Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry

What Every Sunday School Teacher Needs

sunday school teacher blogThe other night while rounding kids up for an event, I heard a little gal remark, “Ooo…he’s getting angry; you’all better listen.” That little comment shocked me back into reality. I was getting frustrated with the kids, my heart was moving towards sin. And the kids knew. My heart needed to be humbled by that little voice .

To lead well, to teach well, and to do kids’ ministry well, we must live well.

Kids can spot our hypocrisy faster than a toddler can spot candy. They know when we fail. They listen when we talk about humility, patience, and forgiveness. And then they watch to see if we ever display humility, patience, and forgiveness in our lives. Are the words we saying just words or are they our life? Do we really live by every word of God?

The answer to these questions will determine whether or not we are a good Sunday school teacher, Wednesday night leader, or nursery worker. To teach kids the gospel, we must live the gospel. Remember that James commands us to, “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Faith without works is dead. Kids know this.

Paul tells Titus, “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity” (Titus 2:7).  As kids hear us teach their Sunday school lesson, they don’t hear a bunch of principles from Lifeway, Group Publishing, or NavPress.  They hear us. They look to see if the gospel has truly changed us. Our authenticity matter more than anything else.

Yes, God saves people with his word, regardless of who the teacher is. John Wesley led people to the Lord before getting saved. And Paul was content to see people preach Christ out of envy (Phil. 1:15). But the most effective teachers are the most obedient teachers. Pastor Bryan Chapell said it this way:

The character and compassion of a minister more than the characteristics of the message preached determine the quality of the message heard.”

The same can and should be said of Sunday school teachers and small group leaders.

Admittedly, no pastor or teacher is perfect. But the question that we need to consider is this: “How do we react when we sin?” Do we repent and ask for forgiveness or do we rationalize it, ignore it, and defend it? To be effective teachers, there is only one option. We have to deal with our sin. On more than one occasion, I have had to publicly apologize to the kids in my ministry. And I will do it again if I keep on living. Are we ready to take our sin seriously?

While we should always try to find methods, analogies, and crafts that help us to convey the gospel message better, we need to remember that our lives are the best teaching tool. The best Sunday school teachers aren’t necessarily the craftiest, most well-spoken, or the most technologically with it gal at church. The best teachers are the ones who daily commune with God.

What things have helped you become an authentic teacher?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Past Gives Believers Hope For the Future

The sound of engines slowly roused the three airmen sloshing about the Pacific Ocean on the morning of May 27, 1943.  After a day o415th_Bombardment_Squadron_-_B-24_Liberatorn the open sea, the airmen who had miraculously survived their a crash landing began to experience a little hope. As they looked towards the sky on that cloudy morning, they saw  it, a beautiful B-24 flying high above them. Louis Zamperini, grabbed the crew’s flare gun, braced himself against the back of the rubber raft, and fired. The flare went up, arched, burst into a greenish hue, and then slowly flamed out. But the plane above didn’t change course. Soon it disappeared. The the sound of the engines faded behind the noise of the ocean’s waves. The three men clinging to the two 6’ long rubber rafts now almost faced certain death.  They had no compass, map, or method of propulsion.

The searches were over. The following day, the U.S. War department would declare all 11 men on Louis’ plane dead. For forty-seven days, Louis and Phil would float aimless about the Pacific Ocean. Mac, the tail gunner, died from exhausting after about two weeks adrift.

But Louie and Phil kept fighting. Yet, things never got easier. They had to fend off shark attacks with their fist. They had to contend with extreme hunger and thirst. They had to bail the water out of their boat for hours while they were tossed about by a typhoon. Each day seemingly only brought more trouble, more disappointment, and more hardship for the men. But they kept going because they remembered their families. Specifically, Louie would describe in-detail his mother’s cooking. He would go over every course of every of meal. It was the memories of the past, that enabled Louie and Phil to survive adrift in the ocean until they were finally rescued on day 47.

men at seaAnd though none of us have been left adrift on the ocean, most of us how felt as like we were drifting aimlessly about the ocean of life at one time or another. And every day we bob about, we face a new struggle, a new sickness, or a new adversary. As Christians how are we supposed to handle the hardships of life? How do fight the temptation to give up when we face never ending attacks of lust, when we feel spiritually parched, and when we are tossed about by the storms of life? How do keep going with no end in sight?

We remember. We remember what Christ has done. It is the glory of the cross that gives us the strength to face tomorrow. This is why Christians need to partake regularly in the Lord’s Table. We need to be reminded of all that God has done for us. We need to be reminded that we have been liberate from sin. We need to be reminded that the wages of sin our death and that the gift of God is eternal life. We need to be reminded that Christ shed blood on the cross has brought us life. We are changed not because of our efforts. We are changed, we are redeemed, and we have hope because of what Christ has done. And because Christ had done the work. We cannot undo it. We are forever with Christ regardless of what today brings. Therefore, we have hope because of what has been done for us!

This Easter season, we should be excited to take the Lord’s Table because it reminds us that we have been delivered from our sin. Though there is a real and coming judgment, Christ blood has done all the work of redemption. We take the table to proclaim what Christ has done. “And he said to them, ““This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many”” (Mark 14:24). And as we take the elements, we preach to our hearts the encouraging truth of the gospel. We remind our souls that we are the redeemed.  

It is good for us to remember all that Christ has done. It is good for us to observe the Lord’s Table. Jesus is our hope! The cross shows us how to make sense of today and gives up hope for tomorrow! Is the past informing and transforming your life?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Evangelical Problem With Sin

blog sin problemIt only happened once in my life. But it happened. I threw away a Bible. Just moments earlier, I had been wearing rubber gloves, a surgical mask and a hospital gown. When the very sick and very contagious patient asked to flip through my Bible, I let him. We had a great time together, discussing our Lord and savior.  As I prepared to leave the room, he did the unexpected. He gave me back the Bible. Talk about being in a bind. When I looked at that Bible all I could see was germs, sickness, and my impending death. So…as I prepared to leave, I quietly placed the Bible into the toxic bin with my gloves and all.  There was no way, I was going to risk death. Sadly though, we evangelicals are far more flippant about our spiritual health.

This weekend, Deadpool grossed $55 million dollars. Risen grossed 11.8 million.  As Dr. Albert Mohler recently noted, Deadpool can only be such a big success (grossing over 296 million over the last few weeks) because church goers are being entertained by the very sins they supposedly denounce. And this past Saturday, 1/3 of the evangelicals in South Carolina supported a presidential candidate who regularly contradicts the scriptures in both lifestyle and policy. So while we give Jesus a nod on Sunday, we Christians are increasingly going against him on Monday – Saturday. We are increasingly ok with sin if it promises entertainment, wealth, or security. We are increasingly comfortable with death.

I think we find ourselves willing to risk spiritual death because we don’t really believe that sin is all that bad. Sure, It’s an annoyance; it’s a distraction; perhaps, it’s even a stinging paper cut. But it’s not deadly; it’s not something we need to put on masks and gloves to encounter. We excuse sin as an enjoyable albeit slightly tainted endeavor that brings minimal harm. And sure, we will try to improve upon our vices at some point. But until then, we are content to watch the sexual explicit movies on Saturday before worshiping Jesus on Sundays. After all it’s the secular culture that’s destroying America. We are not as bad as them.

The solution? We need view our sin as death. Yes, God is concerned about divorce and homosexuality. But, He is equally concerned with our secret sins whether they be pornography, pride, racism, stealing, etc. To be a friend of the world (even a secret one) means you are an enemy of God.

In Mark 1:40, Jesus encounters a leper, a man who has been kicked out of his family and community because he is physically beyond help. He is also highly contagious. In short, he is unclean. To encounter him, one risks becoming unclean. One risks physical death.

Friends, this is us. We are not Jesus. We are the leper. Our sin in not little, insignificant, or minor. Our sin destroys our lives, families, and communities. As Romans 8:13 say, if “you live according to the flesh you will die.” Don’t miss this. If left unchecked, our sins will kill us. Instead of entertaining them, we need to flee from it, screaming.

But we can’t. We are already infected with the deadly virus. We can’t make ourselves clean. And that latest five step program or legalistic rubric won’t do the trick. At the end of the day, we are all lepers incapable of healing ourselves.

We have to call out to Jesus. The leper did just this. He asked Jesus to take away his uncleanness. And, Jesus did. He touched the leper. Instantly, the man was made clean.  The way we overcome sin is to call out to Jesus for salvation.  And when Jesus saves us he makes us eternally clean; we are justified. He cleanses us from all sin.

But we are not yet perfected. We still struggle with sin. Every day, we need to continue to cry out to Jesus. We need to continually remember that all sin, even the whitest white lie brings death. We need to daily stand out the foot of the cross.

To be a holy people all seven days of the week, we have to understand sin. We have to get just how bad we are. Only then, we will see the need to depend daily upon our great God.