Time Spent this Week: 17 hr.
1 hr - Sunday school
1.5 hr - worship service
1.5 hr - gym ministry
2 hr - Ipods (Bible study)
3 hr - youth
8 hr - Winter Jam concert
My Class this Week:
Fellow classmate, Tyler Klein, spoke today and led the Sunday school in a sermon on Patience through Suffering (James 5:7-11).
HANGMAN:
He opened the classtime with a game of hangman. He finished this game by incorporating a couple words relating to his lesson for the day. The kids were captured by this event, having fun trying to guess the words without asking for individual letters.
PRAYER:
Tyler divided the room up into three or four different groups and listed specific prayer requests for each group to cover. My group was asked to pray for the Sunday school lesson. This was an effective way of preparing the students to anticipate a good lesson and an honest Word from the Lord.
QUESTION:
"Has there ever been a person in your life who always seemed to get under your skin?"
This is the question Tyler opened up for discussion concerning the lesson. He followed it up by sharing a personal testimony of a time in high school when he was routinely, verbally persecuted/bullied at school.
READING:
Tyler read the scripture passage of James 5:7-11 and explained how unnocent poor people were being persecuted by their rich oppressors. He noted the two examples of farming and prophets that illustrated patience as the key to perservering through suffering.
DEFINING DIFFERENCES:
Tyler went on to ask the kids to explain the differences between Patience and Perserverance.
Patience: waiting
Perserverance: keeping at something, endurance, standing firm
He explained patience as being patient with individuals, and perserverance as enduring through hardships.
Relating this back to a previous passage in chapter one of James, Amanda noted that James 1:1-3 tells us that the testing of our faith develops perserverance that will lead to our eventual spiritual maturation.
CLOSING:
Tyler ended the lesson with a great analogy of Christ's suffering on the cross - the ultimate price and the best example of having patience through suffering. He closed with a prayer for patience through such suffering.
Following Tyler's lesson, Mike stood up and tried his best at a follow-up question: "Are we really persecuted for our faith?" The kids talked back and forth about this for fifteen minutes until class ended.
My Questions for the Week:
1. Is it really a problem if a class ends early? What does that imply? I don't think Mike was trying to belittle anything Tyler said, but I think it would have been fine to leave it as was without interjecting personal thoughts and questions. Maybe that's just me. If I would have been teaching, I believe I would have felt undercut. Adding on to this issue - what can be done to ensure a complete class period?
2. At one point in the lesson, the kids were distracted and began speaking while Tyler was trying to explain the most important part of Jesus' suffering on the cross. My question is "How do you maintain teenager's attention for a straight hour?"
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I thought I'd comment on my own lesson now that I've have time to reflect on it so...
ReplyDeleteRe: question about what can be done to ensure a complete class period. I think that simply allowing students to discuss their faith, by prompting them with good questions, will drive a full period. It's simply hard to plan a first lesson, and I ended up talking to much, which made the hour run short.
Re: question about maintaining attention for a straight hour. Pastor Tony said that it's just simply hard, and that he still has trouble keeping them on target for an hour. So that made me feel better about it. Even when you give them an outlet like hangman they will still have tons of energy, especially with kids like Levi who are bouncing off the walls.