Many children's teaching programs are not productive environments where a child can learn about Jesus Christ. Experienced Sunday school teacher Cheryl Dunlop provides a practical teaching manual designed to ensure that all those teaching Sunday school are equipped and motivated to do their best for the Lord.
Many children's teaching programs resemble carnivals instead of productive environments where a child can learn about Jesus Christ. This is often the result of having untrained teachers teaching Sunday school. Experienced Sunday school teacher Cheryl Dunlop fills this void by providing a practical teaching manual designed to ensure all those teaching Sunday school are equipped and motivated to do their best for the Lord. Follow Me as I Follow Christ explores issues like how to tell a story, methods of effective discipline, and interacting with individual needs of children. Divided into 52 weekly entries it is designed to be read along with and help in teachers' class preparation.
Author: Cheryl Dunlop
Located in: Chicago IL
Submitted: July 14, 2000
Tell us a little about yourself. I live in Chicago and am a writer and editor. I
graduated from Child Evangelism Fellowship
Leadership Training Institute (CEFLTI) and received
a B.A. in Communications from Moody Bible
Institute.
I have taught Sunday school and related church
programs since 1980, with students ranging in age
from four to twelve. I am a teacher in my church's
weekday club program; have taught Sunday school for
several years; have worked as a camp counselor of
primary or junior age girls; developed, wrote
curriculum for, and taught a club program for
unchurched neighborhood children; and have taught
children’s church and vacation Bible school. I have
worked with classes of white children and with
classes that are predominantly African-American.
What was your motivation behind this project? When I taught my first Sunday school class two
decades ago, I was just a teenager. Yet nobody
showed me how to teach, sat in on my class and
critiqued me, or even suggested I sit in on another
teacher’s class to observe for a few weeks before I
started teaching. Several years later I enrolled in
a semester-long training class halfway across the
country because I desperately wanted the training
that was not available in the churches where I’d
been teaching. It has continued to bother me that
most churches act as though their teachers are
highly trained professionals without giving them
any training at all.
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? This book is intended as a way to bring teacher
training right to the teacher. It has 52 short
chapters (two to three pages each) for easy use
during lesson preparation. Two questions at the end
of each chapter encourage immediate application. I
have attempted to cover a broad range of topics
that the teacher of children needs to know
(discipline, understanding what a Bible passage is
teaching, communicating the Gospel, understanding
today’s children, using the power of story to
teach, asking good questions, using visual aids,
teaching disinterested kids, understanding children
from minority cultures, etc.). It is useful for
teachers in any church or parachurch program
dealing with children between first and sixth
grade. It is also set up for easy use by a church
that wants to do semiformal teacher training.
My themes? (a) Teaching is discipleship, and the
good teacher will develop a purpose for teaching
that goes beyond "making sure children enjoy Sunday
school." (b) Christian teaching must be true to
Scripture. (c) Relationships with students can
often be more important than classroom time,
because it’s in imitation of and interaction with
godly adults that biblical truths are cemented and
because relationships can last years beyond
teaching time.
Who are your influences, sources of inspiration or favorite authors / artists? In teaching: Child Evangelism Fellowship,
particularly Edna Zuraw; my brother Ed, a full-time
children's evangelist; New Tribes Mission
curriculum; Ron Hutchcraft.
Favorite authors include C. S. Lewis, George
MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, Chaim Potok, and
numerous poets. Bad question: I read about 50 books
a year and have a lot of favorites.
Anything else you'd like readers / listeners to know: Our children are the future of the church. It is
urgent that we do everything we can to help them
fall in love with God, Scripture, and the church.
That's more important, though harder, than helping
them like Sunday school.
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