Question:
Why hasn't the Writing Team written lesson sets for EVERY popular Bible story?
2 Answers
- We are writing more sets! Here's a list of those in production and scheduled to be written.
- The Team was originally tasked to write great lesson sets for MAJOR stories that didn't have a lot of good material in the public lesson forums. But, as we've completed "WT" sets for stories that didn't have a lot of great materials in our public forums, we've moved on to the stories that DID have some good ideas in the public forums -- and asked our Writing Team to do even better.
Of course, what constitutes a "major" story is subjective, but there's a consensus about which 40 or 50 Bible stories are "majors."
What about "other" Bible stories?
In the Rotation Model, we believe in teaching the "major" stories of the OT and NT for at least four weeks in a row through various workshops. Because we don't change the story every week, we move more slowly and deeper through the Bible than traditional Sunday Schools do. This means we have to PRIORITIZE which stories are important for children to learn, and which are better left for older students and other times and place. That means we "focus on the majors."
A typical Rotation Model Sunday School will teach between 8 and 12 Bible stories a year. That means over 5 years, our elementary students will learn around 50 stories (because some stories repeat, like Advent), and they will learn them in greater depth.
How do we decide which stories to teach in the Rotation Model?
Among Christian educators, there is a general consensus about the top 40 or so Bible stories that are important to teach to children. The Rotation Model focuses on those, especially because we're going to spend 3 to 5 weeks on each.
The Writing Team follows this consensus list (often called a "Scope and Sequence"), and has prioritized the order of writing based in part on what's already in our public forums. Learn more about the consensus "Scope and Sequence" of major stories a Rotation Sunday School will teach, and how those stories are picked.
Traditional Sunday Schools picking from the Team's sets find super creative options for key Bible stories, and often get inspired to do more than one week on them --because they have the Team's great lessons to do so.
Related Links:
Old Testament Writing Team Lesson Sets
Become a Supporting Member | About the Writing Team and its Lesson
