I have been incredibly encouraged and impressed by Lifeway’s online Sunday School Lesson service–Lifeway Lessons.
I was actually surprised that Lifeway was able to think out of the box enough to put this product together. Not saying anything about Lifeway, per se–but since the beginning of Lifeway as “The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention”, their emphasis has been on print materials. With this history, the change to providing online materials is a big change.
However, for me–it was exactly what I needed.
Several months ago, I became burdened to begin a Bible study for Soldiers in Iraq. Not just a question and answer time of discussion–that really doesn’t fit my personality or teaching style. I wanted to “get in the weeds” during my teaching and encourage myself to prepare each week a very detailed lesson. I really wanted a Sunday School lesson to help me prepare. I thought about having a subscription through Lifeway–but that would take too long…I’m only in Iraq 15 months! I thought about having a church to send me some material–but then, that would burden a church to get me a copy each quarter. So I googled some options and discovered Lifeway Lessons. While the Lifeway Lessons offer a quality teaching plan for discussion, I decided to use the commentary as my teaching plan.
The commentary gives me a framework to go by during my busy week to prepare. I supplement these materials with the New American Commentary and use the commentary outline as a guide as I teach my class. The written commentary allows the research time to be reduced, so I can focus on meditating and personalizing my teaching to the people who come each week to my class. The online version allows me to download the entire lesson–including a handout for my students–as a MS Word document. I can then cut and paste and adjust the outline–without spending so much time writing it all down. It is a wonderful tool for me.
What can Lifeway Lessons do for you? Take a look–think out of the box–and find out!!