Lessons on Prayer
Print off the article below as a resource. It contains some ideas on how to use prayer in your teaching ministry: Read more »
Bible Teaching – Feedback for Your Improvement
It’s been said that feedback is the breakfast of champions (and beer-over-wheaties is the cereal of ex-champions).
If you want to improve your teaching presentation style, recruit someone you trust to give you honest assessment. But you need to give them a specific list of things to monitor, or else you’re likely to get back a nice-but-nonspecific “Good job!” Read more »
Pray DURING Your Lesson
You probably pray before and after your teaching time. That’s important, because Great Bible Teaching must be saturated with prayer. Unless God is at work, your teaching is in vain.
How much do you pray during your teaching time? Paul commanded us to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17), right?
The reality is that you may be really pumped as you teach. Your brain is going 400 mph. Your adrenals are zooming; the sweat is going. “Pray now, are you kidding me?” Read more »
Are Christians Supposed to Feel Guilty All the Time?
Kevin DeYoung gives some excellent answers to the question, “Are Christians Meant to Feel Guilty All the Time?”
In short, he reasons “NO!” But why do we feel guilty so often? Read more »
How to Have Energy to Teach Well
Great Bible teaching will leave you excited and tired at the same time. Reality: it takes significant energy to teach well. I believe far too many teachers are ignoring this truth and should be more intentional to make sure they have energy available when it’s time to teach. Here are some suggestions to increase your energy for teaching God’s Word. Read more »
Teach the Bible Progressively
One of my biggest problems in teaching (and I don’t think I’m alone in this) is trying to cover too much material in a lesson. I’m excited! There’s enormous depth in God’s Word, and I want people to get this! There are moments of silence in the group and I’m eager to fill it with more information! I want everyone to be impressed with how much I know!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here: Teach less material, and teach it well.
Using Humor When Teaching
God invented humor, and you should use it occasionally when you teach. We’re teaching a serious subject, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use humor to get key points across in memorable ways.
When you’re teaching believers and seekers, you can help people work through the humor and understand biblical truth. (This approach doesn’t work as well, in my experience, with people without apparent spiritual interest.)
Here’s a nice example for you to try out. You should be able to help them see immediately the truth, and can even invite them to look up verses as references for each part.
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The Question to Ask and Answer
One of the most helpful questions you can ask yourself is “What can I do to make my students’ lives better?”
It’s a common temptation of teachers to only teach what’s interesting to us at the moment, or at least fun to teach. And this lets us more easily avoid conflicts and “messy” ministy to “real” people. Read more »
Study…Really Study the Word
Great Bible teaching is based on thorough study of the Word. Period. Yes, you can plagiarize lessons or sermons from someone else. You can get pretty far “borrowing” from others. Yes, if they’re available to you, you can just follow along with the pre-made lesson plan or study guide. You might even look pretty knowledgeable and smooth. Read more »