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| The article below appeared in the Mankato Free Press
September 24, 2004. Article © 2004 Mankato Free Press.
Reprinted with permission. (Images are thumbnails; please click on the
thumbnail to view the full-sized image.) |
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Church launches new Sunday school model
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| By Ben
Sandell
Free Press Staff Writer |
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Pat Christman photo
[A member] helps paint a
mural on a hallway at Christ the King Lutheran Church. The idea was to
make Sunday school more interesting for kids and teachers.. |
| Mankato-- Sunday school teacher Joann Nessler asked
her students what God created on the first day.
"Clouds?" one of her first-graders suggested. The other
students were silent for a moment. They had just gone over this. What was
it?
"Light?"
Sitting around an artificial campfire, listening to the story of
creation, the group of first-graders at Christ the King Lutheran Church
were eager to participate on their first day of Sunday school. |
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| It was the first time the church held classes under what's
called the Workshop Rotation Model, an education approach that utilizes
kid-friendly multimedia workshops--everything from puppets to video
games--to teach the Bible. A desert tent had been built in Nessler's room, couch pillows were
scattered on the floor, and hand puppets were sitting on chairs. Nessler
was pretending to roast marshmallows over the light-bulb fire.
It's a nice setting for a Bible story, she said.
Nessler's been a Sunday school teacher at the church for five years,
but has never had so many resources at her disposal, she said.
During the summer, volunteers from the congregation painted the
church's hallways to look like oasis landscapes, elaborate murals to
brighten up the environment. they build sets and props in 10 rooms, each
to fit a different theme.
"We had a variety of really talented people in our congregation we
didn't know we had," said Julia Snelson, a member on the church's
education board.
The hallways and rooms used to be basic, off-white, and drab, she said.
Kids would come to the same classroom every week, sit at a desk and listen
to lectures..
"It was boring," said 13-year-old Carter Person, who is all
too familiar with the old method. He said he's excited about the new
approach and looking forward to spending time in the Savior Cinema room, a
little movie theater that has 50 theater seats donated from Mankato State
University.
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| There's also the King's Cafe, where students "eat
their way through the Bible." And Kingdom.com, a computer lab where
students work on religious-education software--the computers were donated
anonymously last spring.
Above the computers hangs a peculiar version of the Ten Commandments:
"You shall compute in the name of thy Lord," "You shall not
covet your neighbor's computer chair or saved place in a game."
In a world of multi-media, extracurricular activities, and sports, it's
hard to keep a child's attention, said Wendy Paulson, education
coordinator at the church. Participation in the Sunday school has been
inconsistent during the last few years. |
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| "There's great competition," Paulson said.
"It's important for us to keep the children in church. With this
program, we feel we can do that."
Instead of sitting in the same classroom every Sunday for the entire
year, kids will rotate every week from room to room, from teacher to
teacher.
The new model--which church members have dubbed "Jesus and
Me" or JAM--takes more than twice as many volunteers as the teaching
methods used in past years, largely because there are two sections now,
meaning smaller class sizes(and a third Sunday morning service). There are
also "shepherds," adults who look after an assigned group of
students throughout the year.
"It's a lot less stressful for teachers," said Candice
Burnett, a shepherd. "It incorporates the whole church." |
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| Church officials have been discussing the model for years,
Paulson said. Last March they went to a Chicago workshop to learn more
about it. The model started out in a Chicago Presbyterian church a little
more than 10 years ago--to boost enrollment. At least 5000 churches in
North America are using it now, according to the model's web site, rotation.org. |
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| Christ the King is not the first church in town to
transition to the rotation model. The First Presbyterian Church
implemented it two years ago, said Kimberly Moore, administrative
secretary with the church. "We've gotten an amazing reception,"
she said. "It was a very good move for our church." |
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| At Christ the King, parents toured the Bible study rooms
earlier this month. As they walked from Artisan Alley to Bibleland to
Temple Tales, many outwardly expressed one wish: "I want to be a kid
again." |
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Photos by Luke Gronneberg
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| Above: During
tours, three kindergartners peer into a Noah's Ark play set it the Rainbow
Room. the ark was built and donated by a church volunteer this summer.
Below: [Students] walk through the Temple
Tales room at the church. It was one of 10 rooms dressed up to fit a new
theme for a new Sunday school teaching model at the church. |
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| Below: [A member]
paints an oasis landscape along the hallways of the church. During the
summer several volunteers helped paint the rooms and walls. |
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Pat Christman photo. |
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| CTK thanks the Mankato
Free Press for permission to publish this article on the
website. |
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