I (Stephen) wanted to show you all a picture of the church that Jessica and I have been attending since moving to Chicagoland last August. It's the Wesleyan Missionary Church, located about a mile or two from Midway Airport (we hear the planes flying overhead during services). Pastor Tom Reed and his wife, Joyce, have been pastoring here for 50 years! They are wonderful friends, and Jessica and I usually eat Sunday afternoon dinner with them. They have a back bedroom that they have designated as Jessica's room for Sunday afternoon naps. Pastor Reed originally agreed to serve as an interim pastor for this church until they could find somebody else--and he's been doing it ever since...A fellow God's Bible School & College graduate, Mark McCall, and his wife Jennifer, have been serving as the Associate Pastor beginning this past January. Mark is also attending Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) with me (he's in the M.Div. program).
I am teaching one of the adult Sunday School classes (they have two). We usually have about 12-20 in the class, which meets in the basement of the church. I've been fairly happy with the S.S. curriculum published by Herald and Banner Press (Overland Park, KS). It's called "The Way, Truth, and Life." Of course, I usually do my own research for the lessons, but this S.S. literature seems to do a decent job of explaining the text and providing helpful teaching techniques (in the teacher's edition). No S.S. curriculum is perfect, but I feel fairly comfortable recommending this series. They have various contributors to each lesson (right now my former professor, Allan Brown, is one of the contributors in this quarter's lessons) who focus on different aspects. While this may sometimes take away from the over-arching unity of the lesson, they often provide helpful insights.
My question for those of you who like to comment in response to these posts (any comments would be appreciated!) concerns your own experiences with adult S.S. classes. I think we've all been in classes that could be called 'boring', but hopefully most of us have had the privilege of sitting under interesting teachers and dialoguing about God's Word with other interested students. I'm thankful that there are several in my class who study their lessons during the week and come to class prepared to discuss it. Some of them are not too bashful to speak up in class, and almost all of them participate in reading the scripture lessons. I'm very thankful for the chance to minister through this class while I'm doing doctoral work at TEDS. It's a chance to become a better teacher, as well as to learn from the discussions with these interested and engaged laypeople. The pastor also attends this class (he used to teach it) and adds his practical and perceptive points.
I'm wondering what kind of experiences some of you have had in S.S. classes. I'm especially interested in any advice you might have for me in terms of being an effective teacher of adults (i.e. what you've found helpful or unhelpful in your experiences in attending or teaching adult S.S. classes). It's good to be married to a trained teacher who attends the class and can give me feedback :-)
If any of you have comments I'd love to hear them....
By the way, I should mention what most of you already know, but someone might not realize. Anytime you're reading these posts and see blue text [like Herald and Banner Press (Overland Park, KS)], that means that I've inserted a hyper-link to another website. If you clink on the embedded link, it should take you to another webpage (in this case, the S.S. literature publisher's website).
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