If there were no such thing as Sunday School and you wanted to invent faith education, what would you invent?
Here's a formula I've been teaching in 66 cities thus far this year.
MDP + MET + MEP = ?
MDP = Most Dedicated People
There are people in your church who would take a bullet for a kid without thinking twice. They're called parents. You can't hire that out. There are people in your church who have access to the kids every night. They're called parents. They can set the tone for faith incubation from cradle to graduation. Why wouldn't you use them? They are the most dedicated. They are the most committed. (Mothers turned prematurely gray and went up two dress sizes for the kids. THAT's commitment!)
If there were no such thing as Sunday School and you wanted to invent faith education, WHY WOULDN'T you want ONLY the most dedicated people teaching the kids the faith?
Everyone else is just a hired hand. A loving hired hand, maybe, but a hired hand just the same.
MET = Most Effective Time
Neurologically, the most effective time for ANY education (if you want it to stick) is NOT Sunday morning at 9:15. The most effective time for ALL education is the five minutes before you go to sleep. Whatever you return to, reflect upon and plant into the young mind just before you turn out the lights will become the filter by which all the events of the day are sorted, processed and connected as sleep begins and the day's memories move from the short-term scratch pad (hippocampus) into the long-term hard-drive (neo cortex) wherein all deeper meaning is made. If there were no such thing as Sunday School, why wouldn't you want to do your faith education at the most effective time of the day for the young (and old) brain?
Why is sleep so important for memory and meaning?
Your brain is only consciously aware of 1/10,000 of all the information that comes across the senses in any given day. It is only on a good night's sleep that the events of the day are sorted out, filtered, and solidified into memory. It is during sleep that those events which had relevance shift over from the short-term scratch drive to the long-term hard-drive to connect with the rest of your stored memories to create meaning.
If you want to teach kids the faith at the most effective time neurologically, Sunday morning needs to shift from being the ONLY faith encounter of the week to being the servant of the MOST EFFECTIVE time for meaning=making. Sunday becomes the day when you hand out the "play" for the week... to the parents AND kids together. That means a shift from the parent-less Sunday School systems we've been perpetuating to a cross-generational learning experience.
If you want to connect the MDP's with the MET's, you will ask the parents to be with the kids AT A MINIMUM at the large group opening and closing for Sunday School as you unveil the scripture, story and song of the week. At a maximum, you'll keep parents, kids and the whole community together the whole hour to get the "play" for the week. You'll learn the faith story and song and sign for the week, create engaging "show and tell" art together, and waltz right into the next hour's worship to LEAD it as part of the service. Then you'll challenge everyone to return to the theme verse seven nights that week as steps 2 and 3 in the FAITH 5.
MEP = Most Effective Practices
If there were no such thing as Sunday School and you wanted to invent effective faith education that could start on a Sunday and go home seven nights a week, why wouldn't you teach the whole brain when you unveil a Bible theme?
This is where whole-brain learning comes in. Your ears can process up to a maximum of 10,000 bits of information a second. Your eyes can process up to 7 billion bps. Scan the brain while you're sitting and listening, and you'll only see about 5% of the brain light up. Scan it when you're looking at a beautiful painting, fun prop, or engaging smile, and you'll see 35 - 33% of the brain light up. Scan it when you're singing the theme verse, signing the theme verse, creating art on the theme verse and TEACHING what you just learned to others, and you'll see MOST of the brain light up.
If all you do is bring a picture or a prop into teaching, you have a quantum leap more retentive power as a teacher. However, if you really want to connect and engage, you connect every lesson to ALL the senses. Then you turn the kids and parents together into worship leaders every week as they share what they have learned and created with the whole faith community.
As you begin a MEP teaching session, you intentionally open the kid before you open the book. You focus on multi-sensory learning. You see, hear, touch, taste, smell and emotionally connect every lesson to life. You engage guests in the creation of the arts to share WITH the whole cross-generational faith community in worship. You get the imagination, emotions and body involved in the scripture by singing and signing and arting the theme. Then, after turning the whole faith community into worship leaders, you send the theme home by calling parents and kids to take five minutes a night - every night - to return to the theme 7 nights a week in their home huddle.
Put the Most Dedicated People to work at the Most Effective Times using the Most Effective Practices, you have something.
You've connected education to worship to the home. You've replaced a weekly program with a nightly process. You've replaced the Sunday School teacher with the parents in 7/8 of the faith education. Sunday has become the place that gets you started with the theme for a week of faith encounters with the people who love you.
You've brought God into the close of each day.
Now that's faith incubation of the most effective kind!
(PS - The FAITH 5 bar above is an idea from Laura Stover at 1st Presbyterian in Fort Dodge. She modifies the wrapper of a TAKE 5 candy bar and hands them out each week to help people to remember the nightly faith component that ties education to worship to the home)
