Adult Sunday School Teacher
Training Workshop

• Four challenges you face in teaching adults?
• Some things that you would like to take home with you from this conference?
• Some ideas that you have discovered or that you believe will help you to EXCELerate your teaching and leadership?

We Must Desire To Grow As A Teacher
• Do you believe you can become a better teacher?
• Do you desire to be a better teacher?
• Is there room for growth and change in your teaching and the leadership of your class?

We Must Desire To Grow As A Teacher
• Great teachers and leaders are life-long learners.
– (Acts 18:26)
– (2 Tim. 1:6)
– (Exodus 18:14-27)
– Apollos
– Timothy
– Moses

We Must Know Where We Want To
Take Them
• As Sunday School Teachers there is a privilege, purpose and power in our teaching.
• The privilege of our teaching is partnership with
God in His Kingdom.
• The power in our teaching is the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit.
• The purpose of our teaching is life transformation.

We Must Earn The Right To Teach
Them
• Sunday School is only
1/3 Educational

We Must Earn The Right To Teach
Them
• Love opens the door.
• A Sunday School Teacher is the shepherd of a small flock.
• A Sunday School Teacher is a servant leader and fellow traveler on the journey.

We Must Seek To Better Understand
How People Learn
• Not everyone learns or processes information the same way.
• As a teacher, the better you understand your student(s) the more effectively you can teach to them.

As A Teacher Of Adults We Must
Remember …
• Adults decide for themselves what is important to be learned.
• Seek to validate the information based on their beliefs and experience.
• Expect and desire what they are learning to be immediately useful.
• Have much experience upon which to draw and may have fixed viewpoints.
• Often have significant ability to serve as a knowledgeable resource to the teacher and fellow learners.

We Must Seek To Better Understand
How People Learn
• People learn and process information in different ways.
• Each of us learn and process information in our own special way.
• People take in information through our sense
– How people see, hear, feel and move through their world.

We Must Seek To Better Understand
How People Learn
• People generally tend to display one of the three following as their dominate learning style:
– Visual learners rely on pictures.
– Auditory learners listen carefully to all the sounds associated with learning.
– Kinesthetic/Tactile learners need to physically do something to understand it.

We Must Seek To Better Understand
How People Learn
• Visual
• Verbal
• Natural
• Logical
• Musical
• Reflective
• Relational
• Physical

We Must Seek To Better Understand
How People Learn
• All of your learners will not be at the same level of learning in your class.
• Levels of Learning
Exposure
Recall
Recognition
Application
Lifestyle

We Must Vary Our Methods And
Adopt Strategies That Connect
• Context: What does it say? What does it mean? Who wrote it? Who was the writer writing to? Why was he writing? What is the overall theme of the book?
• Bridge the Context: What does it mean for us today?
Are there promises to claim? Commands to obey?
Truths to believe? Attitudes, behaviors or values to change?
• Application: How do I apply it to my life and to the lives of my class members?
• Vary your teaching methods to connect with all of your learners.

• Study Bible – Provides study notes, cross references, background information etc.
• Exhaustive Concordance – Provides word meanings in original languages
• Topical Bible – Arranged by topics, great for cross references.
• Bible Dictionary – Good for background material.
• Commentaries
• Bible Study Software
• On-line Study Resources

P E C
• Prepare – Preparing the teacher.
• Encounter – Preparing the teaching/ministry session.
• Continue – Continuing the lesson.

• Require a time investment
• Give attention to content and presentation
• Call for a variety of teaching methods and learning activities.
• Identify how the session ends.
• Have time segment estimates.
• Begin strong and give direction.

• Our classes contain people at various levels of biblical understanding, they bring a variety of learning approaches to the class, and they come each week with various needs, struggles and life situations.
• Let’s capitalize on the privilege to represent our
Savior and the challenge to use the gifts, abilities and tools that God has given us to love and lead them into a closer walk with Him!”

The information shared in this conference was compiled and adapted from the following resources:
• Teaching Adults – A Guide for Transformational
Teaching, by Rick Edwards
• The Six Core Values of Sunday School, by Alan Taylor.
• Sunday School Leadership Development Course ,by Tim
Smith.
• Training Your Sunday School Leaders, by Steve Parr