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That is such an unfortunate scenario Amy. I suppose such is a trial of your faith. This is where we trust God and His Sovereignty even in the midst of these things. Sometimes that is the hardest part.

As you know we are experiencing a similar thing in our church. But this is only from the pastor, and he has opposed a SS teacher because the people enjoyed the teaching. Now he's taking over again, and reading the quarterly, or having his one deacon read it.

He appoints no one unless those he appoints have absolutely no authority.

Keep trusting and praying Amy. We are all for you here on this and I am certain many will keep you in prayer.

- Blessings

 

Take a few weeks and visit other churches in your neck of the woods.When no one is left in the class the new director can sit and read the quarterly with the pastor and his wife,and the empty seats:thumbs::thumbs:

 

In fact sermonaudio has a church locator...you can scout out your area...just type in your zip code:wavey::thumbs::wavey:

 

Our church uses the Lifeway Explore the Bible series, but our teachers are free to use other materials, as well.

I don't teach regularly, mainly to sub for my teacher when he's away, but I also like the Sunday School helps provided by the Founders' website. They generally follow the scripture outline of Explore the Bible, but the commentary sometimes comes from a different angle. It is written by Dr. Tom Nettles of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he goes pretty deep sometimes.

Some may be wary of it because the Founders is the Calvinist movement in the SBC. The lessons occasionally will contain some reference to DoG, but even non-Cals will see that overall, the lessons are pretty straight.

Before coming to a conclusion, check them out at Founders.org.

Incidentally, saturneptune is our church's Sunday School Director.

And I'll say this. If any of our teachers were to teach some junk, we have some pretty good Bible students in these classes. They'd spot it in a heartbeat, and we'd have a robust discussion. saturneptune would sniff it out in a heartbeat, and so would our pastor.

 

Very sad this is wrong very wrong

 

This sounds like a pastor who feels threatened by a gifted and popular retired pastor who is feeding 1/3 of the pastor's flock. One way to kill the threat is to stop the feeding. It is hard to discern motives from my position but pastors are human too and are subject to human failings just like everyone else. This Sunday school director may simply be the trigger man. I have heard of and seen worse things in churches from leadership because of jealousy or insecurity.

 

Amy, is it a particular series/title of Lifeway quarterlies that's being pushed?

 

Our church uses the Lifeway Explore the Bible series, but our class has elected me ( we have two other retired pastors who could do this as well as I if not better than I, who are also in the class too)to write lessons and be the leader. It has worked out well to this point. We are a group of men between 40 something to 84.

 

Churches handle this differently...

Mine has this routed thru Children Church, as the Elder in oversight over tht program reviews with the teachers what they want to do, as know we have had different companies over the years materials!

And would say as long as its 'biblical", we don't have a mandate to teach this or else!

 

I have seen drastic improvement in the Lifeway quarterly curriculum materials over the past several years. That said, our church now uses the Gospel Project materials and are extremely grateful for them.

By way of decision making, we used to allow teachers a great deal of freedom in what they desired to teach, but soon discovered most of them didn't know how to properly develop teaching materials with a goal in mind. They simply collected masses of commentaries and cobbled together what they thought was good. In our opinion, that isn't good in the short or long term on multiple levels. The pastors/elders responded with switching to the Gospel Project and focusing on training the group leaders how to lead their people in studies, but also in how to build the group relationally.

Bible teaching is only one part of a healthy small group. I would contend that building strong interpersonal relationships that flourish beyond Sunday mornings is a priority as well and if done well, both should be happening. In that, we have chosen a strong curriculum for our teachers/facilitators that provides solid biblical instruction that fits our goals strategically and frees those leaders up to build relationships throughout the week.