EASY-TO-USE AND TRANSFER?

I confess: the lessons I did as a Children's Pastor were not easily transferable to other teachers. Guilty as charged. Here is my statement:

I've been sorting through files on my computer. Pictures, notes, power point presentations, and lesson plans of all shapes and sizes. One of the power point presentations (a rather creative re-telling of the story of Esther using concepts and characters that were popular with the kids at the time)caught my eye. Speaking as one who does not like to "toot his own horn," I had to honestly conclude something about the presentation.

It was good!

And then I remembered the work that went into it. Hours of studying the Biblical text itself, finding the right graphics, putting everything together for a presentation that lasted maybe seven minutes. And why? Because I believed the kids deserved something more than a lesson I read over the night before during commercials for my favorite television show.

I'm not against easy-to-prepare lessons, mainly because I know that hours of hard work went into making these lessons easy to prepare. I'm not saying that I've never used low prep curriculum or that I've never (perish the thought) "winged it" with a teacher's manual. But even the simplest of curriculum still propels me to study the Biblical text, to understand how it fits into the scope and sequence, to practice the lesson, maybe even come up with a better way to present the lesson.

I concede that this approach means the lesson isn't as easily transferable. I can hand another teacher the curriculum, but I can't transfer the study and preparation and creativity and prayer to that teacher. I know of churches that think this a liability. I believe it is a strength.

Teachers of kids: PREPARE.