This encouragement is written by Pastor Jennifer Holmes Curran, Senior Pastor at Sherman Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of Jen’s work by checking out her substack.
When the middle schoolers got kicked out of Sunday school, they exited the classroom room directly into the sanctuary in the middle of the church service. They brought all their middle school energy — and weeks of tension — with them.
As the pastor of the church, I had heard complaints about the Sunday school teachers from the students, and about the students from the teachers, but I didn’t really know how to deal with it., so I didn’t. I don’t recommend that approach.
After the frustrated parade through the service, I couldn’t ignore the conflict anymore, so we planned an intentional conversation with the group for the following week. Turns out, late really is better than never.
We sent out an email asking students and parents to try their best to make sure they came to church so that they could participate, and I prayed the conversation would go well.
Things started out a little iffy. Six students and three teachers crowded into the little room unsure about what was going to happen. It seemed the teachers were hoping for the students to be reprimanded, and the students seemed to sense that. The two boys who were often the instigators of the trouble sat slumped and staring at the floor, dreading what was coming.
But we approached things a little differently. Using a talking piece, we asked every person the same three questions:
1) What’s good about Sunday school?
2) What’s not so great about Sunday school?
3) What changes would you like to see?
And then we made an agreement together which we all signed and hung up on the wall.
I could not believe the results. Together the students and teachers, but mostly the students, came up with a plan for beginning each Sunday school class. They wanted to shake their bodies a bit to be able to settle down. They wanted to light a candle and say prayer requests. Some of the students didn’t like it when others spun around in the chairs, so they decided how much spinning was allowed. That would have been amazing on it’s own, but there was more.
One young boy said, “when we read the Bible, I don’t understand. Could we use a different version?” So they agreed that they would all bring in the different versions of the Bible and pick one together.
Another student said, “this is too much like school.” So the teachers agreed to pick the more active parts of the curriculum so that the students could move more. And if the weather allowed, they would go outside. Going outside presented some challenges because one of the teachers was in a wheelchair and another couldn’t sit on the ground. The students offered to get chairs for those who needed to sit and to make sure the teacher in the wheelchair could get through the door easily. On days they couldn’t go outside, the students would make sure to open the curtains.
One of the most notable changes during the conversation was that the two boys who had been the “troublemakers” at the beginning, slouched and hardly speaking, became, by the end, the most interested participants, making suggestions, taking responsibility, and finding belonging. Everyone agreed that they wanted to do this again in a few months to check in.
Sunday school curriculum is great, but I think sitting through a tough conversation – where everyone saw that their voices mattered, learned how to listen to one another, and how to attend to one another’s needs – taught them more about discipleship and loving their neighbor than any lesson.