The Bible’s not boring—so we shouldn’t be either!

I once went to a youth leaders’ training event where the speaker held his Bible up high, saying something like, “These are words of the God of the universe. How dare we let them be boring!” Since then, I’ve been convinced that whatever we do in our ministry programs, the Bible time should be the highlight and definitely not the boring bit.

Why be creative in Bible teaching?

Firstly, God is creative, and it’s his Word we’re passing on.

I passionately believe that the Bible’s message is relevant and understandable for all people of every age. We have myriad examples of teaching styles demonstrated in the Bible: instructions for rote learning, object lessons, trial and error of experience, allegory and parables, philosophical debate, and artistic expression. In his ultimate act of teaching, God himself became a person. The Word was a living, breathing child, teen, and adult. Jesus expressed himself in many ways and used a variety of methods to teach his disciples, none of which involved a worksheet, but at various times did involve pointing at flowers, picking up children, and turning over tables.

Secondly, the Bible is more like a life-skills manual than a textbook to study and memorise. At school, everyone liked home economics because we got to create something (often delicious) and learn skills that we could actually use at home. The purpose of the Bible is to change people so that we can live as God’s children. If we teach Bible stories like chapters in a textbook, kids and teens may end up thinking of the Bible as something that is studied in church but irrelevant to their daily lives. Therefore, our approach should be more like teaching a home economics or woodwork class. Jesus practically demonstrated concepts like love and showed how being God-like is something that happens in the everyday, ordinary aspects of life and relationships. God sets us the example of teaching and communicating in a way that is practical, relatable, and applied to the everyday of human life.

Preparation

The process I follow begins with the same preparation for any teaching—first understand the passage. Consider the passage in context of the overall Bible storyline, the original situation (who is telling whom and why?), how it points to Jesus, and how it relates to us now.

Secondly, I think about my students. The Bible is multilayered in meaning, and you can read the same passage multiple times and each time discover new aspects of God, more about yourself, be convicted, encouraged, or find new sources of joy. From the simplest reading for the youngest child to the understanding of the wisest elder, there are many possible teaching points that could be conveyed. Just pick one. What is going to be helpful for these particular students in their context? It might be what we can know of God’s character from this story. It might be how people trusted God despite not seeing how he was at work. It might be what sin is like and how it is to be fixed.

The third step is to find a connection between the Bible passage and us. If there are people in the story, does it tell us how they felt? If it’s a historical passage and you were there at that time, what would you see, feel, hear, touch, taste? Did someone in the passage make a mistake? What are the experiences—can we relate? Is there wisdom for daily life? Does it tell us what God is like? Does it tell us what people are like? Then, consider your students and whether they’ve had any of the same feelings, senses, mistakes, experiences, need for wisdom, need to know God’s character, or need to learn about people. At this point, I’m considering how to help them see that the Bible accounts are of real people just like us. They had feelings and responses just like us. They probably didn’t like the smell of old bananas, liked hanging out with their friends, and some of them didn’t like broccoli! If the people then were amazed at Jesus’s teaching, how can we help our students feel like that too? Is there a way to help them feel the reality of how amazing Jesus’s teaching was and still is?

Think outside the box!

Step four is to use an illustration that helps the kids to understand the bible passage and its connection to us. While a preacher tells his illustrations to help a congregation understand the nuance of a passage, we get to do the illustration as an object lesson all together.

For example, in Luke 8:40–56, Jesus healed the bleeding woman and Jairus’s daughter. Jesus emphasises that someone has touched him when the bleeding woman comes to him. He takes the hand of Jairus’s girl, who they say is dead. Both acts would have made him unclean, but Jesus made it clear that he would act lovingly to people who society would have considered “gross.” So a game where people are blindfolded and challenged to touch various gross things and identify what they are will not only be fun and hilarious but will help all the kids realise what a big deal it was that Jesus told everyone that the woman touched him and that he took the dead girl’s hand. The kids can understand how the audience would have felt when they saw the sick woman and realised Jesus welcomed her to engage with him: “Ew! Her?” And then maybe the kids might be able to identify people in their own lives about whom people might think “Ew? That kid?” and realise those are the people Jesus loves and who we ought to love too.

More creative ideas

How about a chemistry experiment where tainted water becomes clear? If there is an experience in the passage that our students don’t have, can we help them have it? Can we help them feel like a lost sheep in a cardboard box maze? Can we go to the park with a giant box and create a “belly of a whale” for them to sit in (complete with stinky kelp)? Can we treat them like slaves with a series of hardworking challenges, then let them escape only to come to a river they cannot cross, only for a path to become open at the last minute? Or it can be smaller things like trying to control a ping-pong ball in a straight line with a handheld fan when there is a standing fan blowing against it, then consider that Jesus controlled the wind of a storm. Each of these examples is seeking to answer the question: How can I help these kids experience or act out the reality and truth of this Bible passage?

Finally, if you’re able, try to use each part of the program—songs, memory verse, craft, games, etc.—to teach about the same point in a variety of ways. If the story is the lost sheep, you could print out the story on numbered pages that you hide around the space and have kids search to find each page and read the story in order. You could make a memory verse bottle with the words or phrases of the memory verse on a card inside, along with coloured dry rice and a tiny toy sheep so kids can turn the bottle until they find each word in order. You could sing “Amazing Grace,” emphasising the line “I once was lost but now am found.” You could play hide-and-seek.

Long-term planning

If you can, think about the program for the whole term and choose an entire book of the Bible to work through or a series such as people who met Jesus. Each lesson, have something that you build on so that the kids are always being reminded of what came before (so they can see that Bible stories come with context). For example, if you’re doing a Bible overview, each lesson could have a giant puzzle piece that connects to the next. Or you could add to a poster of what we learnt about God each lesson. You could have pages that each student gradually builds into a book or make collectible cards for characters in the series.

And a word of encouragement—I get most of my ideas from other friends or the internet! If you know of a good object lesson, why not share with friends who teach Sunday school in another church? I find many great ideas on Pinterest (you’ll find more ideas if you search in English). You don’t have to recreate the wheel. Pray also that God will help you to make this story come alive for the kids and that he would supply you with great ideas to communicate its truths.

God’s Word is the most important message any of us will ever hear, so let’s make it the most memorable part of every program!

Photos submitted by author