Sunday School

So, tomorrow I begin my adult Sunday School teaching career. I'm not a member of this church, no one's ever questioned my theology at all (although they know my parents and my most recent job, which I guess would give me some credibility within the SB sphere), and I've never taught adults before....but I'll be teaching their female singles for my remaining time in TN.

As is typical for me, I read through the lesson for the first time just a few minutes ago (hey - at least I didn't wait until the ride tomorrow). I really wish I'd read through earlier though. I dunno. I guess I was expecting the teacher book to be like the ones for children - they've got lots of activity possibilities all laid out for you. The material I used to use even had activity books with stuff to punch out and color for the kids, so I didn't even have to scrounge up paper most of the time.

This has one activitity. It involves writing on a piece of paper or chalk/white board. Let me tell you how exciting and discussion-provoking I find this activity to be. Hmm...

Anyway...so I was reading in the prepatory stuff at the beginning of the leader's guide and came across a section entitled "Elements of Bible Teaching." It's a half of a page, so I guess the elements are pretty self-explanatory. But in the middle of this section, the following sentence caught my eye: "For the Holy Spirit to transform lives, participants must experience all [seven] elements [of Bible teaching] before, during, and/or after the session." Now, I'm taking this sentence out of its context, and the ending ("before, during, and/or after") does leave it open for a pretty big time span...but the implication of the sentence is plain - the Holy Spirit _CAN_NOT_ transform someone's life unless that person experiences a bulleted list of things.

This seems to bring up two things in my mind. 1) The pride of the author in having the confidence to make such a statement about the nature of God, and 2) the limitations we allow ourselves and others to put on the power of God.

Why _must_ the Holy Spirit jump through these man-made hoops in order to transform someone's life?

And I'm not saying that these elements of Bible teaching are bad things. They're all good things...but it's still humans telling God what He can't do. That's pretty silly, imo anyway.

So...I'll tell you how it goes tomorrow. In the two weeks that I've been attending this class, there has yet to be a repeat attender other than myself and the people who were teaching the class. Granted, that's partially because occasionally they split the men and women, but still....other than the teachers, it's been completely different people for me every time.

Might explain why they asked _me_ to teach.