Time Management For Teachers

I glanced over an excellent article this week about time management for teachers. I am including some excerpts from it here. You may also read the entire article, in two parts, by using these links:

Part 1 Part 2

Here are some excerpts from the articles:

Revolutionary Sunday School requires more than two four-letter words: time and work. It also requires the wisest investment of that time and work. Many teachers, directors, and pastors are spending lots of time doing Sunday School work, but they are only doing good things rather than the best things. This is the difference between being “busy” and making a difference/being effective. We all have the same amount of time. The difference is how we use the time and energy we have.

Prayer for Jeremy, Sara, and Karen

Please be in prayer for three of our Sunday School Leaders – Jeremy and Sara Craig, along with Jeremy’s mom, Karen. Jeremy and Sara are going through a great loss right now and need our prayers and support. Pray for them, their families, and their ministries at our church. Support them, help them, and reach out to them.

Sunday School Done Right Pictures

I’ve posted several SSDR pictures online today. Thanks for taking these, Sara! I’m going to put a couple here, but check out this link for all of them! This was a great event, and I will recap it some more in the near future. It is going to be the spring board for a lot of things to come.

Here is the link to the gallery of pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mylabruby/SundaySchool

Here’s a few more pictures:

VBS Leadership Meeting – February 3, 2008

We will be holding a VBS leadership meeting on Sunday, February 3, 2008, immediately following the morning worship service. This meeting is going to allow us to get several people interested in the VBS Director or other leadership positions together to discuss the responsibilities of the job, the kind of heart it takes, and the kind of organization and duties it will require. Sandi Layton and Carol Jones will be there to share their experiences, and Gordon, Jr. and myself will be there as well, hopefully. We have several interested parties and are trying to spread the word through channels that get to the heart of the matter, not just sharing it as a want ad or a spot to be filled. We need the right person for this job.

Above all, we need a heart for God. More specifically, a heart for children, for reaching them for Christ, and for caring for them through teaching, fun, and personal ministry. We will also need people willing or available to promote and organize the ministry.

I don’t see why this has to be one person.  But it could. I am wide open on that.

The Month of Febuary: Evangelism

Hi Team,

I am in the middle of a big behind-the-scenes project that’s going to be a great resource for us and our teachers to keep in touch and equip each other with the things we need to reach, teach, and minister to the people in our Sunday School and community. More on that, later.

The theme of Lifeway’s material for the month of February is Evangelism (from the little research I’ve done). I am attaching a file that you may want to glance at and get to your teachers if you think it would prove useful to them for discussion based SS classes. These may center around our youth and adult classes, but Jill and Sara, I’d encourage you to take a look at them as well and print or email copies to your teachers to help them prepare.

The attachment I’m sending you today is for this week’s lesson, particularly from the “Bible Studies for Life” literature. If you’d like more lesson and Q&A starters, you can go to this website: http://www.joshhunt.com/sunday-school.htm. Click on the series you want stuff for, and then you can download the lesson. If & when you are prompted for a password, I think you can use “yes” for the user name and “yes” for the password.

I hope you find this stuff useful. I am counting on you to (1) review this stuff and (2) get this information to your teachers if you feel it’s useful.

We’ll be communicating more on how we can use the month of February and the theme of evangelism to communicate the mission (reach), the work (teach), and the heart (minister) of Sunday School.

Thanks, guys…

Here is the direct link to the first lesson in February.

Sunday School Update – January 29, 2008

Wow, is it a new week already? What a weekend we just had! I am so thankful to all of you for your part in our SS Training event on Saturday. We will be following up on it with our teachers over the next few months. If you have ideas of how to make the “Reach, Teach, Minister” phrase more visible, let’s talk about it.

I’d like to have our next “official” SS Leader meeting on February 17 at 4:00 PM. The first step of change I am making based on our stuff this past weekend is to get all teachers involved, or at least invited, to our monthly meetings. I will plan on us meeting for about 45 minutes on our own, and then invite all teachers for some discussion and strategy time after that, say from 4:45 to 5:45. If you don’t think we can fill that much time, be prepared to be surprised! J Like they said on the video, we spend countless hours preparing for a 3-4 minute song, or a 5 minute presentation, yet we only touch base with our teachers all at one time 3-4 times a year? Something’s not right there, and that something is going to be one of the first changes we make. I don’t expect everyone to start coming right away. Right now it will be an invitation… all teachers are welcome. As the meetings begin to take shape and become useful, and even necessary, we will work toward getting people to be there and some other expectations, but first we must create a need for that change. You’ll hear more about that later, but for now, let me know if February 17 is bad for you; otherwise that is what we will plan on, and going forward, I am going to plan for the 3rd Sunday of each month.

Also, we are having a meeting with some people who have an interest in the VBS Director & Leadership positions this Sunday after the morning worship service church for about 10 – 15 minutes. We will meet in the fellowship hall, in Cliff’s classroom. We’re also going to pick a date at this time. Would love for you to be there and offer any input you have.

Here are the specific people we’re hoping will be there:

· Sandi Layton: Will be there for Q&A, to provide information, and give an idea of the job requirements.

· Carol Jones: Same thing, she’s not interested in the position but will be teaching

· Gordon Peel: He’s kind of our point of contact from the SS team right now and will be the go-to person until we get a leader or leadership team put together.

· Deanna Bledsoe: Interested in the VBS leadership positions. Her heart has recently been spoken to about working with kids in a not-so-hands-on way. (ask me about this, it’s a neat story)

· Katrina Owens: Interested, but needs to know more.

· Deanna DeCoursey: Would be glad to help with promotion and getting things rolling (organization), but probably won’t be able to help much around actual VBS time.

· Debbie Dailey: Not interested in the position and probably won’t be there Sunday after church, but said she might be available for some behind the scenes stuff (maybe the registration?)

· Mark Layton: May or may not be interested; Monty talked to him and he is considering it. Mark’s definitely got the qualifications, training, and experience working with kids and VBS.

· If you have ideas on people who might have a heart for this, let me know or contact them yourself. I will try to get it in an announcement slide for the powerpoint this week.

· I’d love to have any of you come, particularly Gordon, Sara, and Jill… you guys know the most about the kids, kids teachers, and maybe VBS. I’ll be there, too.

As I look at all this stuff, do you know what I’m seeing? I’m seeing that we might just end up with a full fledged VBS “TEAM” this year? Different people responsible for different things, counting on each other, helping each other, and fitting into the puzzle of reaching out to these kids. I wonder if that’s where we were supposed to be winding up all along… hmmm… One thing I want to be sure to express to anyone who takes up the position is that we are glad to let them take the ball and run with it, but at the same time, we won’t just drop VBS in their lap and say “we’re done, now it’s your job.” We will support, champion, and help wherever we can, using whatever gifts and abilities we have, because this is a huge part of our church’s outreach and evangelism mission.Thanks for making it through this, guys, I know this was a little long.

Chet

PS : I’ll try to get some pictures from our weekend event out over the next few days. Thanks, Sara, for taking those!

Welcome!

Welcome to our website! This is a place for us to communicate, collaborate, and… hmm… I can’t think of another “C” word. Oh well. Welcome, anyways! One of the primary purposes of this site is to help me track communications with our Sunday School Leadership Team and Teachers. This is also a place you can come to find information on our Sunday School activities and what’s going on behind the scenes.

If you’d like to comment on any post, feel free to do so. If you’d like to participate by writing articles or adding new posts, email me at chet@chetcromer.com and I will set you up. I’m thinking of including thoughts on Sunday School lessons, videos or articles from the Internet that might prove useful, and anything else we can share over the medium of the Internet. I’m also hoping to make this thing work so that you can “subscribe” to it and it will send you an email, maybe once a day or once a week, as things happen, with any new information that gets posted here. That way you don’t have to come look for it, it will come straight to you, but it will also always be available here… communication and command central.