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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:
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.
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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of the Learner |
of the Teacher |
With Style |
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!