Sunday School Teacher Training

The importance of Sunday School teacher training cannot be overemphasized. The majority of your teachers may have had little or no previous teacher training, and so they may not be aware of some of the most basic educational principles. Often, with only a few hours of training, you can double or even quadruple their effectiveness as a teacher.

Many have such a fear of public speaking that they would rather decline an offer to become a teacher than embarrass themselves in front of their peers. If you don’t offer to train them to become effective communicators and teachers, many, or possibly most, will choose to not even try. After all, who wants to stand up in front of their class and bore everyone to tears? However, if you can first give them a vision for teaching, then show them how to become an effective teacher, many will be far more willing to step out and give it a try.

With Sunday School teacher training, you can develop Transformational teachers who teach both the head and the heart. Without teacher training, most of them will become Informational teachers who educate the mind. Of course, it is not difficult to understand why. After all, this is the teaching goal and methodology the public school system has modeled for them throughout most of their school years. By default, they assume teachers provide information, such as dates, facts, theories, principles, and more. Consequently, unless someone has trained them otherwise, when they become a Sunday School teacher, they likewise provide information pertaining to biblical events, dates, background material, Old Testament history, New Testament customs, theology, and more. All good stuff, but Jesus calls us not to give information, but to make disciples.

When our focus is on teaching our Sunday School class to obey, our teaching shifts from information to transformation. All teachers agree we should clearly teach biblical truths and principles, but the most effective teachers are always aiming for transformation. Their goal is interpretation, contemplation, explanation, application, and finally, transformation. Matthew 28:20 calls us to be Transformational Teachers, not simply Informational Teachers. It is a calling to transform the heart, not simply inform the mind. It is a calling that must be explained and expanded upon somewhere within your Sunday School teacher training.

If you are interested in starting Sunday School Teacher Training in your church, then take a look at the Teaching To Transform Not Inform series. It will equip your teachers to teach both the head and the heart using a step-by-step, biblically grounded, tested, and proven approach. They will learn how to improve listener comprehension and understanding, but more importantly, they will learn how to help them accept and obey the truth. As you help them replace informational or educational lessons with life-altering transformational ones, their teaching ministry will ripple from person to person to person all the way into eternity. Visit our store to obtain additional resources that will help you start a Sunday School teacher training program in your church.