Sunday School is now underway. The flurry of activity to find enough teachers, rooms, curriculum and supplies has calmed down at least a little bit. As Christian educators, it may be tempting to settle back and let the Sunday School teachers take it from here. Of course, you will continue to be available if they come to you with a question, but unless you hear from them, your work here is done…

Yes, it’s tempting, and in the short-term it may be a viable approach. Long-term, however, your job will be much easier if you continue to check in on Sunday School teachers.

One look at the statistics is likely all you'll need to realize we have a significant problem in the church today: there are a lot of absent and disengaged men. According to a study of churchgoers by Gallup, 28% of women are fully engaged in church life, vs. 21% of men. 24% of men are actively disengaged, while just 16% of women are. Andanother study found that 65% of the people in church on Catholic churches are women; 64% in mainline protestant churches; 61% in conservative protestant churches. As one author has noted, men are more often absent from Christian churches than is the case in all of the other major world religions.

In coming weeks, I'll be sharing some other research and a few resources available for engaging men in Christian education, and some ideas that have worked in other congregations. However, this is a topic where there are not a great deal of good resources for spiritually progressive congregations. So, I'd like to invite you to be part of the dialogue and give your feedback on the reasons men are absent or disengaged from churches today, and your experience of what has or has not worked in your own congregation.

Dear Sunday School teachers,

We appreciate the time you take each week to prepare a lesson for our class. Hopefully, some of the things you teach us about God and Jesus and the Bible will stick with us as we grow. What we will definitely remember is having you as our teacher.

We appreciate the “little things” that adults do to make us feel special, such as:

I am a list maker. I make to-do lists, planning lists and check lists. Simply making the list makes me feel productive! And truthfully, lists do help me remember things and keep me on task. At the beginning of a Sunday School year, I wondered what type of checklist would be helpful for Sunday School teachers. I came up with two lists. The first list is probably the one most Sunday School teachers use, either written or mentally. The second list may be even more important.

A recent study on online education found that students do better, on average, when they learn online instead of in face-to-face situations. So does that mean you should ditch your classrooms, small groups, and youth group and just do all of your education online?

Of course not. We all know that there are many, many benefits to face-to-face learning, such as...

• Developing emotional intelligence. We need to physically be with people to better grow in our skills of empathy, listening, and compassionate caring.
• Healthy touch. In our germ-phobic, safety-obsessed, fingertip-friendly world, we simply don't come into physical contact with others very frequently. Our education settings can be places where persons can receive healthy touches.
• A more green setting. Computers, like it or not, are the cause of a LOT ofgreenhouse gasses, environmental destruction, and even war. A church classroom can provide a more environmentally friendly learning experience.
• Being together as the body of Christ. Online, it's easy to associate with only your close friends or those with similar interests and to "see" you only as a person with a profile. In person, we have the opportunity to get to know one another as whole persons of God. 
• Mentorship. While there are many things I can certainly learn online, often I can learn them much faster when someone is there beside me to give feedback, demonstrate techniques, and assist me.
• Spiritual practices. The corporate nature of worship, service, prayer, and other disciplines is hard to replicate online effectively.

Parents in progressive congregations often wonder how (and even whether) to talk about scripture to their children. Some of them may have moved away from the literalistic views they heard or learned in their previous congregations but don't feel confident speaking in a "different voice" yet. Others may wonder about ways to talk about the Bible that are appropriate for children.

Here is a list of talk points I gave to a parenting class once to help us engage in a conversation about reading the Bible at home with children. Feel free to adapt and expand them - turn them into a handout, print them in a newsletter, provide them to teachers, and so on. (Crediting DifferentVoice.com is always appreciated!)

Choosing curriculum for children, youth or adults can be a difficult task. Hopefully, a lot of thought goes into which curriculum best meets the needs of those who will be using it. Once a curriculum is chosen, however, there is a tendency to then use the curriculum “as is”. Many teachers do not feel comfortable modifying lessons. This is an acceptable approach if you have discovered a curriculum that perfectly matches your beliefs, teaching style and the needs of those in the class. To determine whether your curriculum is a good fit for your church, ask it some questions.

The beginning of a new Sunday School year is a good time to remind teachers about the importance of learning the names of all the students in their class. It seems like a small thing, but regardless of our age, we all appreciate it when someone remembers our name.

In addition to the Sunday School teachers knowing class members’ names, it is important for class members to know one another’s names. Again, this is often something we take for granted. However, it takes repetition to learn names and often, this is overlooked among other Sunday School activities. Children and youth, especially, I have found, will participate in a group without being concerned that they do not know everyone. (Four weeks into last school year, my 15 year old son still did not know his locker partners name. This did not seem to concern him…)

It never fails. As soon as I plan a Teacher Training Event for Sunday School teachers, one of the teachers approaches me and asks, “Is it really necessary that I come to this meeting?” The reasons that they seek to be excused vary from, “I have taught Sunday School for 25 years,” to “I don’t want to come to another meeting.” No matter which words they use, I hear the underlying question, “What’s in it for me?”

I’m guessing that anyone who has planned a Teacher Training Event has had this same experience. I’d be interested in hearing how you respond. (You can leave a comment here.) I respond by informing the teacher that he or she is an adult and must make the decision about whether or not to attend. (I refuse to give anyone permission to miss the Teacher Training Event.) Then I follow up with reasons I believe his or her attendance would be beneficial.

As the end of July approaches, a Christian Educator’s thoughts turn to Fall Sunday School, which entails ordering curriculum, recruiting Sunday School teachers and scheduling a teacher training event. Of those three things, the first two must be done, but it may be tempting to leave out teacher training or postpone it until life is less busy. (And when would that be?) I encourage you to resist this temptation. A teacher training event can be a helpful and positive way to equip your teachers for a new Sunday School year.

Here are some “back-to-basics” essentials that may be included in a beginning of the year teacher training event. Note that I have avoided calling it a teacher training meeting. Few of us want to attend another meeting!