The Roles of a Sunday School Teacher

Recently I have had the opportunities to discuss with a few fellow Sunday School teachers about the curriculum of our Sunday School.   In my reply to my fellow teachers, I stated that because I did not have theological training, I will most likely not able to suggest what are the good topics for the curriculum but I can certainly pray that Holy Spirit will give us a vision as to what we should do with our curriculum.

While I do not have much input on what are the subjects that we should touch on, it did prompted me to think of this question – “What is the role of a Sunday School teacher?”. 

Before I share what my view on this subject is, can you ask yourself what it should be?  I believe different people (teachers and students) will have different answers.

What then is my view?  My view is based on the following 3 important elements

1. What is the main purpose of Sunday School?

For me Sunday School is not just a place to learn about Bible knowledge but also a place to learn how the various Bible verses are relevant to our daily lives.  The job of a Sunday School teacher is not so much to tell the students spiritual insights but to help them understand (Matt 13:23), accept (Mark 4:20) and hold fast (Luke 8:15) God’s Word. (I learn this from the Parable of the sower).  

Let God's Word do its wonders to change lives.  After all in I Corinthians 2: 4 - 5 it stated that our faith should not rest on human wisdom but the Power of God "... and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,  so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."

2. How to be an effective Sunday School Teacher?

Another important aspect is to be able to know the needs of the students and what are the things that are going through their lives.  With this we can tailor to our application on the Bible verses which indirectly affects our curriculum. I have been trying very hard to build bounding with the students as I believe our ministry is only effective if we can build a good relationship with them as well as knowing what is going on in their live.  

3. Able to fight the Spiritual Battle

I believe I have share this before in my previous blog post that Sunday School is in fact a spiritual batter and therefore being a Sunday School teacher, we also need to be a prayer warrior.  Before each lesson, how many hours have we spend on praying for the lesson?  Do we pray first or do we dig right into trying to understand the passages that we are going to teach.  Prayers are needed in the Sunday School ministry.

The Role of a Sunday School Teacher

Therefore the roles of a Sunday School Teacher are:

• To be a coach
• To be a friend
• To be a prayer warrior