Teaching the Gospel

I've taught Sunday school classes off and on for twenty years now. I've done puppet shows and flannel board, I've sung a fair share of children's songs, and I've seen good AND bad curriculum. 

But in my twenty years of teaching, I have never heard the message that Jack Klumpenhower writes in the first chapter of his book, Show Them Jesus- Teaching the Gospel to Kids.

The good news means you relate to God based on what Jesus has done for you, not what you've done to prove yourself worthy… 

The typical lesson for kids isn't like this. Instead, it tends to be what mine were for years-- little more than a lecture about some way you ought to live for God. Such lessons create pressure and invite pretending.

We've been dispensing good advice instead of the good news. Eventually, kids will tire of our advice, no matter how good it might be. Many will leave the church. Others will live decent, churchy lives but without any fire for Christ….

Fellow teachers, our challenge is to proclaim the good news of Jesus so clearly and consistently that no kid of ours will ever place him in a category with typical religious leaders… I stress this because if I don't, someone will hear me talk of teaching about Jesus and get the wrong idea. They will think, "Yes, we ought to teach kids to be like Jesus and to follow his example." This would be typical religion.

What a tyrant Jesus would be if he lived a perfect life and then, as his main message, told us to be like him. What a setup for failure!

I tried to find a short quote that summed up Mr. Klumpenhower's main points, but I found his words to be so important that I needed to quote five paragraphs. Even if you never read his book, I hope you understand what he wants to share. I too have been teaching for twenty years the way Mr. Klumpenhower (who is himself a Bible teacher and curriculum writer) had been teaching. Read a Bible story, find an application to the children's lives, easy-peasy, right? But it never occurred to me that as good as it was to teach children to obey their parents, or share with their siblings, or love their enemies, I was teaching them week after week to do something for God. My lessons were about morality, not about grace (except at Easter time). Unknowingly, I was emphasizing the use of our own abilities to please God, not how Jesus's death and resurrection is the only way we can even be righteous before God! The Gospel isn't about good behavior, but the good news.

I have only read the introduction and first three chapters of Show Them Jesus, and already I recommend it to parents and teachers. (If I come across something blasphemous as I continue to reader, I will apologize and take back my recommendation). The book is straight-forward, easy to read, and full of practical advice to his readers (which he addresses as 'teachers, parents, grandparents, youth leaders, anyone') on how to weave the Gospel message into every Sunday school lesson (or personal/family devotion time). I also appreciate Mr. Klumpenhower's humble admittance to making the same mistakes most Sunday school teachers make, and his reminders to teachers of all experience levels that ultimately, it is not our perfection in the classroom that draws our students to Christ. Which brings us back to the heart of the Gospel-- 

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved… through faith-- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast. ~Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9

Now that is good news!