REAL Curriculum
I noticed something while volunteering in my church’s youth group a few years back. We had a bunch of volunteer teachers, with no training, teaching our students each and every week. We had a seminary trained Youth Pastor, but the majority of the volunteers had only been trained by listening to sermons on Sunday mornings, some for not all that long.
How can we expect students to gain valuable insight into the Bible if we don’t have trained teachers?
Jesus was intentional when training the disciples. He used parables to teach principles. He set examples with His actions and used His extensive knowledge of the Law and Prophets (Old Testament) to refute scoffers. We need teachers like that! We need teachers who prepare, who are passionate, and who are intentional about what they teach.
However, finding qualified volunteers is tough in churches today. So many people are ready to take what the church offers them, but have little to offer in return. Here, I suggest three qualities that identify successful teachers as well as how your church can begin training volunteer teachers effectively each week.
Earnestness
The best teachers are excited about teaching! You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. They love the opportunities to pass information on to whomever they can!
Those are the kinds of volunteers you need to find. Many times we restrict ourselves to volunteers with school teacher careers, but those are not the only well-prepared teachers. Instead, you should look for passionate people. They are the ones excited to open their Bibles to learn something new, and immediately are passing it along. Find volunteers excited to teach!
Passionate teachers form passionate students.
Nothing is accomplished through apathy. If a gardener was apathetic about this year’s crop, they wouldn’t put much, if any, time and effort into providing water and nutrients for their plants. In turn, their plants will wither and die. Being passionate is much more than simply smiling. It is an internal attitude that affects a person’s external actions.
The ultimate goal of church education is to pass down Biblical knowledge through discipleship. Knowledge alone is not enough to prepare someone. They need to be transformed through a relationship with God encouraged by the relationships built with others. Using the classroom as a relational tool is essential to ensuring an effective educational ministry.
That leads us to the next quality:: empathy.
Empathy
Relationships between teachers and students are so important for students to really accept the education they are presented. Having a negative view of a teacher will immediately prevent any knowledge to be accepted without that tainted taste. Positive, fruitful relationships between teachers and students will undoubtedly improve a teacher’s ability to influence students’ lives.
This is not just an adult-to-child or -student relationship principle. In fact, adults are even more liable to come to a classroom with a negative outlook. Teachers will have to overcome this by relating to their students.
Viewing the world through another’s eyes will change the way you live.
When teachers begin to build relationships with their students, they will catch glimpses of how others see life. In turn, that should change the way they teach, making those relationships even stronger. Many times individuals who have participated in mission trips come back with a new perspective on life. While those perspectives, unfortunately, often fade not long after returning, volunteer teachers who are in the thick of it weekly can be brought back into that eye-opening experience.
But this can only happen when relationships are nurtured, not discouraged.
Remember, teachers are like gardeners. Gardeners can’t force a plant to grow, but they can provide a nurturing environment for that plant. Empathetic teachers are able to build a welcoming, positive classroom environment in which students can thrive.
Expertise
While passion and relationships can make beloved teachers, if those volunteers are left without quality training of their own, they can not be effective teachers.
Volunteer teachers should not be expected to be an expert in everything, but they should be trained to present each week’s material well. A simple leader’s guide containing some discussion questions no more prepares a volunteer than owning a shovel prepares a gardener. They may have a tool, but it’s through experience and devotion that one becomes a great teacher.
Teachers need to be given more before being called on to teach. They should be well versed in the topic for the week long before they are expected to teach students.
But that’s a tough job!
One possible solution would be to have weekly or biweekly training sessions led by a pastor or other trained church leader. This would give volunteers the opportunity to ask questions about the material, as well as provide consistency for what is being taught by all volunteers. The only problem is that this takes time. This would have to be a fairly substantial training session, prepared by the pastor or leader regularly. This could prevent most churches whose pastors are already overworked.
Instead, wouldn’t it be great if there was a curriculum that prepared teachers throughout the week?
You could task volunteers to research on their own, but then there would be no way to provide consistency from class to class.
Instead, we need something that prepares teachers autonomously, without the need for an additional weekly training session.
A New Solution
That is what REAL Curriculum provides! Using a series of daily devotions, teachers are prepared throughout the week, providing them insight into each topic, giving them opportunities to interact and encourage their fellow teachers, and ultimately preparing them to teach each week. Plus, volunteers will be given valuable techniques to become more effective teachers as well as tools to engage more fully with their students.
Churches need qualified volunteer teachers! Without extensive supplementary training that is time consuming and expensive, churches currently don’t have many options. That is why we are building REAL Curriculum.
At the moment, REAL Curriculum is still in the developmental stages. It takes a lot of time to prepare church curriculum that fits this new model. But testing of the platform is already underway!
Sign up below to be included in the developmental process! You will also receive invites to participate in any beta testing we perform.
We are excited to produce this effective system to train church volunteers!
Sign up to partner with us today!
