I have an idea

I teach Sunday School for 8-12 graders every Sunday. It is one of the highlights of my week. There was a 4 year stretch of my life when I was teaching the Bible 6 days a week (sometimes 7 on the odd Saturday) to teenagers. I believe that the Lord has gifted me towards this sort of thing and I really can't imagine another thing I'd rather be doing. To paraphrase someone (don't recall who), "I teach for the same reason dogs bark."

Over the course of the years I have been doing this, I have taught a whole lot of things from the Bible. I used to teach an OT Survey course and an NT Survey course so I suppose you might even say that I have taught the whole bible a couple of times through. That is not to say that I have taught everything the Bible has to say (not even close), just that I have taught through the book of Obadiah at least 4 times and if you have taught through Obadiah 4 times...well...

Before this begins to sound more puffed up than it already does, I wanted to say that I have been brainstorming for my next Sunday School series. I just finished a couple of weeks on Biblical Friendship and I have committed the next couple of weeks to Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. After that, I have been drawing a blank. Until today.

My carpool partner, Devin, and I spend about 60 minutes a day either talking or listening to talk radio. We've been doing this for the past 4 years and I will tell you, you talk about a lot of different things over the course of that many hours. He has truly challenged my thinking in ways I cannot even account for and has brought things to my attention that I don't believe I otherwise would have ever seen. I guess I should be honest and admit that this idea was birthed by him, in case he reads this and tries to sue me for copyright infringement.

You should also know that Devin and I have planned to write many books, the latest of which I am now stealing for my own Sunday School use. We are planning (always planning rarely doing) on writing a book about the biblical significance of objects in the world around us. Things like bread, wine, blood, rain, fish, stars, sand, and trees. It is my conviction that some of the FIRST things a Christian should think about when he thinks about stars is NOT all the scientific "facts" about stars that he learned in school. His FIRST thoughts should be something along the lines of God's Creation, His covenant with Abraham, His power, Psalm 8, Shepherds heading to Bethlehem and the like. The world is full of symbols and metaphors that are freely and gladly used by God and the writers of Scripture to describe, explain and remind us of who God is, who we are, why we are here, why the world exists, where the world is going, etc.

This is the heart of worldview thinking that has been sorely neglected. I imagine that if I took a survey of my students (probably even myself) and asked them what they think of when they think of "seeds" they most likely would not immediately think of the seed of the Serpent, the Seed of the woman and the Sower in the field. Heck, I am just beginning to train myself to think biblically about the world and all the glorious stuff in it. We should think this way though. And so that is why I am going to teach them (and me) how to think about things like water, fire, rock, river, garden, milk, sun, moon and as many others as I can think of. In fact, I already have a list going.

I am writing this here because I want to test fly my lessons on this here blog and maybe do a little spit and polish before I launch them at my kids on Sunday. I suppose this means that I will have to begin blogging more than once a month. Maybe even 4 times a month. Here's to hoping.

Chet

P.S. I also have a backlog of stuff about Owen. That may be appearing as well.