by: Debbie Leonard

A friend from NLD recently gave me a brochure he picked up from another church that described in detail what they are teaching in each child’s Sunday school class. It was nicely done and I realized it’s a good thing to publicize what our children are being taught. So here is a little commercial about our curriculum.

As the children’s director I realized that there is a lot of curriculum available, but not a lot of good stuff available. By good I mean, it doesn’t teach the gospel; it teaches a moralistic approach to life. In other words do we want our kids to be kind and generous because it’s the good thing to do, or do we want them to give generously because they know that God will supply all their needs according to His riches in Christ? Big difference in what they are taught. We realized we needed to find materials that made God the center of every story, not man, and presented God in a way that He wasn’t a superhero, He is our holy, faithful, loving, heavenly father.

We really do want our children to fall in love with Jesus; to understand how much they are loved by their God and to come to understand the gospel in such a way that it not only transforms them, but defines them.
To that end, we found a curriculum by Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Piper’s church) that meets all those standards. Right now in all our 10:00 Sunday school classes this is the curriculum we are using. The two year old class is the only class that is using something different as they use the “Jesus StoryBook Bible”. Each week the children bring home a parent page so our families can see what has been taught and discuss with their little ones (or big ones) the lesson from that day.

We have been really happy with the content and direction of this material; if you have any questions or comments, please see me anytime and I’d be happy to talk to you about this subject.