Thursday, January 20, 2011

acts

I may need to cut a lesson from my Acts curriculum.

At the moment it looks like this:

1. Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Ends of the Earth (Acts 1)
2. Pentecost (Acts 2)
3. In the name of Jesus (Acts 3-4)
4. Stephen (Acts 6-7)
5. To Judea and Samaria (Acts 8)
6. About Face (Saul's conversion - Acts 9)
7. Cornelius (10-11)
8. Mission Unstoppable (Paul and Silas at Philippi - Acts 16)
9. To an unknown God (Acts 17)
10. To the ends of the earth (Acts 27-28)

Which would you cut? I was planning to cut Cornelius (#7). All those clean and unclean animals are too abstract. But I don't think I want to any more. The Jew/Gentile thing is huge in Acts. Would anything be lost if I cut #9?

What do you think?

16 comments:

  1. I think I speak for us all when I say it is missing Acts 20 - surely the climax of the whole book.

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  2. We spend a whole term on Acts 20. It is it's own special unit.

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  3. Perhaps not being attentive enough, but who's this for? I'm assuming Scripture?

    Yes, Gentile relations are big in Acts, but not so much today...whereas the faux spirituality that Acts 17 interacts with is.

    But I'd drop 5, I think. Even if it does have a song ;-) There's a natural transition from 4 to 6 via Paul, and the bit you miss (yes, I see it sitting there in week 1's structural agenda) can still be done in summary as an intro/link. 5 and 6 together, I think.

    I say this all, but should declare:
    - I'm half-Jewish, so sorting out how my two halves relate is pretty significant to me...
    - I quite like fantasy novels, so feel bad that one of the few decent magicians in the Bible gets dumped so casually
    - And frankly, I think the eunuch story is one of the best evangelistic passages in the book. Doesn't everyone relate to him?

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  4. IT's for a couple of churches - not ours - I did acts 2 years ago for our kids. I'm reworking my material for these other churches then for an emu kids cd.

    I need Judea and Samaria because I've used Acts 1:8 as my big structure. I also want to keep the persecution leads to scattering leads to evangelism thing.

    Your Jewish? cool.

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  5. I would have thought that if Anthony is 'half' Jewish he's either 'all' Jewish (if the 'half' is his mum) or 'none' Jewish (if the 'half' is his dad). Or have I misunderstood that?

    Perhaps we should ask WWIID? (What Would Israel Immigration services Do?)

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  6. It's my mum's side. Prussian Jews escaping Nazi Germany just in time and all that. Jude was very excited to hear she was marrying a Prussian Jew.

    Mind you, in the providence of God, the grandparents were converted by a French pastor on their way out of Europe.

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  7. Can 4 and 5 go together then, instead of 5 and 6?

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  8. I once worked on a writer's team for a set of Sunday School material for highschool age youth (for a Pressy church committee). You go to the meeting. You get your writing allocation. You look at the lesson headings/scripture passages you have to cover and you think, "Great! All of those will translate so easily into lessons. It'll take only half as long as last time." Then.....oh, then..... it's like pulling teeth, isn't it? Writing a lesson is soooo much more painful than teaching it.

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  9. Liking the idea of merging a couple of them together here so all the work is not wasted. I'm sure that isn't as easy as it sounds...but what about 8 & 9 together?

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  10. Merging doesn't work well with kids. It's better to tell one story well than two badly. I don't think you could tell the story of Paul and Silas in prison and the earthquake and conversion of the guard and his family AND the whole idol thing in Acts 17.

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  11. Mmm...yes, that does sound like a lot. No further suggestions here...you know the material you've prepared best I guess. Go with 9 if that's your instinct, always good to have a spare lesson prepped just in case.

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  12. Why do you need to cut one? Is it a length of term problem or just for flow?

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  13. Yeah. 10 lessons are hard to squeeze into a term.

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  14. Just to be different I'd skip 3. Everything in it is covered in either 2 or 4.

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  15. You are right. I could have skipped it without it making too much difference to the overall story.

    But it's a nice little lesson and I wanted to show Peter and co. doing something before Stephen was stoned.

    Also easier to tell that Acts 17!

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  16. Don't skip 9 - it's such a great story of evangelism to those who don't have background knowledge of our creator God.

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