Evaluation of a Good Sunday School Lesson, Part 2

In an article entitled, 10 Marks of Great Teaching, Josh Hunt shares ways to improve teaching through evaluating yourself in ten areas. In the previous blog entry, I shared the first five areas. This time we will look at the second five marks. Evaluate last Sunday’s lesson in these areas:

1. PREPARATION.  Were you prayed up? Did you give your best to God and your class in your study of the passage and discerning the truth that your sheep need? Did you consider and prepare to address the preferred learning styles of attenders? Did you start early enough in the week to see the illustrations that God will provide? Could you have presented the lesson without your notes?
2. BACKGROUND. Did you set the lesson and truth into context? Did you understand the relevance of the teaching for the time of the writing? How did the context change understanding of the message of the passage? What was in the passage that the casual reader may have missed? How did previous verses prepare for this passage?
3. INTRODUCTION. Was your opening well prepared? Did you grab their attention right from the start? Could attenders understand the relevance of the lesson in your opening? Did you use a question, story, or an activity that focused their attention on the truth of the passage?
4. INSPIRATION. Did you deliver content, or did you inspire them to take action? Did you motivate them to do something? Were they convicted about their need to obey? Did attenders realize how important their next steps were? Did you help them believe they could do it? that they should do it? that they would do it?
5. FOCUS. Too many lessons try to accomplish too many things. Did you focus on one main truth? Did you focus on one important, Kingdom-impacting truth? Did you build in the same direction for the entire lesson? Did your introduction, methods, illustrations, application, and conclusion all make the same case? Did you plan to review and reinforce the focus in everything the class did?

As I mentioned in the previous post, Josh suggests scoring yourself on a scale of one to ten with the potential total of 100 points (for Parts 1 and 2). How many points did you score on the second half? When you teach, give your best effort to God and those in your care! Prepare. Share background. Capture attention at the introduction. Inspire. Focus. Teach Kingdom-impacting lessons. Be revolutionary!