The Importance of a Teacher’s Role in Enhancing the Curriculum

As a teacher in children’s ministry, you should adopt the mindset that you are the curriculum. You alone hold the keys to unlocking the spiritual food that is inside the curriculum. You are the one who holds the power to wield the spiritual tool that is in your hands. And most importantly, you have the ability to partner with God. No curriculum can do this, but when paired with a willing teacher the potential impact on a child is immense. When curriculum is wielded properly and is partnered with God, then Heaven can truly invade your classroom.

We want all of the time, love, and energy spent ministering to our children to affect them eternally. We must teach for lasting life change, not to merely “get through the curriculum.” This means we must be attentive to the Holy Spirit as we teach and stop for those “teachable moments.” The curriculum is a tool in your hands, not your master.

Teaching for Life Change

You can have an excellent curriculum and still have little to no spiritual impact on a child. It might be fun, yet not engage their spirits. Yet, you can have a terrible curriculum and have a tremendous impact on a child’s spiritual walk with God. How is this possible? The answer lies within the teacher!

Two main factors in teaching for life change are: partnering with God and your personal teaching style. To be successful in teaching children you must do both well, not just one or the other. We don’t want to only be engaging and we don’t want to focus only on the spiritual aspect, forgetting to meet the learning needs of our children.

For example, let’s look at two college professors who both teach from the very same curriculum. The students under the one professor hate their class, while the students under another professor love their class. The problem here is not the curriculum, it is the professor. Sometimes it can be easy to blame the curriculum for not coming to life all by itself, forgetting that we as teachers hold the keys to unlock what’s inside.

The right person or teacher, can bring to life most curriculums. Not only can they bring the spiritual aspect of the curriculum to life, but they successfully engage children on their level for maximum impact. However, this certainly does not negate the need for a good, solid curriculum! We are not content to bring just any curriculum to life. We must choose wisely so that our effort in unlocking what’s inside produces lasting fruit.

That being said, we believe in the value of our Kids Empowered Curriculum; we wouldn’t have written it if we didn’t! But it cannot be expected to do the job for you. Teaching children is not a science, it is an art. And our curriculum is created for teachers to use their “art” to individualize it, add their teaching style, and most importantly take its spiritual meat and feed it to their students. This is accomplished by partnering with the Holy Spirit. We want room for our teachers to be themselves as they teach, keeping in mind that they are teaching children and need to appeal to their learning style and age development.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)

God created everyone in His own image, and yet we are all so very different. We are full of all different types of passions, creativity, and abilities. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Use your passions, creativity, and strengths to bring the Kids Empowered Curriculum to life, knowing that God will pour out His Spirit as you partner with Him. We are not content to merely get through the curriculum or a settle for a “good” classroom experience. We want to empower our kids and teach for lasting life change.

So, remember: a solid curriculum is good and necessary, but it is the teacher who has the keys to make it come to life and make a lasting impact. More than anointing the curriculum, God anoints the teacher!