I taught Sunday School yesterday and near the end of the class one of the 4th grade boys commented “is this story about the same Abraham who helped settle things with the black and white people?” At first I wasn’t sure what he meant and then I realized he was talking about Abraham Lincoln. What?? Really I just taught this lesson on Abraham and Lot. I made sure we found the “story” in the Bible – “Genesis chapter 13- big number 13, verses 1- 18 – little numbers 1-18” I commented that I was reading it in story form but the same story is in the Bible. After the class was over, I thought the whole class was an epic fail. I mean I read the story, we acted it out, we did this fun through the soda can game, we threw marshmallows and we had lively discussion about each part of the lesson. A fun time was had by all but he thinks the story is about Abraham Lincoln. The more I tried to figure out where I went wrong, I realized something. He got the lesson. According to the curriculum, the lesson aim is “to help kids learn that God wants us to be peacemakers”. I also had another thought I have no idea what the kids are learning. My responsibility is to be prepared, to faithfully present the lesson to the best of my ability, to love my students and enjoy our time together. So as a word of encouragement to parents and teachers, don’t give up because they may miss the facts but they may be learning the lesson.
