How to become a better, more effective, Sunday school teacher

As your lessons become more and more focused and your application is built on a solid biblical foundation, you are going to find two different responses in your listeners. Some will agree with your explanation of the text and your application of its timeless truths, and they will begin to integrate them into their lives. Others, however, will hear and understand what you are saying, but they will not change.

But why?

In Teaching to Transform Not Inform 1: Foundational Principles for Making an Informational Sunday School Lesson... TRANSFORMATIONAL, I looked at the difficulty of integrating biblical truths into people’s lives. I discussed how it is relatively easy to help our listeners cognitively understand what the biblical text says. However, it is far more difficult to help them move that information from their cognitive understanding to their closely guarded list of beliefs, choices, attitudes, opinions, prejudices, views, values, priorities, hopes, dreams, and commitments. After they cognitively understand what the Bible says and how its truth can be applied, sometimes the truth stays right there in that cognitive area of their head unless we help them personally accept it and transfer it into their heart.

It’s important to understand that people will freely listen to and comprehend your lesson, but when it comes to personally accepting the truths and application as their own, sometimes a roadblock hinders the truth from moving further into their lives. It’s one thing to help listeners understand truths and principles, but it’s something entirely different when you ask them to personally believe it, accept it, value it, commit to it, and make it a priority in their life.

It isn’t that they don’t want to accept and apply the truth. They do. However, some type of challenge, painful experience, misunderstanding, justification, rationalization, or objection often blocks the truth, preventing it from moving from their cognitive understanding of it, to their heart.

To become a better, more effective, Sunday school teacher, you need to learn how to help your listeners remove these roadblocks so they can personally accept the biblical truths and apply them to their lives. I believe this principle is so important, I have devoted a full chapter to it in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 2: How to Teach a Transformational Sunday School Lesson... STEP-BY-STEP. In that chapter, the steps you will need to take to help your listeners identify potential roadblocks in their life and then how you can help them remove them.