M28:20 can help you grow your Sunday school class with simple, practical, step-by-step, teacher training resources that equip teachers to fulfill the Great Commission (Matt.28:19-20) by teaching lessons that are more transformational than informational.
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The need for Sunday school teacher training resources Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
To find more links on Sunday school teacher training resources, see the following:
Jesus Calls Some to Train and Equip Other Teachers
God calls some to train and equip leadership
God has called us to go and make disciples. Even though we are all familiar with teaching in a small group or Sunday school setting, God may be calling you to a slightly different teaching role, more specifically, to train and equip teachers. For this ministry, you do not need to be the best teacher in your church. Nor do you need to have all the answers. Instead, it means that God has given you a passion to grow and develop your own teaching skills, that he has given you a passion to help others grow and develop their teaching skills, and that you commit to organize ongoing training for the teachers within your church.
God calls us to Christ-centered transformation
Now, whether you train teachers or teach in a small or large group setting, the important thing to remember is if God has called you to teach his Word, he has privileged you with a crucial ministry and responsibility within the church. It’s not about having a ministry; it’s about changing lives for eternity. It’s not about biblical information; it’s about Christ-centered transformation.
As you consider how to invest the limited amount of time and energy you possess, notice how much of an impact you can have on others as your teaching changes your listener’s lives, and then, their lives impact other people’s lives, who then impact others. As you invest time in your teaching ministry, your impact will ripple from person to person to person.
>> To learn more about trainging and equipping teachers, see chapter 2 in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 2: How to Teach a Transformational Sunday School Lesson...STEP-BY-STEP.
Your teaching influences individuals for decades
Remembering your importance as a Sunday school teacher has great value since it keeps you from viewing each lesson as just one more lesson you have to prepare and teach. The next lesson you teach may, in fact, impact people’s lives 100 years from now. Each time you teach, you are throwing a nugget of truth into the pond of your listeners’ lives. The resulting ripples can extend in all directions for 5, 10, 50, 100, or more years as your teaching impacts your listeners’ lives, and as their lives impact their children’s lives, which impact their children’s lives, and so forth.
Of course, our comments here only brush the surface of what the Bible has to say about the importance of teachers within the church. Even so, I hope you realize how your teaching ministry is more than worthy of the time you invest in it. Your teaching ministry is at the very center of how your church fulfills the Great Commission as given in Matthew 28:19–20. Any church committed to fulfilling the Great Commission must have teachers who are committed to becoming M28:20 teachers who teach listeners to obey.
>> To learn more about how your teaching influences individuals, see chapter 5 in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 1: Foundational Principles for Making an Informational Sunday School Lesson...TRANSFORMATIONAL.
Your Impact as a Sunday School Teacher
Listeners come to you weekly for biblical insights!
When you think about all the different ministries within the church, teaching a Sunday school class has one of the biggest impacts on others. Think about it, every week, those within your class give you 30 to 60 minutes to teach them how to live their lives. That’s remarkable! Where else in the world would an individual, much less an entire group of people, give you this opportunity? It’s really quite amazing. Your class may include doctors, lawyers, engineers, school teachers, moms, dads, grandparents, anyone, everyone. They come to you on a weekly basis for how to live a godly life!
You may be a youth’s primary source of instruction
If you teach children, youth, or college students, you may provide more life instruction in a year’s time than some of them will receive from their family throughout their entire lifetime. Let me say that again, if you teach children, youth, or college students, you may provide more life instruction in a year’s time than some of them will receive from their family throughout their entire lifetime. Your ministry within their lives has an immense influence. You may feel as if nothing is sinking in, but it is. As a teacher, God gives you a wonderful opportunity and a priceless privilege to impact students’ lives in ways few others can or ever will.
>> To learn more about your impact as a Sunday school teacher, see chapter 6 in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 1: Foundational Principles for Making an Informational Sunday School Lesson...TRANSFORMATIONAL.
Jesus Calls You to Growth: Numerical and Spiritual Growth!
Your teaching ministry is at the heart of the Great Commission
Often, last words reveal what is most important to an individual. When you drop your child off at a friend’s house for a slumber party, what are your last words? Maybe something like this,
Now Jonny, don’t forget to say, "Yes Ma’am" and "Yes Sir" and to thank them for dinner. Don’t run or yell in the house, and don’t forget to flush the toilet and put the seat down after you use it. I love you . . . have a good time.
Those are the most consequential actions you want to make sure Jonny doesn’t forget, so you save them till just before he gets out of the car.
As Jesus neared the end of his time with us, he also had a short period of time to give a few final instructions. So, what did he choose to emphasize? What did he consider to be the most important instructions he could give us? The answer is “evangelism and teaching.”
Let’s look again at the Great Commission as found in Matthew 28:18–20:
Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'
Teaching is at the center of the Great Commission
In light of Jesus’ last words, do you believe your teaching ministry is important to him? You had better believe it is! It is central to the Great Commission he has called us to fulfill. Many times, when people think of the Great Commission, they think of evangelism, but that is only the first step. After people are saved, God calls individuals, like yourself, to become M28:20 teachers who will teach them how to grow in their faith and develop into fully committed Christ followers.
God has called us to go and make disciples. Even though we are all familiar with teaching in a small group or Sunday school setting, God may be calling you to a slightly different teaching role, more specifically, to train and equip teachers. For this ministry, you do not need to be the best teacher in your church. Nor do you need to have all the answers. Instead, it means that God has given you a passion to grow and develop your own teaching skills, that he has given you a passion to help others grow and develop their teaching skills, and that you commit to organize ongoing training for the teachers within your church.
Remembering your importance as a Sunday school teacher has great value since it keeps you from viewing each lesson as just one more lesson you have to prepare and teach. The next lesson you teach may, in fact, impact people’s lives 100 years from now. Each time you teach, you are throwing a nugget of truth into the pond of your listeners’ lives. The resulting ripples can extend in all directions for 5, 10, 50, 100, or more years as your teaching impacts your listeners’ lives, and as their lives impact their children’s lives, which impact their children’s lives, and so forth.
Let’s look again at the Great Commission as found in Matthew 28:18–20: