Teaching Sabbath Class for Beginners

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Disclaimer:

The Sabbath School is a program by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. You may not understand the following unless you frequented the church service.

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The following essays are merely my thoughts, suggestions and a guide to new teachers who wish to teach Sabbath School Class. In fact there are many other better ways to teach the Sabbath School Class effectively.

Sabbath School Class is a place where learning happens. The teacher's role is to facilitate this learning process.

There are many ways and method to teach, however it is important to tailor your teaching style according to your class:

1)how motivated they are,
2)their familiarity with the scriptures,
3)do they learn their lesson,
4)how willing they participate in the discussion
5)are they in a learning mood or they are engrossed in giving their point of view

Two characteristics of a good Sabbath School teacher:
1) to ask good questions that stimulate thinking process
2) to able to derive those answers from the Bible

Preparation

1) It takes no brainer to know that a good teacher is familiar with the topic she teaches. That means she will read the lesson and the bible text related to it over and over again. She will take notes, search for more resource from the internet, books, etc.

2) Ask yourself what are the few learning points you want the class to learn? List may be 3 learning point. If there are more than 5 learning point, then you are not summarizing the lesson enough. Remember, you cannot teach or discuss more than 5 learning point. You simply don’t have the time during the 45 minutes Sabbath School class. In addition, too much point will not drive home any message and end up people didn’t learn any.

3) Once you got the learning point, the most crucial part is to make good questions on the lesson. A good question is where there is answer in the bible. Do not ask any question if there is no answer in the bible. It is nice to ask those questions but there is no place of such question in Sabbath school. It will just create confusion, encourage human opinion rather than the Word, and a waste of time discussing it. Remember, the goal of a good Sabbath School class is to learn the Bible.

There are 3 kinds of questions:

A) Ice breaking question. The purpose of this question is to make people talk, to break the silence, and to encourage discussion. It is used in the beginning of the class. This question must be very easy to be answer by everybody regardless of their spiritual maturity, education or age.

Eg. How is your week? What is the topic of this week lesson? If the topic is about love, ask: “How many of you have lost someone you really love?”

“How many of you being loved and cared for?”

 If your class members is enthusiastic, you can ask them to share the experience, if they are not enthusiastic or not close to each other, it might be wierd to ask people to share something so personal.

Don't ask questions which you know people will not answer.

Eg. Is God the center of your life? If you ask this question in the beginning of the class you are going to expect a silent class where people will stare each other or they will look at their shoes.

B) Bible study question. As mention earlier, ask a question which there is a direct answer in the bible. A good question must not be vague, and the answer must be straight forward. Don't ask vague question or questions which have vague answer.

Example of good question: Why did God ask the children of Israel to build a Sanctuary? answer Exodus 25:8 so God can dwell among them. It is a good question because both question and answer is straight forward and not vague.

Example of vague question are usually found in the Sabbath School lesson bottom page. These questions are good to ponder but not a good question for discussion.

Eg.

How does the sanctuary service help us to understand our utter dependence on God for forgiveness of our sins? What comfort does this truth bring you? At the same time, what important responsibilities follow?

This question is taken from Oct 29, 2013 Tuesday lesson. It is a good question to ponder but it is too vague.

C) The appeal questions. Ask this in the end of the lesson. Don’t ask an appeal question unless you think the class is ready.

4) Write all your question down with a specific answer. The answer is from the Bible directly! I normally list about 10 carefully selected questions which can cover the span of 45 minutes class.

One place to get good questions is from the powerpoint presentation Aunty Jacie sent weekly. The other way to construct good question is to have a bible text ready (the answer) and make question in such a way that the answer is found on the readily available bible text.

5) When you have the questions ready written down, then it is easy for you to teach the class.

6) Finally, always summarize at the end of the class. You can bring home the 1-3 learning points in that week.

7) Pray.

During the class

1) You must not tolerate anyone to put anyone down. It is tough, but we must try. Watch out for people who use Sabbath School as a platform to criticize an individual. If he/she attempt to criticize the whole class, then that’s fine. Individual problems are dealt individually.

2) Some of the "lines" that may be helpful to you:

A. When someone said a brilliant point, don’t say "Thank You", but say this:"I think Bro. John had just bring out an important point. He said... (summarised what he just said to re-enforce his point)"

B. When someone asked an out-of-topic question, "That is an interesting/ a good question, I wish we have the time to discuss that, but probably we can talk about/ answer your question after potluck... etc.."

C. When the discussion goes out of topic, "That is an interesting....(say same thing like before), however, what do you think of...(ask a questions pertinent to the lesson to continue the discussion)" That is why always have your questions written it down. It becomes very useful when your mind goes blank or when you got confused by the discussion

D. When someone ask a difficult questions you have no idea what is the answer. Look at the class and ask "Bro John ask.... (summarised his question) what do the class think the answer to his questions?" If the class is silent, and if you think Bro. John is just "testing" the class and you know he knows the answer, just ask directly "Bro John, so what is the answer" or if you know Bro John is genuine on want to know the answer, "That’s a good question, okay, it is our home work to find out the answer"

E. When someone disagree with the obvious Bible text truth/Spirit of Prophecy and keep pushing his or her point. Quote a bible verse and move on with another discussion. Don’t attempt to disprove him/her.

F. When a cute baby walks by pass your class and the whole class was distracted instead of listening to you. Don’t get offended. It happens all the time. Just smile, and pause and wait for the cute baby to walk pass and when everyone has your attention, continue with your lesson.

3) If you are scared and not confident. Pray and receive the confidence from God.

If you are still not confident, it is okay. Relax and be still and just do our part teaching prayerfully and wait upon the Lord.

If you are still afraid and stammer, read off the questions you had just prepared and written down. I cannot emphasis more on how important is it to write the questions and answer down.

4) The best way to get everyone involve in the class is to take turn read the bible verse after your questions. If you direct a question to specific person, you may embarrassed him/ her. Of course that depends according to the person.

Finally,

1) Get very familiar with the lesson. Read many times. Use variety of Sabbath School resources online.
2) Make good questions. Write down each question and answer down. Provide a bible verse for each question.
3) Write down the summary of the entire lesson. 1-3 learning points.
4) Pray and just do the job well!