Sunday School Teacher Responsibilities and Duties

Topic: The Sunday school teacher's responsibilities and duties should primarily revolve around prayer, preparation, and teaching.

The Sunday school teacher’s responsibilities and duties should center around teaching.

The Sunday school teacher’s responsibilities and duties should primarily center around prayer, preparation, and teaching God’s Word. I realize your Sunday school teacher’s responsibilities and duties may currently include inreach, outreach, socials, and more, but I personally believe, teaching is so important, that it is all the teacher should focus on. Others should be enlisted to help with the other responsibilities.

Biblical Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties

Becoming a transformational teacher is more than spending a few hours in lesson preparation before teaching it. It’s about aligning your life and time so you can develop your relationship with God and he can mold you into the person he desires you to become. It’s about aligning your view of yourself and your ministry with His views. It’s about altering your life to ensure teaching remains a top priority. It’s about altering the activities you do or don’t get involved in so you can fulfill the Great Commission through your teaching ministry.

The Sunday school teacher’s responsibilities and duties should not include ministries that detract from his teaching ministry

The apostle Peter is a great role model for us in this area. Peter started out pretty rough around the edges and didn’t even consider himself to be worthy of being in Jesus’ presence, but over time, he grew to understand that God wanted to use him to teach others how to live a godly life. As a result, Peter always strove to keep his teaching ministry a priority. Of course, as the church grew, so did the amount of ministry responsibilities (helping the sick, widows, and orphans; settling disputes; training; teaching; etc.). Even though Peter realized these various responsibilities were important and needed attention, he was careful to keep prayer and teaching his top priority.

Was there anything wrong with Peter ministering in various areas? Absolutely not! However, God had given Peter the responsibility of teaching, so when the amount of ministry grew to the point of his having to choose one ministry over the other, or when his teaching would suffer as a result of being involved in another ministry, Peter clearly understood prayer and teaching had to remain his top priority.

Sunday School Teacher Responsibilities Duties

We see an example of this in Acts 6:1–4. "In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

In this passage, Peter is not saying, “I’m not going to help because that is not my ministry … you know … I’m a teacher! Not a waiter!” Rather, Peter is saying, “I’m already involved in so much ministry that if I add anything else, the teaching ministry God has given me will suffer.”

So, what's the point about the Sunday school teacher's responsibilities and duties?

I’m not saying the Sunday school teacher’s responsibilities and duties should only include teaching, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t take time to relax and enjoy friends, family, and life. Instead, I’m saying your teaching ministry is vital to the church, so if you cannot adequately pray about and prepare for your lesson because of “other activities,” then you may need to see if some of these can be reorganized so your teaching ministry remains effective. My prayer is as we grow in our understanding of how God wants to work through us, the priority prayer and teaching have in our lives will grow as well.

Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties Tip: Teaching is far more than reading the text and explaining what occurred; it’s changing lives through the Word.

To learn more about Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties, see chapter 5 in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 1: Foundational Principles for Making an Informational Sunday School Lesson...TRANSFORMATIONAL. The goal of the Teaching To Transform Not Inform series is to give you simple, practical, step-by-step teaching methods and principles you can use in every lesson. Click here to visit our store to get a more detailed outline of the books.

To find more links on Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties, see the following:

**Additional Topics for Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties**
Book 1 Topics for: Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties	Book 2 Topics for: Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties
One of the teacher's primary responsibilities is adequate prayer, preparation, and study time.	In the same way God gave Peter the charge of teaching, he also calls you and me to lead others into a deeper relationship with God.
God uses us despite our inadequacies.	God has entrusted teachers with the ministry of explaining his words to his people in a clear and applicable manner.
The Great Commission is all about evangelism and "Teaching To Transform Not Inform."	A commitment to teaching creates ripples in the lives of your class that extend all the way into eternity.
Sunday school teacher responsibilities and duties	Avoiding Ramblemation