Five features of a successful Sunday School

Annually, around this time of year, children’s workers up and down the land are reviewing how the last academic year has gone and what lies ahead for the next. That includes examining which resources they’re going to use to encourage children to meet with God and develop their relationship with him. And every year, we try to help you make that choice, by giving you the lowdown on the resources that are available on the market.

However, this year we decided to do things a little differently. We got together at Premier Childrenswork Towers to think through what characteristics make up a successful children’s group, and then match those criteria against the different resources available. If children’s work is really achieving some great things, what are the markers of that achievement? What we came up with is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are five areas that will need to be flourishing to help children meet with God for themselves. The resources reviewed are six of the most popular products and we’ve measured them up against these criteria.

The resources are: Light (Scripture Union), Energize (Urban Saints), Go Teach (Go Teach Publications), Click (The Good Book Company), The Bible Curriculum (The Bible Curriculum) and ROOTS (ROOTS for Churches).

1 Building community life

Community, both in their own groups and in the church, is key to the faith development of children. The relationships between children and adults and among the children themselves play a big role in demonstrating, experiencing and practising faith. Any resource we use should enable groups to do this. Admittedly, it’s quite hard to assess ways to foster relationship building, but activities that allow leaders to initiate chat about life in general and those that develop skills in sharing and helping play a large part. Any elements of a resource which facilitate collective worship (eg singing or a regular liturgical-style slot) also promote a sense of being a community of faith. If a resource pushes you to ‘do, do, do’, rather than allowing you to ‘be’ for a while, it’s probably missing out on community.

How the resources perform

As has already been said, it’s quite hard to quantify this aspect, but some resources do provide space for this, while others ignore it. Light, Click and ROOTS all have sections of the programme where children and adults can interact without the need to be completing a task (chatting about general life, time spent chilling out), but it’s fair to say that even these don’t give the leader much help with how to use those community spaces. Not every leader feels at ease with talking to children about their lives, and so some assistance about what they might say would be helpful. Admittedly, some resource producers might expect you to do the community stuff when you have a drink and biscuit or as soon as the children arrive, but a little help would go a long way!

2 Being theologically and hermeneutically sound

We’re not all able to undertake theological study; life makes enough demands on our time. We need to be able to rely on the resource to be well thought through theologically and hermeneutically. The aims and objectives of sessions need to be true to the Bible as well as true to children – if the conclusion of every activity is that children should tidy their bedrooms, then it’s likely that your chosen resource is missing the point. And if the aim is too complex for children to grasp, then much of the session will sail over the children’s heads.

Hermeneutics is all about the way you handle the Bible. On a very basic level, to handle the Bible well means not taking verses out of context or not stitching together verses from here and there to prove a point. In addition, it involves helping the children see the context of the story, not just the story itself, and having a good understanding of the whole scope of the Bible and where your individual story fits in. A good resource will help children explore whole stories, rather than just one or two verses. A further important question to consider here is whether the resource uses the Bible to illustrate a pre-existing point or allows it to speak for itself.

Resources will either choose to use the Bible systematically or thematically. A systematic resource takes a block of chapters or a whole Bible book and works through it over a few sessions. Alternatively, it might take a set of stories from a block and focus on those. So, you might look at the story of Joseph from Genesis 37-50 over four or five sessions, or the healing stories of Jesus from a section of Luke’s Gospel. As the name might suggest, thematic resources examine biblical or lifestyle themes, and draw the Bible in to illustrate that theme. For example, in an Energize session about worry, you can explore the story of Jesus walking on water or the parable of the sower.

How the resources perform

Of our chosen resources, ROOTS follows the Lectionary, while Go Teach, Light and Click are systematic, following their own syllabuses. The Bible Curriculum has systematic and thematic elements in the same session and Energize can be either systematic or thematic, though the four-year plan provided on the website is thematic.

A lot of theological thought and research goes into the creation of a new resource, but with some of these products, it’s quite difficult to discern the decisions that have been made. Some suffer from the aims of the sessions not being child-friendly, while one resource has no specific aims at all. Light has aims that are very general, but at least that offers space for children to engage with the Bible story and make their own conclusions. It also handles the Bible well, giving it space to breathe. Energize has accessible aims for children, but tries to stuff too many Bible passages into its thematic sessions. This leaves the leader with too much choice and might be confusing for children.

Click and Go Teach are slightly lacking on the aim front, but are strong on staying true to the Bible. Italy’s ROOTS struggles with the fact that that the Lectionary wasn’t written for children and so it has to make the best of a difficult job in selecting the right Bible passages. The Bible Curriculum does a good job on trying to give children a good overview of the Bible, but the thematic element results in a strange gear change halfway through the session.

3 Providing accessible spiritual engagement

Children’s groups can be so much about activity – playing a game, telling the story, making a craft – that children don’t get a chance to make any kind of a response to what they have discovered about Jesus and what God has said to them. Resources should help you to foster an atmosphere of engagement as well as activity, and provide different ideas for encouraging children to respond. These are more than creative prayer activities; they should facilitate a child’s theologising and be open-ended enough for a child to respond in the way most appropriate for them.

How the resources perform

ROOTS is good in this area, providing spaces for prayer, and other responses; care has to be taken in adapting these activities to fit, as with some activities the relevance is not all that clear, but the inspiration is there. Energize and Light also do a good job in providing stimulus for spiritual response, with activities around singing, reflection and discussion. Both push the child to consider what they have explored about God and how that affects their own walk with Christ.

4 Giving children room to think for themsleves

Resources are created by writers and editors who pray and reflect on the Bible before they write their activities, however they do not know your context or your children. It is highly likely that God will say lots of different things to the children (and leaders) in your groups, so children need space to reflect on these things and come to their own conclusions. We do children no favours by imposing our own conclusions on them, without giving them the chance to theologise for themselves. Any curriculum resource should provide you with the tools to allow this reflection.

How the resources perform

There is a split between resources which focus too much on factual, closed conclusions and those which allow children to come to their own conclusions. Go Teach and Click are on the more conservative side, where children are told the teaching point, rather than discovering it for themselves. Both have a good range of extra resources, but these explore the factual, rather than the spiritual or emotional side of Bible engagement and faith development. Light and, to a certain extent, Energize try to give leaders the space to help children come to their own conclusions, without focusing too much on the leader providing all the answers.

5 Being creative in approaches to engagement

Not all children learn in the same way – you can see this in action in any group of children. There are those who like to sit and write, those who love running around, those who enjoy drawing and those who prefer to listen to a story. Any children’s session should provide opportunities for different kinds of learner to engage with the Bible in a way which suits them. That means having times of running around, times of working with your hands, times of being quiet and times of chatting. Well-constructed resources will provide a varied range of activities and give advice on how each might be used to help children’s faith grow.

How the resources perform

It’s clear that most of the resource producers have put a lot of effort into this area. Light, Energize, ROOTS and Click all excel here, providing different ways of telling Bible stories as well as other activities for readers, listeners, doers, movers, reflectors and talkers. Of course, the success of these activities depends on leaders knowing their children and choosing the right ones, but these resources give a good spread of options. Click and ROOTS also make a point of setting up your meeting space creatively, a great way to raise expectations and welcome the children to a spiritual space.

So, what now?

If you’re about to make decisions about the future direction of your Sunday school groups, and which resources you might use, then you need to do a bit of research yourself to find the right one for you. The thoughts here should provide you with a good starting point, but you’ll also need to consider the different resources in the light of your specific situation. No resource is going to suit your group exactly, so you will need to adapt it to fit. However, any resource should be workable for you and help the children in your groups meet with God. If it does that, then it’s a great tool in your kit!