One thing before I start: You may want to keep reading even if you are not a teacher in a church setting since you might become one in the future, and even if you don't, it may help you sympathize with those who do teach. Another thing to note is that I have a companion post entitled “How to Lead Bible Discussions” for specific guidelines on how to deal with that particular challenge.
If you wonder why I feel that I am qualified to give anyone advice on this subject, I have been developing and teaching adult Bible material for close to 60 years now in various venues such as: college youth groups, Sunday school classes, adult continuing education extension courses, special evening lectures at church, Sunday morning sermons, home Bible studies, one-on-one mentoring, workshops for area Sunday school teachers and pastors, and through internet postings. And I have carried these out while attending six different evangelical churches representing six different denominations or non-denominational traditions.
I mention the above, not to brag, but to indicate that I have had a myriad of opportunities to make mistakes as a teacher, and I often took them. So I hope you can learn from my experiences, both good and bad.
Keep all of your lecture notes.
That may look like a rather prosaic way to lead off with. However, years ago I was conducting a workshop for Sunday school teachers in the area, and a man who later became my current Sunday school class leader was attending. After he had been teaching for several more years at our church, he told me that the only thing he remembered from my lecture was my advice to save, as a hard copy or on a well-backed up computer, the notes from any classes you have taught. Even though you think that you will never have the chance to speak on the same subject again, you never know. Or, like me, you may want to later recycle your lessons as blog posts.
By the way, I should have been listening back then to my own advice since I lost my lecture notes from that particular workshop and am now trying to reproduce my thoughts from scratch to write this post.
Expect criticism and learn how to deal with it.
My first occasion to teach Bible lessons came when I was in graduate school and part of a church college-age group. One session that I organized and partially taught was on the Creation. We had invited two outside speakers to speak on this subject on different weeks. One was a professor of religion from the local university. We opened the class with a few popular praise choruses of the time, and I gave a prayer and read a short passage from the Bible.
When I turned it over to the professor, the first words out of his mouth (with a little sneer) were, “I see that none of you are particularly sophisticated in the area of religion.” From that point on, I don't really remember anything else he said except that he talked down to us the whole time. To give us credit, we all listened politely and thanked him for coming.
The next outside speaker was recommended by one woman in the group who had been listening to his once-a-week evening talks on the radio. He was also the pastor of a church in town. When he barged into our classroom slightly late, I noticed that he had a pronounced scowl on his face. I began the class as usual with singing, prayer and a reading from the Bible. This time it was the familiar passage in Psalms beginning, “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.”
The first words out of this speaker's mouth were: “Well I hope you won't be offended if I read out of the Bible!” Of course, that was a rather strange thing to say right after I had just read out of the Bible myself, and even in the King James Version. Again, I remember nothing of what he said after that point, only that it was all said in a quite belligerent manner. We listened politely and thanked him for coming, and he stormed out of the room. The woman who had recommended him in the first place tuned in to his broadcast that week and said that he had ranted and railed concerning the ultra-liberal church in town that he had visited.
From those two encounters, I quite quickly learned that you will never be able to please everyone, even if you hardly say anything. However, a teacher needs to treat every member of his audience respectfully in a Christ-like manner. Another lesson I took to heart, although some of you may disagree here, is that as a teacher I feel that I am probably most on track with what I am saying if I am criticized equally from the left and right extremes of the religious spectrum.
However, you may want to be especially careful with your words if you are teaching a controversial subject.
One church at which I taught for years had quite definite opinions regarding the End Times, opinions which I could not honestly share. So the elders decided that I could continue teaching Sunday school as long as I avoided the subject of eschatology. That did not pose a problem for me since a teacher should always obey the wishes the appointed church leaders. And if I was asked a question relating to the future, I simply turned it over to one of my co-teachers to answer.
However, at two other churches where I was under no such restrictions, I did get a little flack for my views on the subject. At one such church, a stranger walked into our class and heard me discussing several ways of looking at the Book of Revelation. At one point he got up and shouted, “How can you call yourself a Christian if that is what you believe!” And at another church where a similar subject came up and I had made a comment, a woman in the class volunteered, “Well, that certainly isn't what Mr. X (a popular end-times 'expert') says!,” as if that comment should settle the question once and for all.
Just as how the earth will end is a controversial topic, so is the way in which it was first made. After a respected speaker in our congregation discussed the pros and cons of a young-earth view, I overheard one member of the church mutter, “That person has no right teaching here.” I wasn't at all surprised at his comment since the same person had also gone to our Senior Pastor and tried to get me banned as a Sunday school teacher as well for some rather innocent comment I had made.
The last example of a touchy subject involves the question of eternal salvation. One can take various stances regarding this area of theology depending upon which Bible passages you tend to stress. I was teaching on the Book of Hebrews and explained that one passage appeared to teach that it was possible (although improbable) that a person who had once made a sincere profession of faith would later apostasize and deny God altogether. An elder's wife in the audience came up to me after class with tears in her eyes and said that I really shouldn't say such things. I found out later that her son had done the very same thing, and she understandably did not like to think of him being damned forever. If I had known that beforehand, I probably would have been much more careful in how I broached the subject in class.
Be aware of any time restraints.
Of course, this is most important if you are teaching a Sunday school class and need to be done in time for church services to start. However, even if you are leading a home Bible study or a giving a special lecture in the evening or mid-week, it is quite unkind to your audience to keep them past the agreed-upon time. That is why you should practice your talk for timing before you present a lesson so that you don't run over. There is nothing that will drive people away from your class faster than habitually finishing later than expected.
On the other hand, if you always start your class late, they will get used to that practice and start coming in later and later themselves. It is not fair to those who show up on time and have to sit around waiting for the rest of the members to do the same. I realize that many people do want to visit and catch up with their friends on what has happened during the week. However, I do not feel in the least guilty in calling the class to order in a clearly heard voice, even if it means on occasion telling the pastor himself to quit visiting. I know that some teachers accomplish the same thing by beginning their lesson right on time with a prayer, since that always has the desired effect of rapidly stopping all other talk in the room. That technique may be effective, but it doesn't really seem to me to be the proper use of prayer.
One problem in keeping to a strict time schedule is if you are mixing in a number of discussion questions with your actual presentation. More on this in my companion post for discussion leaders, but just be aware that you may have given up all control of the class time at that point.
Know your audience.
One major advantage of teaching a long-standing Sunday school class or small home group is that you get to know the people you are talking to and can tailor your presentations to their specific needs. But you don't always have that luxury. I will give an example from years ago when I was called on to give presentations to groups I had never met before.
Years ago, I was asked by our pastor if I would be willing to fill in at the pulpit one Sunday for a small country church in the area who was in between pastors. (I realize that this was a case of preaching, not teaching, but my whole mode of preaching at the time was really more a case of teaching.) I completely misjudged my audience. I was used to speaking to a small, highly educated group of rather staid Christians. However, as I stared at the totally blank and bewildered faces in this congregation while I talked, I realized I was doing a very poor job of communicating to them the biblical truths I wanted to get across. I also realized a little later to my surprise that this was a charismatic church that was used to a little more emotional content and group participation during their service.
If I had known more about these sincere Christians, I might have been able to minister to them a lot better than I did. Surprisingly, a month later they informed me, though our rather embarrassed pastor, that they had prayed about it, and God told them that I would be speaking the following week. Not being one to contradict God, I showed up and attempted it again.
I will continue with with my comments on Bible teaching in the following companion post.
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