You can easily control your class time because you have a full hour, right? After all, the sign in front of the church building says something like 9:00-10:00 a.m., right? Oh, but first you have a devotional, which takes up the first 15 minutes.
Then you walk to the classroom—another 5 minutes.
You “begin” class by pulling out your notes and greeting everybody, updating the prayer list, highlighting the major announcements, all before praying for a Bible class that makes good use of time.
Suddenly it’s 9:30 and you know the five-minute warning bell will ring in 25 minutes.
Time for a review of last week’s class, right?
How You’re Wasting Your Time and Don’t Know It
One Sunday afternoon, my wife told me something that blew me away.
For several weeks prior, I had been teaching Bible class on Sunday mornings. I had also gotten in the habit of reviewing what we covered each previous week, reasoning that it would help everyone get reoriented to the context.
We were cleaning up from eating lunch and she told me she had timed me as I taught the class—in particular, how long it took me to review. So I was blown away to learn I had spent a full 20 minutes rehashing the material we had discussed only 7 days before.
Now, if you were in my position, that means you would only have 5 minutes left to teach new material.
That is…as long as no one took time to read the passage you were going to cover, and as long as no one told any personal stories the passage brought to their minds.
3 Principles to Better Control Your Class Time
Stop the madness.
It’s time for you and all other Bible class teachers to take better control of our available Bible class periods.
Here are 3 general principles that will help you do that.
1. Summarize the previous lesson in one sentence.
Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.
If you’re like me, you learn so much as you prepare for class that you want to make sure everyone else knows it too. That’s noble, but if you want to make the most of your 30, 45, or 60 minutes, you just don’t have time for it.
All it takes is a simple statement like, “In our last lesson, Paul encouraged the Thessalonians by telling them their persecutors would suffer eternal destruction when the Lord came again.”
From there, you move on, and say something like, “In today’s lesson, Paul continues to explore the subject of the second coming.”
2. Set your boundaries in the first session.
Sometimes I use a whole class period to set the boundaries for every class going forward. Other times it doesn’t take that long, simply because I list everything on paper and we blast through it.
That way, whenever someone starts to go off on a tangent, I can point back to the “class rules” and gently remind them that we’re veering off course.
You can add to my list, but these will get you started:
- Since announcements and prayer requests will be made [before worship/after worship/in the bulletin], we will not repeat them before, during, or after this class
- All personal stories need to be relevant to the discussion and context at hand
- All students are expected to read the upcoming week’s material every day prior to the next class period (which will be announced at the end of each class period)
- Students are welcome to bring a notebook to write down all their questions, but I will only be able to address those questions after class is over in order to make the best use of what I have prepared to teach
- We will not spend time in class reading the passage that is to be covered. Students are expected to know what the passage says and be ready to answer questions about it and discuss it.
- All students who have new announcements and/or prayer requests to share should write them down and hand them to the teacher. He will make sure to hand these off so that the entire congregation hears about them once class is over. Alternatively, these may be brought up once class has been dismissed.
Don’t be surprised if your class gets smaller after this “welcome” session. That’s a good thing.
Why?
Because now you have whittled the class down to the people who really want to dive into the depths of God’s word. These are the people who go the extra mile to learn all they can, as well as they can. These are the ones who’ll make sure to stick to the guidelines.
3. Stick to your lesson plan.
This assumes you have a lesson plan created. In addition, it assumes you have a plan that guides your class from one thought to the next. Do all that, and you eliminate 90 percent of time-draining distractions.
The remaining 10 percent comes by avoiding the wrong questions and leading the group away from distractions.
Be both proactive and reactive, and you can control your class well.
Conclusion
While it may not be easy to control how long you get to teach, you can control your class by managing your available time well.
Be ruthless with your lesson plan—taking out everything that doesn’t get to the point, hold true to your classroom expectations, and keep your reviews to a minimum.
Discussion Question: What has helped you the most to control your class time?
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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