Several years ago, after I had been attending a church for a while, the pastor’s wife was going to be gone and asked me to take her Sunday School class of three-year-olds. I readily agreed. She gave me all the material and told me that the lesson plan was all laid out for me. The night before (It’s always good to wait till the last minute, har har!), I started going through the material. The lesson was on The Demon Possessed Man from Mark 5. This curriculum was going through the book of Mark and just happened to be at this passage. Well, I was immediately uncomfortable about teaching this story to three-year-olds. One of the suggestions for teaching it was to get old clothes and a chain and go moaning about. I know that children need visuals, but I found that highly inappropriate. I think it might scare me if my teacher showed up like that!
Well, it was the night before so I prepared the lesson, making it as tame as I could. The next morning I was very nervous. Would you believe we had a visitor? The mom sat in the room with her three-year-old. With eyebrows raised, she didn’t make eye contact with me the entire time. I stumbled through the lesson showing the visuals that came with the curriculum and was so glad when it was over. The visiting family grabbed all their kids and ran to their car as soon as Sunday School was over, not even attending the worship service. To my knowledge I had never single-handedly run visitors off before! The worst part is that I really didn’t blame them. It’s times like this that I remind myself of God’s providence. He must have meant for them to show up for that lesson because His plan for them was to attend somewhere else. . . .
Oh my goodness. I don’t blame you for being uncomfortable teaching a lesson like that to 3 year olds. In my opinion, it’s inappropriate. Hell is such an abstract concept that children won’t understand until at least six or seven. They don’t even understand death at age 3.
Esther, I can’t believe that they wanted you to teach that passage to the kids. Of course it would scare any small child that age.
Isn’t it how God uses us and how he does things. We don’t always know why he does the things he does but he did use you for that family. I am very convinced of that.
In Christ’s Love and prayers
Sis in christ
Tina
I know it’s horrible…but this made me laugh! That would totally happen to me…having a visitor show up on my most nervous lesson 🙂 That is a bit much for most 3 year olds to understand!!! ~Kimberly
This is LOL funny. I can identify, because I am a school teacher and I’ve had “visitors” who stand in the back with clipboards looking stern. Great post!
I think I would have changed the teaching material in a heartbeat to something suited 3 yr. olds. The way you tell it is priceless! Love your blogs. I just realized I could reply. Ha!
Karen, I wished I had done numerous things, but in the end I tend to just follow directions. It’s so hard to find my way out of a box sometimes. lol