Sunday School Material Suggestions?

[Zenas]

I'm trying to think what I'm going to teach in S.S. next. My class is aged 13-18 and I will be taking on several more students in September.

I have done A.W. Pink's "The Attributes of God", R.C. Sproul's
"The Holiness of God", and now David A. Noebel's "Understanding the Times", a book comparing the Christian, Secular Humanist, and Marxist worldviews.

I was thinking of going in one of several directions next.

One possibility is finding some material on the WCF and going through that. Another is a book by Dr. Sproul that goes through the Apostle's Creed called "Renewing Your Mind". Another direction would be to go over the topic of the Sabbath.

Any suggestions on option one or option three, or other suggestions I havn't thought of? I don't currently know of any good works on the WCF or the Sabbath.

 

[jwithnell]

How about Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death? It's well written in a way that carries you along on the topic. I have two kids in the age range you are teaching and one who by God's grace has safely made her way through those years. Most teens are so unaware of how entertainment affects them and how much the popular culture is telling them that being entertained is the be-all and end-all of their existence. Since the book was written before the Internet took hold, it might be interesting to see how the teens take Postman's view (the deleterious effect of switching from a print-based culture to an electronic one) and extrapolate it into dealing with Facebook and Netflix.

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

Postman's work was a Godsend to me. Also would recommend Alan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind".

 

[jwithnell]

Ah, I had forgotten about Bloom's work -- I'll have to pick that up again.

 

[servantofmosthigh]

I'm trying to think what I'm going to teach in S.S. next. My class is aged 13-18 and I will be taking on several more students in September.

I have done A.W. Pink's "The Attributes of God", R.C. Sproul's
"The Holiness of God", and now David A. Noebel's "Understanding the Times", a book comparing the Christian, Secular Humanist, and Marxist worldviews.

I was thinking of going in one of several directions next.

One possibility is finding some material on the WCF and going through that. Another is a book by Dr. Sproul that goes through the Apostle's Creed called "Renewing Your Mind". Another direction would be to go over the topic of the Sabbath.

Any suggestions on option one or option three, or other suggestions I havn't thought of? I don't currently know of any good works on the WCF or the Sabbath.

In my situation, being a church plant, we expect new visitors (especially non-Christians) to come mostly on Sunday mornings. Because of that expectation, we keep S.S. teachings just on the Bible itself (e.g. going through a book of the bible book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse). Getting into workbooks, books, or other material is not practical for us. But for mid-week discipleship, we're going through the 1689 BCF. So we intentionally keep S.S. focused more evangelistically by teaching just the Bible itself, and shift the doctrinal/theological curriculum teachings to mid-week.

 

[Presbyterian Deacon]

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan is an excellent study for this age group In my humble opinion.

 

[py3ak]

What about the kings of Israel and Judah? If you have Alfred Edersheim's Bible History: Old Testament and Henry or Poole commenting on Kings and Chronicles you will have material for a series of truly epic proportions.

 

[D. Paul]

I have done A.W. Pink's "The Attributes of God", R.C. Sproul's
"The Holiness of God", and now David A. Noebel's "Understanding the Times", a book comparing the Christian, Secular Humanist, and Marxist worldviews.

I was thinking of going in one of several directions next.

One possibility is finding some material on the WCF and going through that. Another is a book by Dr. Sproul that goes through the Apostle's Creed called "Renewing Your Mind". Another direction would be to go over the topic of the Sabbath.

Any suggestions on option one or option three, or other suggestions I havn't thought of? I don't currently know of any good works on the WCF or the Sabbath.

I recently found Noebel's book dirt cheap at a used bookstore. What did you personally think of it? Just curious.

 

[Narnian]

There are some very good suggestions above. What ever is choosen for that group I would place high in the goals of the class is to prepare them for the onslaught of anti-Christian teaching they are going to receive in college (and are receiving in high school in many cases). Now is the time to make sure they understand and believe Sola Scriptura.

 

[Zenas]

I have done A.W. Pink's "The Attributes of God", R.C. Sproul's
"The Holiness of God", and now David A. Noebel's "Understanding the Times", a book comparing the Christian, Secular Humanist, and Marxist worldviews.

I was thinking of going in one of several directions next.

One possibility is finding some material on the WCF and going through that. Another is a book by Dr. Sproul that goes through the Apostle's Creed called "Renewing Your Mind". Another direction would be to go over the topic of the Sabbath.

Any suggestions on option one or option three, or other suggestions I havn't thought of? I don't currently know of any good works on the WCF or the Sabbath.

I recently found Noebel's book dirt cheap at a used bookstore. What did you personally think of it? Just curious.

I don't know anything about the man, but when I looked at the list of endorsements he had, he had some notorious Arminians as his references.

This doesn't seem to have any effect on the book, however. He seems to do a good and scholarly work discussing the problems of Secular Humanism and Marxism.

One critique I did have was his approach to Christianity and Biology and his mixing of Intelligent Design theory with Biblical Christianity.

While he firmly states the 7-day Creation story of Genesis is the only theologically possible position to hold and still be consistent in your reading of Scripture, he seems to blur the lines and dip over into I.D. while still presumably speaking of Biblical Christianity. I thought that was, if unintentional, odd, or if intentional, a tad dishonest.

*shrug*

It's been a decent read for me, though a lot of it are things I've learned in other mediums.

 

[Zenas]

There are some very good suggestions above. What ever is choosen for that group I would place high in the goals of the class is to prepare them for the onslaught of anti-Christian teaching they are going to receive in college (and are receiving in high school in many cases). Now is the time to make sure they understand and believe Sola Scriptura.

This is what I've been doing. I think they're sick of hearing about apologetics, but I've been warning them that it's coming.

 

[py3ak]

Hopefully they get it in other ways, but they need food for their souls. It does no good to give a soldier all the weapons if he's too malnourished to pick them up.