1.In which areas do you agree and/or disagree with your classmate's answers? Explain.
2.Are there any statements which require clarification? Explain.
3.Identify at least 1 presupposition in your classmate's thread, and explain why you agree or disagree with his/her presupposition(s).
Respond to both below use question ns up top for both
1 What will it take to get parents to become the teachers of spiritual truths to their children?
Yount, the author of The Teaching Ministry of the Church, gives us the example of Hanna, Samuel's mother (Old Testamtent). Hanna took seriously her role as a parent as she promised to give Samuel back to God so that Samuel could be instructed in the ways of the Lord (1 Samuel 1:11).
Yount mentions that since Hanna possessed faith in the Lord she wanted Samuel to "develop a solid character of faith."[1]. He also states "If more children were born of praying parents, brought up in direct contact with the house of prayer, and reared in prayer environments, more children would hear the voice of God's Spirit speaking to them."[2] According to Yount, Godly parents have the advantage of nurturing the spiritual domain of their own kids and would need to be intentional about teaching spiritual truths.
A few other things that a parent would need to teach according to him are: teach them to love the Bible as a special book, to pray, how to give money to the Lord, teach them to be good stewards of their finances, (even at a young age), and to make sure kids understand that Bible reading is a daily priority. It is also crucial for parents to grow in their own relationship with God by praying, tithing and participating in the church mission activities or outreaches so they may model these things to their own children.[3]
2 Explain why teachers need to vary their teaching methods when teaching children.
It is important that teachers proceed to teach the children the stories of the Bible as stories or real people who lived a long time ago and in a land away from us so that they are able to distinguish the Bible from other fantasy books. It is important that they vary their teaching methods because there are different age groups and what may work for one age group may not work for another.
3 After reading the "Characteristics of Youth Ministries that Produce Spiritually Mature Adults," which characteristic is lacking most in your own church? What could you do to improve this area?
Although I am not the pastor of the church, but just a parent, I think that one of the things I would like to see happen at our church is the characteristic of "Focus on Household or families"[4].
As a parent of four children (one of them almost a teen), I would like to feel like I am better equipped with information, encouragement, and advice on what to do with the issues that come with raising children. I would like to learn from others what they have done in hard situations like discipline and what it means to instruct the children in the ways of the Lord.
4 Evaluate your church's generational profile. What proportion of adults fits into each of Barna's generational divisions? How does this affect the way you teach the adults in your church?
As I evaluate our small church's profile, I find that ¾ of the church attendance is most likely of the generation of the boomers (those born between 1946-1964). There are about 5 attendees from the ‘builder' generation (those born between 1927-1946). The remainder of the adults, approximately 5 couples who are our age are "mosaics" those born between 1984-2002.
Although I don't see any obvious issues with the way we are taught I do noticed that there tends to be division in the church because generations seem to segregate by age. Each age group learns differently and "shifting the focus from the teacher to the learner"[5] is an important key for adults in learning.
#2 Think about this: Do your household set down and eat together at the same time? No phone, no tablets, the television is shut off. This is a where each member of the family can participate, a time of affirmation, seeing what troubles lie upon the horizon and what actions should be acknowledge and rewarded.
2. Why do teachers need to vary their teaching methods when teaching? Be it a Sunday school, or secular/private school teacher, the only measuring stick to be viewed is, "are the students in your charge learning?" Imagine that are in your daughters 9th grade biology class and you could view the teachers grade book. How many of her fellow students are doing well? How many are getting by? How many are just lost in the process.
Now look at the students how are they responding to the lesson or the teacher's instruction?
Bruce Wilkinson book "The Seven Laws of the Learner", told a unique story during his days in seminary. "Dr. Hendricks believed that, as my teacher, he was the one responsible for my learning. He felt responsible, and if I wasn't learning he did whatever it took-changed the lesson plan, his style, told an irrelevant joke, even ran down the aisle and confronted me-to get my attention."
The premise here is that the role of the teacher is not only to go over the material in the lesson plan, but to make sure everyone has a working knowledge of the material before moving on. if it wasn't working for the students, it needed to be changed, but there is also the students' responsibility to be part of the covenant of learning.
3. The advantages of Youth Ministries that produces spiritual mature adults. There are church youth ministries that I admire. They make the bible and the church relevant on their level. They promote spiritual guidelines and disciplines that will follow them through life.
"Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won't depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6). The placing of a sound spiritual foundation, will never leave them, no matter what trials they face.
A sign that a church a church is doing its job is to see the ages of children and youth that are in attendance from ages 13 to 25. They are the ones who are getting fed, and who are inviting their friends to attend.
My wife who is also a minister in the gospel once ran a youth group of 25 girls ages 6 to 14 and every fourth of fifth Sunday, the girls would do sign language to the beat of an old gospel hymn. On those days, the church would be standing room only. They were so proud to perform and all their parents were in attendance.
My former church had a congregation of 75 and 60% of them were over the age of 50. The majority were related to one another or came from the same region of Georgia. The youth ministry is comprised mostly of 10 children between the ages of 5 to 12. There aren't any teenagers over 16 that attend on a regular basis, and those who have gone to college in the area, rarely attend service.
They haven't been made an active and official part of the church, so they are divested from it. We have those who have some form of leaders who do the same things they did when they were children and they would come up against anyone who tried a different method.