Years ago, during an ill-advised—and short—career in youth ministry, I found myself teaching a junior high Sunday school class.
The denominationally approved curriculum didn’t exactly light a fire under my kids. (Not to worry: it wasn’t an Episcopal curriculum!)
One day I realized none of them were able to say why they were Christian, despite having been baptized and confirmed in the church. None could articulate the gospel story, much less tell David from Abraham.
I felt like I was losing them a little more every week. And I came to believe that, as one evangelical leader famously said, it’s a sin to bore kids with the gospel.
So I chucked the curriculum and simply started walking us through the story of the Bible.
Read the rest on GrowChristians.org.
Image: Michelle Tribe on Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Ben Irwin 
I attended a church school. When I was 13 a pastor came into the classroom and asked who had not been baptized. Myself and one other student raised our hands; we were 13. He asked if we would like to be, and of course we said yes. We would have been embarrassed to say no.
The pastor did go through a Bible study with us but I don’t remember what he said. I do know I wasn’t interested in spiritual things and hated going to church. When I did become interested, I was 19 and asked to be baptized again. The first time meant nothing to me. A lot of kids only go to church because their parents make them, so it doesn’t surprise me your kids didn’t know anything. They weren’t interested so didn’t really listen.
LikeLike