The Sunday School described in most books has several rooms, a teacher for each age group and a cupboard of materials. The Sunday School most teachers in Pakistan actually have is one room, one teacher, thirty children between four and fourteen, and whatever the teacher brought with them.
That class can be taught well. It needs a different plan, not a smaller one.
Use a shape the children can feel
A mixed class settles when it knows what is coming. Keep the same order every week: sing, pray, the story, the activity, the memory verse, sing again, go home. Within a month the children will run the shape themselves, and you will spend far less of your energy on getting attention.
Teach one passage at four levels
Do not try to run several lessons at once. Teach one passage to everybody, and vary what you ask of them.
- The youngest need the story, one sentence to repeat, and something to do with their hands.
- Five to eight need the story acted out, and a question they can answer out loud.
- Nine to twelve need to find the passage in their own Bible and answer a question that has more than one right answer.
- The oldest need a job. Give them one.
Give the older children real work
The teenagers in a mixed class are usually the biggest problem and the largest untapped resource in the room. A fourteen-year-old who has been asked to lead the singing, hear the little ones’ memory verses or help with the craft is no longer a disruption. They are also, without anyone announcing it, being trained as the next teacher.
Seat the room on purpose
Put the youngest at the front where you can reach them and the oldest along the sides where they can help. Never put all the teenagers together at the back; separate a group of friends before the lesson rather than during it.
Lower your voice
A teacher who raises their voice teaches the class that the room is loud. Drop to almost a whisper for the most important sentence of the story and the children will lean in to hear it. This is the single most useful trick in a noisy room, and it costs nothing.
Plan for the ones who cannot read
In many classes several children cannot yet read, and they know it. Never ask a child to read aloud without warning. Ask for volunteers, or give the reader the verse a week in advance so they can practise at home and succeed in front of everybody.
Finish before they are finished
Stop while the class is still enjoying it. A lesson that ends five minutes early with the children wanting more is worth two that run over. Every lesson in the free curriculum is built to a length that a single teacher can hold, and each carries an activity that works with a large group in a small space.
If your teachers have never been trained, teacher training is free and the team runs it in local churches. You may also want to read how to teach a memory verse.
