attending church and actively living out God’s Word. We also need to take care to teach the Bible accurately and effectively. This takes a lot of hard work and practice. We need to be trustworthy in everything we say. Lastly, we need to get to know the children in our class and be praying for them as well as for ourselves.
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you found it helpful. Please send me any feedback, comments or questions that you may have. I would also like to hear if there are any topics that you would like me to deal with in the future. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Bye for now.
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)
References
*** Reference: Carmichael, S, 2000, Their God is so Big, Matthias Media, Australia
