Passion is Not Just a Fruit

Recently I was teaching a class the university where I work part time, and I gazed out upon the 50 faces of the young, aspiring teachers in front of me. The eagerness in the room was palpable. I could cut the anticipation with a knife. The Excitement was electric. In those moments I bask in what it means to be a young teacher with all the hope and dreams of forever affecting a population of students, one child at a time.
The difference between those eager, young teachers and most Sunday school volunteers is that the soon to be graduates understand their role. They embrace the challenges, they look forward to the obstacles, but most importantly they have earned the right to be called a Teacher.
After four years of study and practice, a Dean of their university has signed a piece of paper that has been certified by their state that they are a Teacher.
Well, good news! The Dean of your institution, the head of your organization, has signed your certificate. If you are working in a Sunday school class, if you are running a Sunday program, or if you are a support person for the Sunday experience then let me inform you, and congratulate you, You are a Teacher! You are not a helper, you are not a volunteer, you have been hand selected by the most prestigious individual in the universe, because of your vast talents and abilities, to take his most precious individuals and TEACH them.
Take a deep breath. Teaching is fun! Teaching is exciting! Kids are amazing learners and you have what it takes to get the job done. God knows that, I know that, and deep inside you know that, or you would not be where you are today.
As a teacher, then, it is time to focus and find your passion. Excellent teachers, not those ordinary teachers, but the teacher that God has designed you to be, let their passions lead them. They understand that the passion of teaching is God given. He doesn’t want teachers who are bored with their curriculum or caught up on church formalities. He needs strong passionate teachers who want to get the job done.
One teacher I met was a great guitarist. This teacher didn’t just read the Bible, he sang the Bible! The kids learned through hundreds of original songs that taught the message of Jesus Christ.
Another teacher was an artist. Her students didn’t use color crayons and copies of 1950’s Jesus figures, they created masterpieces of Creation, Fall, and Redemption!
Other teachers use original stories, puppetry, or playing to teach the God’s truth. The material is the same: Jesus loves you, he died on the cross for you to save you from your sins, so you can be with him someday if you ask him into your life.
It is the method that counts, and finding that method means following your passions.
Everyone has a passion, no matter how big or small. Large curriculum companies would lead you to believe that following their rote set of instructions will teach children. That is not the case. Those are time-fillers, entertainment, or worse, just babysitting tools. Any curriculum can work, and does, if you feel passionate about it. That means inspecting carefully the message and content. Looking for the difficulty of the program for preparation, and of course making a judgement of whether or not you really like the method the curriculum has suggested. If you don’t like flannel graphs, then don’t use them. If you cringe at silly kids songs, then chose more adult versions. If you hate complicated stories, then choose simple ones. There is no one way to run your classroom. Public education has proven that the least effective classrooms are ones that follow scripted lessons.
Successful teachers lead through their passions the concepts they want their students to learn.
For example, there are many ways to teach about Noah. The popular method is to read the Noah story, and follow up with a craft. Yet, what are some other options?
Do you love drama? Then have your students act like animals on Noah’s big ship.
Do you love paint? Then post a huge paper on the wall and give each child a paintbrush. Together create the rainbow.
Do you love to read? How about gathering your students close together and softly reading the story and discussing how they would feel on the rocking ship.
I give you permission to do it the way you want to, with the talents that God has given you.
Students love to follow a teacher who lights up with their method. They giggle and laugh with the funny teacher with the many hats (to demonstrate all the different people at the feeding of 5000.)
They listen intently to the teacher who makes all the stormy sounds when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
They use the hand made slingshots and gleefully cast rocks at the giant picture of the David’s philistine.
They build delightfully with the scientist who demonstrates the house built on sand or rock.
But they fall asleep to the teacher that trudges through a lifeless lesson simply to get through the hour.
The best way to find your passion is to examine two things: Your past and your aspirations.
Your past is littered with your passions. As a child, what did you love to do? What did you hear others say about you? What did you gravitate to as a profession as an adult? Somewhere in that mix is your passion.
You aspirations are also filled with your passion. Ask yourself, “If I could do just one thing really well, what would it be?” There are no limitations here. Would you be an athlete? An artist? A musician? A dancer? A scholar? A welder? An author? A scientist? A cook? An engineer? A crafter? A listener? An archeologist? The list is endless! This isn’t a profession necessarily; it is a dream of your passion.
If you look at your past, then put that information next to your aspirations, you will find a correlation, and that will point directly to your passion. With that passion in mind (some of you have many passions,) look at what you want to teach on Sunday. How can you use your passion to teach this? That means working outside of the box (and the text) of the curriculum you have been given.
I’m not suggesting that your Sunday school class be reduced to feel good experiences and nonsensical artwork, but I am confident that if you lead with your passions instead of feeling trapped in claustrophobic curriculum you will find learning will increase, and you are in the business of learning now, because you are a Teacher.
Therefore, look at your curriculum. Discern what you are trying to teach. Pick no more than three points for an elementary classroom; two for preschool, and decide how you can teach them creatively, in a manner that kids will enjoy and you will love as well.
You can follow the scope and sequence of any curriculum; just twist it to fit your classroom.
Are you going to teach Daniel in the Lion’s Den and how Daniel was saved by the lion’s? What is the point of your lesson? What are trying to teach? Is it that having a trust in God is important, or sometimes you will go through hard times if you are a believer in God? Is it that you need to pray only to God, or that you might not be liked by others? Discern what you are trying to teach; take that key point or two and then craft your lesson around it using your passion to guide it.
There are many ways to create a Daniel in the Lion’s Den lesson. You can create masks with paper or clay, you can build the lion’s den with blocks and stuffed animals, you can read the story from the Bible or another rendition and discuss the feelings of Daniel during that hard time. You can paint Daniel, you can act out the lion’s and the King, you can put the whole scene to music and march the key concepts. You can make a timeline, you can list the elements of the story on a storyboard. You can brainstorm the story if God had not been involved. Once again, the list is endless, but how would you prefer to teach it? What is your interest? God has given you this class of individuals because he believes you can affect them. How are you going to do that?
Undoubtedly you are going to be met with resistance to new and exciting ideas. Your leaders might hesitate giving you control over the methodology of the classroom. Also, it is going to take more time out of your week for preparation, thought, and prayer. However, the freedom and joy you will begin to experience through this process will grow into exhilaration and vigor. You will begin to look like those 50 aspiring teachers: full of hope and expectation, full of excitement and exuberance. The difference between your effectiveness will be seen immediately, and no longer will the Sunday school experience be a dreaded hour of obligation, but instead an anticipated opportunity to teach.