Object Lessons for Sunday School

Topic: When used correctly, Sunday school object lessons can have a life-long impact on your listeners.

Object Lessons for Sunday school are powerful teaching tools

Sunday school object lessons are one of the most powerful teaching tools you can use. Actually, a modified version of the object lesson (which I call the Visual Anchor) is so important, I consider it to be one of the seven primary teaching elements that should be in every lesson.

I remember sitting next to two ladies during a Sunday school lesson, and about halfway through the lesson, one of the ladies turned to the other and said, “He’s talking about the same thing we learned in the trash can lesson.” The other lady started laughing and said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

These two ladies had heard thousands of lessons over the course of their lives, so what caused both of them, at the same time, to remember a lesson they heard over two years ago? What caused them to realize the previous lesson directly applied to their current situation? Of course, you know the answer: the lesson’s object lesson. If you want to teach lessons that have the same lifelong impact on your listeners, understanding how to use Sunday school object lessons, or Visual Anchors, is incredibly important.

Object lessons for Sunday school can convey the entire lesson in a single picture

Another time, I overheard two classmates chatting several days after hearing a lesson on making the most of the opportunities God gives us. About halfway through the conversation, one man said to the other, “Tick, Tick, Tick,” and the other smiled and said, “Yeah, I know. I’ve been thinking about that lesson all week.” Think about that: three words conveyed the truth of the lesson.

Again, what enabled these two men not only to remember that lesson’s truth but also to apply it to their current situation? Again, an object lesson. Object lessons are easily one of the most significant teaching principles I have discovered over the years which is why I devote an entire chapter to them in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 2: How to Teach a Transformational Sunday School Lesson...STEP-BY-STEP.

Sunday school object lessons are like Visual Anchors that lodge in your listeners’ memory.

Object lessons or Visual Anchors help listeners remember the truths in a lesson by connecting or linking them to a visual concrete image, object, story, illustration, analogy, example, metaphor, testimony, or real-life situation. In the two examples above, the truths in the lesson were associated with a trash can in the first example and a ticking clock in the second example. In both cases, it was the lesson’s Visual Anchor that enabled them to remember the truth connected to it.

Object lessons for Sunday school: If you want listeners to remember your lesson, give them a picture; if you don’t mind them forgetting, abstract truths work just fine.

Visual concrete images are like mental anchors that lodge in listeners’ memories and remain there for weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime. Consequently, if you tie your lesson’s main truths to an object lesson or Visual Anchor, they too can be remembered for a lifetime. The better you design the anchor, the longer it will stick in listeners’ memories.

To learn more about Object lessons for Sunday school, see chapter 5 in Teaching to Transform Not Inform 2: How to Teach a Transformational Sunday School Lesson...STEP-BY-STEP.

Object lessons for Sunday school
Within each lesson,
include a perceptible dominate image
that enables listeners to visualize the lesson’s primary truth.

To find more links on object lessons for Sunday school, see the following:

**Additional Topics for object lessons for Sunday school**
Book 1 Topics for: Object lessons for Sunday school	Book 2 Topics for: Object lessons for Sunday school
To create great Visual Anchors, you have to know your audience.	Object lessons for Sunday school are one of the 7 Ingredients of a Transformational Lesson (chapter 5)
Don't let your confort zone limit your presentation.	Connect your Sunday school object lessons to the lesson's Sticky Proverb (chapter 5)
See the Stepping Stone Sunday school object lesson in chapter 5.	Object lessons are like Visual Anchors that lodge in your listeners' mind (chapter 5)
Object lessons for Sunday school	Object lessons should have six primary characteristics (chapter 5)