Sunday School Guide for Parents
Below is the basic outline for a year’s worth of Sunday School lessons. We will start with the Old Testament. These stories are available here for all to view and for parents to utilize on the occasion (and it shouldn’t be often) when the child cannot be at Sunday School.
It is a good idea (and we will be doing this here at Trinity) to coordinate the lessons that the children will be taught with the topic of the adult class so that conversations can be had on the way home and around the kitchen table about what both parent and child reviewed that day.
It would be wonderful if the children had an opportunity, toward the close of the adult class, to join the adults and share whatever artwork they might have done, or to pose questions to the pastor that puzzled them about this story. The teacher of the children may have to be the mouthpiece of the children, carrying the questions that were posed in the children’s classroom to the pastor on their behalf. They may even have fun trying to stump the pastor.
THE SCHEDULE–
Week 1–The Setting. (Genesis 1-11) Dealing with the questions: Why is the world the way that it is?
Week 2–God begins to operate within the world to restore it starting with one person in one place (The Abraham-narratives of Genesis)
Week 3–When the road forks, pick a path. How God follows a chosen path. (The Isaac and Jacob narratives of Genesis)
Week 4–How God keeps his growing family together through forgiveness as opposed to revenge (The Joseph narratives of Genesis)
Week 5–Though God’s people come to be tyrannized, they continue to thrive. (Israel enslaved in Egypt)
Week 6–God draws his people out of the world in which they live and leads them into the wilderness to purify them. (The exodus)
Week 7–Temptation, failure and patience. God guides his people through ongoing challenges. (Israel in the wilderness)
Week 8–Finding God in your presence and in your life. (The importance of the Tabernacle)
Week 9–What it means to be a holy people. (Leviticus and Israel’s place among the nations.)
Week 10–God gives Israel room and time to grow their courage (the book of Numbers).
Week 11–Reviewing the past and reflection as a means of preparation before transition (The book of Deuteronomy)
Week 12–Conquest not compromise (The book of Joshua)
Week 13–Rough and rowdy adolescence (The book of Judges)
Week 14–A bright spot in troubled times (the book of Ruth)
Week 15–Samuel, the last of the judges (the Samuel narratives from I Samuel)
Week 16–We need a king! (The Saul narratives from I Samuel)
Week 17–The king becomes a tyrant (The Saul narratives from I Samuel)
Week 18–Two kings at one time. (The Saul/David struggle from I Samuel)
Week 19–David’s patience pays off (David’s ascendancy to the throne in I and II Samuel)
Week 20–King David stumbles, but suffers to be corrected (II Samuel 11-12)
Week 21–King David’s house flounders (The Absalom narrative from II Samuel)
Week 22–A new king and the greatest kingdom on earth; complete with cracks and serious structural flaws. (The Solomon story from I Kings)
Week 23–The kingdom cracks in half (The civil war from I Kings)
Week 24–Elijah; the nation’s cranky conscience (I & II Kings)
Week 25–Elisha; the prophet who could see that the glass was not just half-empty, but also half-full (II Kings)
Week 26–Priesthood and prophecy
Week 27–Wise words to live by (the books of wisdom; Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, etc.)
Week 28–A necessary failure–the kingdoms collapse (II Kings)
Week 29–When you’ve lost it all, you’ve still got God: Israel in exile
Week 30–Living in a strange land: Daniel and friends (book of Daniel)
Week 31–Starting from scratch: Ezra, Nehemiah and the return from the exile
Week 32–When things aren’t perfect, how do you wait: the Old Testament’s anticipation of Jesus.