Teaching While Preaching Sunday School Instructors Connect With The Youngest Members Of The Congregation

The kids trickle into the Sunday school classroom after a recent 9 a.m. worship service at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. The group of 7- and 8-year-olds settles into their seats to learn today’s lesson of trusting and obeying God.

Teacher Neil Herbison narrates a story from a children’s Bible and a discussion follows. But the kids seem to do most of their learning about God during the craft session that follows.

Today’s craft is a booklet that lists the Ten Commandments. Herbison and his assistants help the kids define words like covet, adultery and graven image. “It’s really surprising what does soak in,” says Herbison.

But soak it in they do, and Sunday school teachers are an integral part of the learning process. They teach about the basic concepts of religion while modeling their faith at the same time. Often, kids remember their teachers more than the lessons, says Joanna Leiserson, the director of Christian Education at Millwood Presbyterian Church.

“If this were the military, they would be on the front lines,” Leiserson says. “Sunday school teachers are just so important. What they teach stays with us for life.”

The kids don’t seem eager to leave Herbison’s class when their 50-minute session is over. They file out reluctantly when their parents arrive to collect them, often pleading for one more minute.

Herbison tries to connect each week’s lesson to what is going on outside the classroom, such as Advent and Christmas. “We try to pattern our lessons on what they’re learning in worship, too,” he says.

Each class is filled with storytime, discussion, prayers, reading from the Bible and crafts. “If anything, we don’t have enough time to do everything we want to do,” he says.

Herbison has been teaching Sunday school at the cathedral for more than 30 years, but downplays his contribution. “That’s not really very long,” he says. “It hasn’t been continuous.”

He enjoys seeing kids learn about God, he says, and believes that everyone is called to minister in some way. Since he’s been volunteering for so long, he’s in a unique position to stay in contact with his students. “I get a kick out of watching them grow up,” he says.

He started by teaching a junior high group at the cathedral when he was just out of college. He took a break after a few years and then returned to teach elementary students.

He doesn’t teach the class by himself but has another teacher to help keep things running smoothly. “My teaching all along has been team teaching,” he says. “I think we complement each other.”

What keeps him coming back is knowing that he is appreciated and accomplishing something. He also gets a few compliments along the way - “Enough to inspire me,” he says.

“We know we’ve made an impact,” he says. “I feel that it has helped myself, too. It has helped me to become much better versed in Scripture.”

Mike Beegle, now a senior at Lewis and Clark High School, had Herbison as a Sunday school teacher when he was in the third grade. He recalls a few things that set that class apart from the rest.

“He (Herbison) was a lot more laid back,” says Beegle. “He let us talk about whatever we wanted to talk about. It was pretty cool.”

Beegle learned a lot in Herbison’s class that year, he says, and appreciated Herbison’s openness to ideas and creative thinking. Beegle views his Sunday school career as an experience that helped shape his current religious beliefs.

“It had an impact,” he says. “It made me become more discernful about things.”

Like most Sunday school volunteers, Herbison had no formal training before starting his teaching career. Leiserson, the cathedral’s former coordinator of children’s ministry who moved to Millwood Presbyterian last fall, says that she doesn’t care if people can quote Bible verses or know their church doctrine inside out.

“What I really look for is someone who relates to kids,” she says. “They can learn the doctrine as they go along. I think of it as a faith journey with the kids.”

Sunday school teachers should also be good listeners and treat people with dignity. They should attend worship regularly and be a good role model for kids, Leiserson says. They don’t even have to be parents.

“What I want is somebody who shows their love of God and church in their daily life,” she says. “What the children look at is the example of the teacher rather than the words.”

Despite the fact that almost anyone can teach Sunday school, volunteers are often in short supply. Rather than using a sign-up sheet, Leiserson often finds it more effective to approach people and ask them to take on the job.

“People don’t usually come and ask to do it,” she says. “I think it can be intimidating. People don’t know what it requires. People think `I can’t do that. I don’t know enough.”’ In her experience, says Leiserson, most teachers volunteer repeatedly while up to a third or a fourth of the teachers leave every year for various reasons, such as moving away and having their schedules change.

Pam Pace, Sunday school superintendent at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, says that this year she had to scramble to find teachers at the last minute. “That’s where prayer really comes into play,” says Pace. “People realized the need and stepped up. It always falls into place.”

She, too, finds it works better to recruit than to ask for volunteers. She’s learned that people are usually flattered to be asked. “Most people volunteer if they’re asked,” she says. “We’ve found that approaching them works better than posting a sign-up sheet.”

Pace looks for different attributes in her teachers, depending on whether they will be teaching preschool or high school. She also looks to see if they work well with kids. “The most important thing is that the person feels called to do it,” she says.

Sandee Atwood is one of Pace’s new volunteers. She teaches the preschool/kindergarten class, which includes her daughter Miranda. Atwood thought it would be fun to get involved in her daughter’s class, but never expected to be the teacher.

“I volunteered to help and there was a shortage,” she says, “and here I am.”

The church gave her curriculum to work from, and Atwood finds that her most pressing problem is trying to fit everything into a 45-minute session. “It just takes a little longer at that age,” she says.

She works on presenting the basic concepts of God and religion to the kids. Her sessions usually include a Bible story, a lesson or activity and a craft. One Sunday Atwood took her kids on a tour of the sanctuary, explaining what everything meant.

She makes every effort to create a fun learning environment. She draws smiley faces on her fingertips to represent Jesus and his disciples during storytime, wiggling her fingers to indicate who is talking. It grabs the kids’ attention and results in a few fits of giggles.

The class sings silly songs that are really lessons in disguise. During their activity time, Atwood makes sure that each child gets some individual attention.

Atwood predicts that she will return for more teaching next year. “It’s going really well,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of fun, really.”