BMW Talk Shop: What Sunday School Curriculum Do You Use?

Our Common Work

One of the most common jobs that Baptist Missionary Women do for their ministries would be teaching and managing Sunday School or children’s Bible clubs. We often have to be quite flexible about where we gather: the Sunday school classroom might be outside on mats on the ground under a tree or in a dark cramped room. Challenges also include having to translate all materials ourselves and having children of all ages in one class, from age 2 to 14!

Having spent years translating our own materials, I was curious as to what curriculum other BMW preferred. I wish I had asked long ago, but since I just spent years translating one curriculum, I have no desire now to switch to anything else! I took a poll of several BMW to find out what Sunday School curriculum materials they preferred.

Several responses came back, including recommendations for curricula I had never heard of; and I’m sure that there are many resources out there that aren’t included here. If you’re about to begin a children’s ministry on your field, maybe these tips and explanations will help you think through where best to invest your money.

Our Common Preferences

The top three choices were Betty Lukens flannel graph, A BekaBook’s Flash-A-Card series (ABB), and Child Evangelism Fellowship’s materials (CEF), in that order. But before I compare and contrast these three, let me first mention some general comments that kept popping up.

First, even if BMW voted for a certain curriculum, many did not use the lesson plans but wrote their own. Most desired a curriculum that was straightforward Bible, not adding much conjecture. Secondly, most BMW when describing why they chose ABB or CEF mentioned their preference for flashcards over the flannel graph. So if you add together the votes for those two to reflect this desire, flashcards won out over flannel graph.

Betty Lukens’ felt curriculum was praised for being colorful and durable, holding up well in humid climates, versus paper cards which can stick or mildew. BMW like its CD with activities and coloring pages, and that it comes in Spanish. Kids enjoy adding pieces to the board themselves. Negatives include what I mention above—not being purely biblical and complaints about the hassle of transporting felt pieces, losing pieces, distracting transitional times while adding pieces, being locked into one location while telling the story, and dealing with pieces in the outdoors (do you tote an easel with you to prop up the felt board? And what do you do when the wind blows off your pieces?)

Other negatives have to do with the art: characters are too white-skinned, or one woman mentioned that the figures didn’t seem to be all of one size, some being bigger than others. One point would really bother me: all the cutting! Death by cutting out pieces! If you get a used set or a gift that includes the cutting-out-of-pieces already done, that would be wonderful. (I was gifted a set with the smaller size of pieces, and while I prefer flashcards, I may use this with preschool someday, as it seemed that the stories were much shorter.)

Next with almost as many votes is A Beka’s Flash-A-Card series. This is not their newer Sunday School company but the elementary school curriculum. The art is excellent, especially Brian Jekel’s work. I love these, because they have several large, colorful, interesting pictures for each story, and you can easily transport them and move freely in your classroom or outdoors with just picture cards. Some are in Spanish. Negatives include occasional conjecture added to Scripture or incongruent applications. Another negative is the price. I do feel, however, that they are worth the price.

This was my favorite choice. I shortened or split some lessons, sometimes changing applications or cutting conjecture; but in general, I felt that the stories thoroughly covered and explained Scripture. They don't clutter the lesson books with lots of extra teacher notes and objectives. The pictures help keep the children’s interest, and a ministry in the States helped me to laminate several sets so that they would hopefully be indestructible by potentially careless future teachers. I cut costs by searching for several of them on used homeschool curriculum sale websites. (One BMW found several at a garage sale for $10 for all! Sweet deal!)

A man teaches a children's Bible club, using a CEF flashcard story.

 A lot of people appreciate Child Evangelism Fellowship’s materials, especially the Bible and missionary stories, the older materials, as the newer ones begin to lean more Pentecostal. They seem to be good for exposing kids to other cultures, missions, and are very evangelistic. They include several teacher helps on how to write lessons using symbols from the wordless book (gold circle, black heart, red cross, white heart, green leaf). They have the benefits of flashcards, and are easily stored. Some already come translated into Spanish. BMW praised them for great application.

Our Uncommon Preferences

Here are other choices that were appreciated. Some I had never heard of.

• Calvary Curriculum
• Regular Baptist Press (I was given several sets free, but found these not as practical or straightforward.)
• Bible Centered Ministries--series Footsteps of Faith (four series in both the Old and New Testaments). Some are translated into French.
• The Story of Hope by ABWE
• New Tribes Mission Firm Foundations for children—(also in Spanish). We were also gifted this set, and I translated (and shortened) and used it. I loved how it gives a great overview of the Bible, clearly pointing to the Deliverer in the Old Testament. I did not love how it usually only had one picture per lesson. Now that I have it translated however, I can easily switch out ABB’s pictures when I want to teach these lessons.
• Homemade--several BMW are quite clever and resourceful!
• Bible Visuals International: I really want to talk this company up. They are non-profit and include downloads of several of their resources, and have pursued translation work for their materials in several languages. They approached me to translate into Tsonga, but I was exhausted from having just finished translating all of the ABB series, so I doubted that I would do theirs. I love that they have 5-day biographical stories as well (like the new release on George Mueller) or other missionary stories or works that would be great for a 5-day continuing story for VBS. They even have Holy War and Pilgrim’s Progress by Bunyan summarized into 5-day lessons, including a PowerPoint option for the visuals. The visuals aren’t that great in some cases, but the lessons I have seen are good. They use flashcards and plan to soon release other media as well.

A Final Tip

Don’t forget to search for curriculum already published in your specific country. Some countries have materials in their home language already, and can target their own cultures better, and you win on the shipping costs. For example, a friend mentioned a curriculum where I am in South Africa called iVangeli. The stories have South African situations and names of children, and worksheets come in three local languages. 

And Let One Interpret

I am so excited about something that won't be in my life anymore. Not because I don't like it, but because I've finished it! Last week I finished translating the last lesson of our Sunday School curriculum into Xitsonga. I started this project over six years ago and finally have finished 212 lessons from A Beka Book's elementary Bible curriculum. Earlier I had translated 32 lessons with Firm Foundations, a chronological approach from New Tribes Mission.

I usually spent three to four hours per week in translating a lesson plus review questions, then another hour or so picking out a memory verse for the week, making memory verse visuals, and practicing teaching the lesson. I am very excited to have some more time in my week now that this lengthy project is finished! I am also happy when I think about national teachers being able to use these materials in the future when we have hopefully moved on to another church plant.

Once at a college graduation I attended, a man was awarded an honorary doctorate for having written curriculum for eight semesters of a one-day-per-week seminar. I tickled my fancy, awarding myself with an honorary doctorate for finally finishing this accomplishment. :) Not tooting my own horn, just enjoying finishing this "chapter." Oh, the work missionary women do that will go unheard of, unsung, or unnoticed. (By the way, much of what I write could apply to pastor's wives as well.) So share with me, are you working on any projects on your field right now? Have you finished any projects that excited you? I'd love to hear about it!

Decorating Valentine's cookies at a Sunday School party

Saved by the Mud

I mentioned that rainy season was about to begin here, and last Sunday that was proven correct in classic style. It was raining hard for the second day in a row with a chilly wind. Rainy days are always low attendance days at church. Who likes to get out of bed to trudge somewhere through the rain and muddy roads? We always hope that our church members have grown enough in grace that mud and chilly wet will mean nothing in comparison to being with believers and submitting themselves once again to hear the Word, but every rainy Sunday is another test.

This Sunday we had especially hoped for good attendance, as we were hoping to try a new tactic in the war for souls. We have several regular visitors who haven't committed to following Christ, so we decided to start a 5-week prospective members class in the Sunday School hour just to target these folks and present salvation, baptism, and our church covenant in a clear manner. We had about ten people lined up for the first class, but our spirits were dampened by their apparent drowned attendance.

Really stuck!

Then the other family (we only have one family besides our own in our church that includes husband, wife, and kids--and a car!) got their truck stuck in the mud on the road to church. It took an hour and a half to extract them. The situation became even stickier, or should I say muddier, when we noticed that they had brought first-time visitors with them on this rare Sunday. They were discouraged to have such a setback on the day their visitors came with them. We were worried to start a new class without all of our beloved prospects attending. And all the men were wet, cold, and muddy when we began the service.

Ita vita African. This truly could be an apt description of normal life in Africa. Some discouraging setbacks just when you were hoping to make a good impression; poor attendance for weeks at a time in the rainy season. But God was working all of those seemingly bad events to ordain a private evangelism meeting between me and one of the children in my Sunday School class.

When Mr. N__ got stuck in the mud and all the men and boys went to help, I (with my kids) was left alone with one sweet neighbor girl who has attended my S.S. class and Seth's neighborhood Bible club all year. As I fiddled around setting up church stuff, she came to me and asked shyly, "How does a person go to Hell or to God?"

Seth's Bible club: they learn verses and the catechism (yellow book). She's the girl in the blue tank top, back row, third from the left.

Because of the rain and the car stuck in the mud, I was given an uninterrupted fifteen minutes to show a tweenage girl The Great Exchange from 2 Corinthians 5:21. I love this verse. In English every word but one has one syllable. Yet it encompasses so much with those little words.

For he hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Praise the Lamb slain for sinners! Praise the Creator of the rain and mud who kept distractions away from a child He was busy pulling from the filth of a life lived for sin, at the same time as Seth was pulling a truck out of the mud. She seemed to respond to the Word in faith.

Obviously the mud didn't save her. But in one sense, it did. God used it as a means to give this shy child one-on-one time with her teacher so that she could ask a very important question! Last Sunday, a child was saved by the blood, by the mud.

Seth and I also were saved by the mud in a sense. We were saved from discouragement and ingratitude over the lack of optimal conditions that day. We were reminded that God doesn't need dry roads to do His work and that His plans are wiser than ours.

Once I heard a sermon by R.C. Sproul on 2 Samuel 6 when God struck Uzzah dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant so that it wouldn't fall from the oxcart. I've never forgotten how Sproul mentioned that Uzzah's error was in thinking that his hands were cleaner than the dirt. He thought it would be better for him to touch the ark--he, a sinful creature--than for the ark to fall in the dirt. But the dirt was doing what God made it to do. I thought of that Sunday--the mud was doing what God made it to do. I couldn't be mad at the mud or at God for letting it rain on Sunday. He had a plan even for the mud; and it did what He made it to do, even being an instrument in God's plan of redemption for a child.

When Mr. N__ finally arrived at church, embarrassed and a bit careworn, I greeted him happily. "You may think this was a bad day," I said, "but I am glad you got stuck in the mud!"

My S.S. class quoting Psalm 1 for the church. She's first on the left, back row, of the girls' side.

Still happy, even after scrubbing our family's muddy clothes!

Reaching Children in Sunday School (Part 3): Making a Plan

I love my teenage son. He is amazingly creative minded. He comes up with all kinds of ideas and projects and... actually he comes up with so many ideas it can be totally exhausting! But I love his creativity! He knows what he wants to do, but sometimes he struggles with plotting out a plan that will get him to a goal. With time and experience, he will learn how to make realistic goals and make feasible plans on how to accomplish those goals.

When we work with children we must start by seeing them how God sees them.

Then, when we must set biblical goals... what do we want to accomplish as we work with children?

But as with anything, once we know where we want to go, we have to plot a course to get there. And here is a simple road map:

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Reaching Children in Sunday School (Part 2): Goals

(The pictures in this post are of children from a nearby children's home, Christian school, and church. All these ministries were started by an amazing missionary family who God is using here to do great things. They came for a visit one day. We had a blast! Their new Christian school administrator had just moved here. She is a single woman named Janelle, and one of my heroes.)

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We have all heard it...

"If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time."

Oh, how true! It's important in any ministry to have some goals. After all, if you don't know where you are going how will you ever get there?

The same is true when dealing with children. But what should our goals be? To have a beautiful Sunday school classroom? Pack the class with children? Make the children like us? Create well-behaved children who can recite a bunch of verses? Have the books of the Bible memorized?

Reaching Children Through Sunday School (Part 1)

I cried. I literally boohooed!

God was doing a work and I didn't understand His plan. It was clear He was putting in my heart to train someone else for my Sunday school class, and then to resign, but I didn't understand why. I loved my class! I loved teaching. I loved loving on the children. I loved investing in them and sometimes surprising them will crazy activities!

(Sweet Jessica, my replacement in the States, with my youngest child.

She sure loves her Sunday school children's class!)

But God was closing the door, and I had to obey. It was soon after I resigned that the Lord made it clear He was sending us to the mission field. (So that's why I had to resign! It finally made perfect sense!)

Somewhere Between a Shack and a Palace

Cockroach.

Yes, that's the English meaning of the name of the village development area where we are planting a church. The name of the town is Sangla. Our church is the only church in the entire village area. It is the only Baptist church for an even larger area. The very few others that dot the region are charismatic.

The drive to Sangla is somewhat of an adventure. It's one of those drives where you need a four wheel drive vehicle, you feel like a milkshake, you don't eat too much before you go, and you can hear the vehicle scraping on the bottom several times as it rocks all around going over hills.

But there is something that catches my eye each time on the way to the new church building.

Mother's Day Craft Ideas from Pinterest

Mother's Day is just around the corner!  What special crafts do you have planned for your Sunday School class?  Here are a few we have pinned on Pinterest...

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