We all have sat through a service where the minister went on what seemed like forever. When a guest minister starts out with, “If I don’t teach you everything I know tonight the church might have me back,” there is a sigh of relief from the church. We know the minster has learned to refine his message to a reasonable time frame. Likewise, regardless of the length of time, your students will think your class goes on forever if you fail to make your goals obtainable.
To be effective teachers, we need to learn to refine the goal for our class. If you set the goal of my students will know faith as the primary learning out come, your students had better be your own personal children because that would take a life time to teach that goal. If your lesson aim or out come is my class will be able to use their faith to get healed then you should have had several classes about faith and healing prior to this one. This goal, too, would be too large to obtain in one class period. Successful ministers have seminars before ever planning to release faith for healing. Of course, the Holy Ghost can move and heal anytime He wants, and we want to be open to that, more about that later. This article is directed toward teaching. If your goal is my students will know that faith is now would be reasonably obtainable for elementary age children but a tough goal for preschoolers. So again it is the lead teacher’s responsibility to design and write a goal that is obtainable for their students; then communicate that goal to the other teachers and helpers and ultimately to the students in the class.
We have great curriculum compared to what was being offered in the 1980’s and I am very thankful for it. I have used Mark Harper’s material and love it. I want to take an example of his Prayer curriculum. There are 13 lessons to cover the kinds of prayer. I had a similar course on prayer in Bible School that lasted 13 weeks with classes 2 or 3 times a week. So there are a lot of spiritual truths to be taught on each kind of prayer. Some of Mark’s lessons may cover 2-3 points on a certain kind of prayer. As a teacher, you must make a determination as to what you can convey to your students. The curriculum doesn’t know your students, it doesn’t know your teaching abilities, and it doesn’t know the resources you have or don’t have. The curriculum is for guidance and must be refined by you as the teacher.
Take heed of your expectations for each class. Be sure your primary out come / goal is obtainable. As we said earlier, the Holy Ghost wants to move in your class. He confirms the Word. He is only able to move to the extent your students receive the Word. By setting good goals, we empower our class to receive the Word which makes room the Holy Ghost to move.