Category Archives: Teaching Topics

While we could undoubtedly come up with a long list of do’s and don’ts when teaching worship, this post will look at one important objective in each category.

Two Objectives When Teaching Worship

Do start to teach worship from the earliest age.

Sometimes churches will start training children to worship in “children’s church” so when they’re ready to go to “big people” church, they’re prepared. However, worshiping is so much more than what happens in a worship service. Worship is a heart response to our great and awesome God. Even infants and toddlers can begin to grasp a sense of awe. Imagine if we would use all those opportunities to direct their sense of wonder toward God! — “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (Prov. 22:6)

Also Read: When to Start Learning About Worship

Don’t make it about the methodology, or means of worshiping, but rather God Himself.

While it can be helpful and necessary to teach ways we can worship God, we must always get beyond the means or act of worship to the Object of our worship — God Himself. He makes worship special, not the song, style, or method. When we keep God at the center of our worship, we don’t need everything to go according to our preferences to be able to worship. When the focus gets put more on methodology, worship tends to become more man-centered than God-centered.

We must emphasize worship as that which begins with an inward response. If we put too much emphasis on the external act, we could actually be encouraging hypocrisy in their lives. Then our students could be like those the prophet Isaiah spoke of and Jesus repeated as referring to the religious leaders of His day. — “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Isa. 29:13)

Teacher Training Resources:

• The Teacher’s Role in Discipling Students to Worship

Resources to Teach about Worship:

• Children Learn to Worship Curriculum
• The Truth About Worship Discussion Guides

God commands us to “serve one another humbly in love” (Gal. 5:13) and to “serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people” (Eph. 6:7). He has also given spiritual gifts for effective service. Since serving obviously isn’t optional for believers, it would seem Bible teachers should encourage serving. That can happen through lessons specifically about serving but also as an application to other lessons. When teaching about serving, Bible teachers need to keep the following objectives in mind.

What to Remember When Teaching About Serving

Do teach serving as the logical response to our great and holy God.

When faced with the holiness of God, the prophet Isaiah realized how far short he came and said, “Woe to me! … I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isa. 6:1-5). A heavenly being touched his lips with a hot coal and announced, “your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isa. 6:6-7). When God asked for someone to serve, Isaiah, without hesitation, volunteered, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa. 6:8)

Likewise, when we also grasp the extent of God’s mercy and grace in our lives, offering ourselves to Him to be used by Him, only seems reasonable.  — Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. (Rom. 12:1)

• Guard against teaching on this topic as though it’s merely a Christian duty. Rather, stress the privilege of giving back, through service, to a God who has been so merciful to us. He deserves more than we could ever offer.

Don’t give the impression that we serve in our own strength.

As mentioned, God empowers us to serve through the spiritual gifts He imparts. Given by the Holy Spirit, according to God’s grace and not our merit, we have no excuse for serving in our own strength. — His diving power has given us EVERYTHING we need … (2 Pet. 1:3)  — Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Pet. 4:10-11)

• When teaching about serving, guard against giving the impression it’s all about what we do. Stress the need to trust God to work in and through us.

For More: Resources on Helping Students Serve

Having healthy relationships matters for us as believers so teaching on relationships should be part of our classroom agenda. We might include this topic as part of our curriculum but it is also something taught informally by the way we interact and the kind of environment we foster.

When teaching on relationships, do emphasize love as the top criteria for healthy relationships.

Since Jesus identified love as the greatest commandments (Matt. 22:36-40), surely it must be critical to healthy relationships. Jesus used Himself as a pattern for how we should love one another (Jn. 15:12).

We’re to “be devoted to one another in love” (Rom. 12:10). And, “above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). All the one another commands of Scripture are rooted in love. We won’t relate in those ways if we don’t love one another.

Love is so important that without it, anything we say becomes like “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” and we “gain nothing” by any good we might do if not done in love (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Love is so important that a whole chapter in Scripture describes what love looks like. These qualities in 1 Corinthians 13 are what we need to make relationships work. Love is so important that it’s an identifying mark of us being a follower of Jesus (Jn. 13:34-35).

Don’t teach one thing about relating with others and then treat students contrary to that.

Jesus was able to tell His disciples to “love each other as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12) because He lived it. Do our lives demonstrate what we’re teaching students to do?

If we want students to “be devoted to one another in love” (Rom. 12:10), then lets make sure we’re willing to invest into their lives rather than simply do what’s convenient, easy, or least time consuming for us. Loving in this way takes sacrifice and commitment.

If we want students to relate with patience, kindness, humility, and all the other qualities in 1 Corinthians 13, then lets make sure the way we react to wrong answers, how we discipline, etc., demonstrate those qualities.

Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). Are we making an investment into the lives of our students or do we merely show up to teach a lesson. The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians, “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thess. 2:8). If we said that to our students, would they believe us?

Resource: Does your heart beat with the love of God? Worksheet

Scripture encourages us to be devoted to prayer (Col. 4:2) so teaching about prayer should be part of a Bible teacher’s agenda. Perhaps we’ll teach an entire lesson about praying or simply incorporate truths about prayer into other lessons. We’ll also teach by example as we turn to the Lord throughout the lesson, not just to begin or end a session.

Do Get Beyond the Mechanics of Praying When Teaching About Prayer

Using tools like the ACTS acrostic, the finger prayer, etc. can be helpful but teachers need to take students beyond the 1-2-3 steps of praying to the real essence of prayer — communing with God, our relationship with Him. It grows out of abiding in our Lord (Jn. 15:4-7). The objective in praying should be about connecting with God. That’s how praying will become more of a delight than a duty.

As with human relationships, to connect we need to communicate. When communicating with people, we don’t follow a set pattern each and every time we talk with them. Why would we put our relationship with God in a neat little box? We need to help students understand that praying is a matter of their hearts connecting with His. Our posture, words, and order of our prayers may vary in keeping with the need of the moment. The Bible doesn’t command a set formula for praying but rather that we “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Eph. 6:18).

Notice how Psalm 62:8 encourages us to pour our hearts out to God. It doesn’t say think first about what to say and the order to say it in and then craft your thoughts out in a prayer to God.

The heart can be messy at times but that’s okay with God who wants us to be real with Him.

Don’t Get Hung Up on the Right Words to Say in Prayer

Perhaps you’ll want to use the “Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. 6:9-13) as a pattern for students on how to pray. And, that’s just what Jesus intended for it to be — a pattern. Right before giving that prayer, Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. … And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. …” (Matt. 6:5-8)

The danger of rote or even crafted prayer is that it can easily turn ritualistic. We soon fail to think about what we’re even saying. We need to help students enjoy authentic/genuine, heartfelt communication with God. We can do that by stressing how prayer is simply about pouring our hearts out to the God worthy of our trust (Ps. 62:8), love (Matt. 22:37), and adoration (Isa. 29:13).

Also, if students feel they need to be eloquent in the wording of their prayers, they will tend to have greater reticence in praying aloud in front of other people. They may become more conscientious about what people hear than what God hears.