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    Teacher Training is a vital, integral part of the overall Discipleship Ministry of every church, and yet in far too many cases, we in the church do not train our volunteers on a regualr and consistent basis . . . far too often we do not even provide training on a yearly basis.  When we look at training there are three questions to consider:

1. How often should I provide training?
2. How do I get my volunteers to participate in training opportunities?
3. What resources are available to help me provide training of to send my volunteers to in order to be trained?


    We will look at each of these questions and over the next issues we will take the opportunity to review resources and training opportunities.

    First, the questions - as far as how often should we provide training - a minimum would be for your volunteers to attend one training event such as a Sunday School Convention, Children's Ministry Magazine Live, Group Magazine Live, Youth Specialities Event, Group  Convention or another training event along with one in-house training event every year.  The Ideal would be for your volunteers to attend one event along with one in-house training each quarter as well as one training class that runs for 4 to 7 weeks out of the year.  You may think this sounds wonderful in an ideal world, but not possible in the real world.  So, how do we move from wishing for the ideal to actually achieving it in the real world we all live in?

    This brings us to our second question - How do we get our volunteers to participate in training?  It is simple - we make training a part of the commitment.  If a person serves, they will be trained.  Then you do all you can to take into consideration your volunteer's busy lives and make your training volunteer-friendly.
 

• offer trainings on Sunday morning and provide a nice breakfast for all volunteers and their families before the training.  Then have parents substitute along with teens to provide special programing with the kids so your volunteers can be trained once a quarter during the Sunday School hour.  You should be able to achieve 100% participation as you are offering the training at a time your volunteers are already committed to be at church.
• offer a special four to seven week class during the evening service once a year.  Again, you should be able to achieve a high level of participation as you are offering the training at a time your volunteers are already committed to be be at church.
• offer scholarships and provide transportation as well as free babysitting so your volunteers can attend special training events.
• offer trainings with another local church on Saturday mornings - provide babysitters and continental breakfast so volunteers are able to attend.
• promote with creativity and fun to remind your volunteers to attend.


    These are just a few ideas to make your trainings volunteer-friendly so they will attend.

    Once you decide when to train and have a plan to get your volunteers there, what do you use to train your volunteers?  We will be reviewing and recommending a number of training opportunities in this area in each issue of 'round about the church, so keep an eye out to keep up with the new reviews all year!  For now, we are recommending three video training sessions you can use in your own church.


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Taught by:  Dr. Bruce Wilkinson &
Dr. Howard Hendricks
Publisher - Walk Thru the Bible Ministries

Seven Laws of the Learner	Seven Laws of the Teacher	Teaching With Style

Favorite Features:
 
• 6 & 7 session video class - long enought to cover the needed information effectivly and still short enough to keep attention and enthusiasm high!
• taught by excellent communicators who are well respected throughout the church
• extremely excellent job of presenting needed information in a way volunteers will remember, understand and apply to their own teaching!
• each class has corresponding student workbooks to help students think through and live all week what they learn in class.  Some even have daily devotions for students to continue to learn during the week between class - excellent!
• Leader's guide will walk anyone who presents these workshops through each session with what to say and how to get conversation going in response to the videos - excellent!


    These three video curriculum resources are a must have addition for every church.  All volunteer will benefit from participating in these classes whether they are a first time teacher or a vetran teacher.  The information presented on how to be a genuinely effective teacher who teaches with style and understands how students really do learn is sure to impact both the teacher and their class as the teacher puts into use the truths they learn from these workshops.  I can not recommend highly enough that these classes be offered for all teachers.  Extremely well done Bruce, Howard and Walk Thru the Bible Ministries!
 

    Keep watching for more reviews of resources for you to use as well as for reviews of special training events to take your volunteers to!