It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

The name Disorganised Sunday School is becaue I’m disorganised - I’m not naturally a planner or organiser, I work well (actually better) under pressure - so I usually plan at the last minute, I lose things, I change my mind and it is only by the grace of God that anything happens at all! Over the years though I have learnt to start Christmassing sooner, especially as I’m never working alone.

All that to say:
It is only the 9th November and Christmas scripts and Outdoor Activities are already up!

• There’s plenty of time to adapt the scripts to your situation. Are you filming on line? How many actors and how able are they? What is your setting is?

• You also have time to find props and costumes. Do you have a stash that you use every year? What ordinary household objects can you use?

• There’s also time to think about how you can reach your community with this? Do you have an outdoor space at home or in the church in which you could run a few activites? Could church families in your area each have one activity in each garden? Do you have an online platform where you could share a nativity story with people outside your church?

• It’s a good time to start praying. Is there a family or a friend you specifically want to reach out to this year? Ask God to show you the opportunities to share the gospel with your neighbours? Thank God for the church family and ask how you can get everyone involved in some Christmassy evangelism?

Action Songs aren't just for kids.

Yesterday a friend asked for some song actions that she could do in church with the kids. I made videos that she would be able to learn and copy the actions from - with so much enthusiasm (occasionally a little too much!)

AndI couldn’t help but think about how good actions songs are: for kids, for me and for all of us. Here’s why:

• They remind us that worship is not synonomous with singing. It’s a mistake we’ve all heard and, probably, all made. So often, in fact, that we don’t even notice it anymore. Our worship leaders are those who sing and/or play guitar; worship conferences focus on new songs and bands; a time of worship is a time of singing. And while all of those things can be worship they are far from all that worship is. To worship means to bow our whole selves to someone. Music and singing help us with that - but action songs remind us that it is not only by what we sing but by what we do that worship God.

• They help us to think more deeply about what we’re singing. So this applies most strongly to the person who comes up with the actions but the little things about actions help us to think through what it is we’re singing. For example ‘You’ can be directed outwards to the congregation as in ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you’ or up to God ‘You are the one who saves’. How can you get across the meaning of our sin being taken away, or what it means to follow Jesus with a gesture: you can’t capture it but what can you do that shows a part of this? Having to think that through or simply doing it as you sing the words can improve your understanding more thanthe wordalone would.

• They are for everyone. There’s a reason we do action songs with kids, it’s because little ones can’t read, and while they might learn the song with enough repetition they can copy the actions straight away. For the hearing impaired actions can be a help connecting with a song (particularly if you’re church doesn’t have a sign language interpreter) and I rely heavily on sign language for action ideas. It can also help communicate ideas to foreign language speakers (as one myself, I would love to have some visual clarification on what I’m singing).

• It’s fun! Movement is good for your body, looking in front of others and not caring because they look silly too is great for your mental health. Besides when we all do it do we even look silly. For those of us who can’t carry a tune in a bucket it’slovely to be able to join in and contribute to communal sung worship. Our bodies do not merely contain or carry our sould they are one with them and can express what we’re feeling - so why would we hold back on our fullest expression during a song of praise?

Does everybody have to do actions? Does every song require actions? No, of course not. But we shouldn’t limit them just to children’s songs as though they didn’t benefit adults as well.If I’ve convinced you to try it - for yourself not just for kids - here are some ‘grown up’ songs that lend themselves well to actions:

My Lighthouse - Rend Collective
One Way, Jesus - Hillsong
Höher - ICF Worship - The German version is better than the English one If you can understand it.
Man of your Word - Maverick City Music
This I believe (The Creed) - Hillsong
Every Giant will Fall - Rend Colective

Enjoy yourself!
(and the evdence of too much enthusiasm for actions below)

Tips for Online Sunday School

It’s not an ideal situation to be in - where you can’t safely teach kids in Suday School face to face. You can’t see if they’re engaging with you, activities are tricky to organise and impossible to supervise and it’s hard to ask or answer questions - a staple for Sunday Schools!

I’ve written, prepared and filmed somewhere over thirty online Sunday School lessons now - including a few in German which I’m still not fluent in - and, through trial and error, I’ve worked out some important questions to ask myself as I prepare.

For the Story

• Where does this happen? Who is there? What has just happened? What is about to happen?

• What is the main point of the passage? (You can find more detail on this step in my ‘How to …’ guide)

• What apects of the Bble passage need to be focussed on to get this main point across? (And if it’s a long passage what can you leave out without altering the story while still supporting the point?)

• How can you best tell the story? Reading the text (from the Bible or a kids Bible), acting it out, with pictures, with playmobile or lego figures? Write with the best possible method in mind and then work out how to make it happen afterwards.

For the Talk

• Would the youngest child watching be able to hear and understand the main point?

• For older children how can you break the main point into smaller sections?

• Can you predict any problems or difficulties with this message? If so help them to deal with them now.

• What would you like them to change in their life as a result hearing this main point? Tell them and ask them about how it might look in their lives.

For Prayers, Songs and Activities.

• Do they relate to your text and support the main point?

• Can they be done without requiring special equipment?

• Do they need parents help? How can you support parents in this?

Many, many prayers for you in producing online teaching for kids - you can check out the Digital Sunday School lessons I’ve made here:
Series 1: Healing
Series 2: You Can Trust God because

Feel free to use them as they are, to watch them for inspiration before making your own, or to edit the sections you need into your own videos. Happy Teaching!

Important questions

Filming the first lesson in a new series of the Digital Sunday School this week had me rather distracted by the ‘how’ questions. How do I film my hands without a tripod? How do I make what I’m saying visually translate on to the screen? How can I make this homemade camera phone bipod stable and not casting an awkward shadow? How do I include a diverse representsion of who Christians are in this project? How will I be able to make more than one video a week? How have I lost [insert whatever I needed at that moment] again?!

To balance the self-centered and panic inducing ‘How’ questions I decided to write myself a list of important questions that I should focus on first when preparing a lesson. Yes, those how questions still need answering. But having a list like this puts them in their proper place; at the bottom of my to do list.

• Does what I’m preparing come from the Bible or from my own head?

• Is the gospel on display?

• What does God want to teach me in this?

• How can I say this in a way that a range of kids will understand?

• What are the challenges of this text?

• Am I glorifying God or myself?

• Will this build up the church, locally and worldwide?

These are probably not the only things I should be thinking about but it’s certainly a good place to start. I also have 10 steps to prepare a passage for teaching which I find helpful in prioritising these kinds of questions as well.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

I’m deep in the preparation phase for the next series of Digital Sunday School. It’s all colour-coded charts and notes about notes at the moment. It should coalesce into at least one video before next Sunday…

So I wrote up my 10 steps to preparing a passage. This is not, obviously, an inerrant guide, but it is one that helps me to centre what the Bible is saying and not my own agenda. I hope it helps you too, whether you’re preparing to tach a Sunday school class, make a video, do a Bible study with a friend, preach or lead a small group.

Some thoughts on healing

I’ve been ill for a few years now. (Don’t worry: it’s not super serious or debilitating, it’s just also not going anywhere). And creating twenty video lessons for Sunday School kids about healing made me consider what I should learn about healing. So…

• It’s good to ask for healing.
  There is definitely a part of me that doesn’t want to. Partly because I’m inspired by my friends with chronic illnesses or disabilities visibly grow closer to God through their experiences but also serve others in a way that is because of rather than instead of. Partly because miraculous healing has been concentrated in specific times in the Bible (Elijah and Elisha, Jesus, and the early church) and we’re not living in one of those times and I don’t want to ask and have God say ‘No’. But narrowing down all the healings in the Bible to just twenty took was a hard job that left me in no doubt that God, who understands and experienced suffering and pain, wants to heal us.

• Healing is not the most important thing.
  Most of the healings recorded in detail in the Bible are there to make a point, about God’s power, his character, his faithfulness. Or that Jesus is the very same God, and that the Spirit is God still at work through other people. If all I want is healing my focus is too narrow and I’ll miss him.

• Healing is for more than just our bodies.
  The most obvious example is the paralysed man who is lowered through a roof to recieve both healing and forgiveness. But I loved the chance to look at Psalm 22 and see the emotional and mental healing that David reaches out to God for. I picked Psalm 147:3 for a memory verse because God doesn’t merely bind up their wounds but he heals the broken hearted. My sorrow and suffering and mental health matter just as much to God any other parts of my body that don’t work as they should.

• One day I will be healed.
  At the moment my healing is in a ‘maybe’ state: Maybe the medicine will actually be effective all the time. Maybe we’ll recognise a trigger that I can just avoid. Maybe God will answer my prayers miraculously. Maybe I’ll have the surgery and it’ll be the rare occasion where it doesn’t need to be repeated every few years. Maybe… just maybe. DEFINATELY God is preparing a new heaven and a new earth that will be perfect in every way with no death or pain! DEFINATELY I will be made like Jesus in all ways including a resurrection body that won’t suffer decay. DEFINATELY I will live for all eternity with the God who designed and made me, the God who has healed far bigger and far worse, the perfect God who will have made all things perfect and DEFINATELY the fact that my body works again won’t even be top of the list of wonderful things in that place!

I hope that if you’ve watched the videos that your family will have been encouraged by much more than God’s ability and willingness to heal but that what I’ve learnt will help you talk about the healing side of things. I hope that if you’re disabled, chronically ill, suffering at the moment or wandering what to make of healing in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic that this will help to remind you of a few helpful truths. And for me on days when it’s particularly painful, hard to be ill or I’m feeling sorry for myself I’ve got somewhere to come and remind myself to take it all to God and leave it in his very capable hands.

A brief thought about reading the Bible

Far too often I assume that I already know what the Bible is going to say. After all, I’ve known these stories since I was a kid, I’ve read them and studied them as an adult, I’ve taught these passages to others. This is particularly true of the gospels.

So imagine my surprise at being surprised on reading John 18:15-16 and seeing that John “was known to the high priest.”

MIND BLOWN!

How was this a detail I had never noticed before?! It’s part of one of the most famous passages in the Bible! I am frequently too confident in my own abilities as a Bible student to actually see what is in the text. Shame on me that I still have this attitude. But also praise God who is still able to surprise me with the glories of his word and his plan!

***

For those of you who are interested in this detail I discovered for myself: let’s do a little bit of unpacking.

• The unnamed disciple is probably John who tends to obscure his involvement in the story (See John 19:26) and also turn up with Peter before all the other disciples (See John 20:3).

• How was this disciple known to the high priest? Well it’s not 100% clear if the high priest refferred to here is Caiaphas, who was currently serving in the role, or Annas, ex-high-priest and current father-in-law-to-the-high-priest. Either way it’s likely that he’d be known to both, whichever is particularly intended here. It’s unlikely that their lives crossed at work - I can’t see either Annas or Caiaphas buying their own fish - ad they probably weren’t chummy not least because Jesus and John are besties and the high priest is has been trying for a while to kill Jesus. They could be related; there is at least one John in the family (Acts 4:6) and names tended to be passed down. But that would make it strange that Luke doesn’t mention this while John and Peter (together again) are on trial in that chapter. Although it would make it super awkward if they were!

• Why does it matter? It’s not a big deal in the story but it does shed light on why John would include different details in his account. For instance it is only John who knows that Peter cuts off Malchus’ ear, no-one else knows his name but they do know that he’s a servant of the high priest. It also might explain why no-one challenges John as being a disciple of Jesus in the way that they do Peter. He’s known to them in a different context and might even enjoy some privilege there - after all they let a stranger in on his word.

I love the little details in the Bible, and I’m so glad that the Spirit included them. They humble me, allow me to see the reality of te events and people in the Bible and they glorify the God who pays attention to every little detail of our world.

Telling your testimony

People have, correctly, been saying for years that social media is no substitute for meaningful connection with people, and now due to a global pandemic and various degrees of quarentine the internet is the only connection we have.

One way in which we as Christians can use the phone or the internet to build relationships within our churches, Bible studies and youth groups is by sharing our testimonies - what has God been doing in our lives? This is always useful but might be especially encouraging at a time like this where getting to know someone better by casual chit-chat has been sunk by the nature and awkwardness of conference calls.

There is real power in hearing what God has been and is doing in people’s lives. When carefully told our stories counter a tendency to explain theology without being relatable; put paid to the idea that we’re somehow better than others and diminish the image of being ‘sorted’ when we still struggle. It emphasises and gives rise to questions about the gospel – forgiveness, adoption, salvation, sanctification, revelation. We can say why we believe what we believe, and shake people out of their current worldview. We can encourage, instruct and edify each other. There is power in our stories because God is powerful.

On this how to… page are some articles I found useful as well as some tips for sharing your testimony either with anyone or for getting your youth group or Bible study to think about sharing theirs.

Thoughts on bridging the gaps

It is a weird and unusual time at the moment…

First, there was the global pandemic and lockdown. Churches shut their doors, we couldn’t visit friends or family, going outside was discouraged. For me personally this hit in a strange place - we’d moved to a new country only a couple of months before (and had only briefly visited home from a different continent) so talking to family and friends solely by video call was not a new experience. I’m also an introvert who doesn’t like people touching me, so a limited social calendar and a reason not to hug made it seem like the world had been recreated to my own personal preferences. However, we’d only been here for two months and were just starting to feel like people from our church, our building and our language course were becoming friends rather than ‘people we knew’ and that was tough to navigate as our opportunities for bumping into people or getting to know them better vanished.

Then there is the belated and necessary uptake of interest in the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s meant that many of us are finally questioning the systems in which we live, how they need changing and what we can do to help, particularly in regards to race. It has probably made us all way more aware of our bubbles, our tendency to listen to people who are closer to us on any spectrum: racial, policitcal, age, even denominational.

There’s nothing new in what I’ve said here: any thoughtful commentary on our times is expressing the same things, and often doing that better.

But I was uploading a Sunday School lesson today that spoke to me particularly at this moment. John 4:1-42, Jesus talks to a Samaritan Woman at the Well.

It struck me anew how far out of his way Jesus goes to reach past the barriers that separate them from each other. He didn’t even need to be in Samaria in the first place! If I’m becoming more like Jesus, as I want to, I have to do all that I can to understand and to reach out to those who are different from me.

One of the ways I’ve looked at changing how I think, especially in seeking to understand, is by consuming content from people who are not like me. I’ve deliberately begun to seek out youtube channels, books, blogs and music from POC’s and not just those in the West. Not just on the topic of race or age or ability but on things I enjoy and have in common with them. I’ve also been educating myself on how systemic racism manifests in Britain in particular as that’s where I’m from. And thinking about where the money we donate goes in terms of supporting worldwide mission and aid agencies but also looking out for a tendancy to white saviourism.

I’m not going to make specific recommendations here as what you and I enjoy and are interested in will not be the same. But do check out my previous blog posts 5 Black Christians You Should Know and 5 Organisations Every Christian Should Know if you would like a place to start.

5 Books Every Sunday School Teacher Should Read

What do we want for the kids in our classes? For them to become children of God and to grow in their love for him and in the likness of his son. That’s thankfully not a burden we have to bear alone but it’s also no small task. Here are 5 books that helped me to aim for that goal when it was hard:

1. The Jesus Storybook Bible
   There are so many good children’s Bibles out there but this one is my favourite because of how it puts Jesus at the centre of evey story. Jago’s pictures are gorgeous and it’s easy to read with a small child but I find it so useful for myself, it demonstrates and inspires me to look for the Gospel in whatever passage I’m teaching and Sally Lloyd-Jones has done a fantastic job of explaining complicated yet necessary theology in a beautifully simple way. She says: “I couldn't rely on jargon. A little child has no concept of what sin is, for instance. I had to find other ways to describe it. I wrote that: sin is not just about breaking the rules, it's breaking God's heart; it's like poison that makes your heart sick and stops it from working properly; it's like running away from God and hiding in the shadows.” And that’s inspiring too; how can I tell them the gospel in a way they’ll really understand?

2. Digging Deeper into the Gospels
   There is actually a mini series of Dig Deeper books co-authored by Andrew Sach all of which aim to eqiup you with the right tool kit for understanding the Bible and those tools are super useful! The most obvious application is in reading those passages that you’ve never really understood why they’re there but’s it’s also so helpful with those passages you teach repeatedly, is there a depth to them you’ve been missing and have you been teaching them correctly? Dig Deeper with Nigel Beynon has a chapter dedicated to each tool and is a useful reference, my actual preference is seeing Exodus explored with these tools in Dig Even Deeper, with Richard Alldritt, and Mark’s gospel (which to my shame I had always considered the least interesting Gospel!) in Dig Deeper into the Gospels with Tim Hiorns.

3. The Chronicles of Narnia
   So this is a cheat because it’s actually 7 books but it’s also really a place holder for any children’s fiction with a Christian perspective. I would encourage any children’s worker to read or re-read a book which does for them what Narnia does for me. It helps me to feel like a child re-encountering the wonderof Jesus in the same way that the children discover Aslan. I never read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe without remembering when my best friend said “I think Aslan is sort of like Jesus” and thinking why had I never seen that before. Books that take us back to being a child (even if that book wasn’t part of our childhood) and that help us to experience aspects of God’s character differently to normal are brilliant for helping us understand, and plan for, the children we serve. CS Lewis himself wrote: “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally -and often far more-worth reading at the age of 50 and beyond.” What more of a recommendation do you need…

4. Basic Christianity
   John Stott’s introduction to the Christian faith is excellent, it’s deep but simple, short but comprehensive and very readible. It makes a great example of the kind of books that help to remind us of why we’re writing lessons on Judges or cutting out crafts on a Saturday night - this is what we want them to know, this is the gospel they need. It’s a great tool for re-centering our teaching and our lives around him. Other books that would fall into this category are Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God, CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity and the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, which are all great. I realised that this list was very white-western-male centric and so looked around for some similar books from different perspectives; if you know of any please leave them in the comments - I would love to add them to my reading list.

5. Serving Without Sinking
   The previous books have all been about helping you become better at teaching Sunday School. This one is for you as a Sunday School teacher who is doing the best they can to serve Jesus and his church in this way. When it’s hard, when you don’t have the time, when expectations are too high, when it’s only hard work and not any fun, then this book is for you. John Hindley explores some of the reasons why service might have become a burden and how to find the joy again. I have found it so helpful in giving me a better perspective on what I’m doing and why. And you definitely don’t have to wait until it feels hard to read this.

I hope these five books encourage you; there are so many more I want to recommend and even more that I want to read. Please share books you’ve found helpful in the comments.