This month’s Teach the Word article is by Pastor Tim Priewe. He serves as an associate pastor at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Appleton, WI, with a specific focus on worship and evangelism. He is a 2019 graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.
The city of Appleton, I suppose, does not meet the technical definition of a suburb: a smaller city or community located right outside of a major city. However, a large part of the city of 70,000 gives you the feeling of white-collar suburban life, especially on the north side of town with all the newest subdivisions and the shiny Chevy Suburbans roaming the neighborhoods.
When serving in a suburban, upper-middle-class area with a target market of millennial families with young, school-aged kids, all who live and breathe the age of technology, the appearance of your material needs to pass the “first impression” test. The layout, the formatting, the type, the space, and the graphics all form a visual package that you want to grab people in a positive way long enough to give them the chance to start reading, learning, and treasuring the Word. The last thing you want to happen is for something like the font, the layout, or the graphics to give someone the impression that this material is out-of-date. We know the Word works supernaturally by the Spirit’s power while at the same time is received naturally by a person’s senses. We want our human presentation of it to be excellent. Consult with somebody who knows a thing or two about layout and design to make sure you’re giving the impression you want. I quickly found that the class material I had been using needed a refreshed look.
Time is a commodity worth its weight in gold these days. Hardly anybody seems to have extra time on their hands, especially when there are numerous extracurriculars, club sports, swim lessons, and gymnastics—just to name a few of the events that are all vying for the same 24 hours per day on the fridge whiteboard calendar. Given the time crunch, I’ve found it necessary to offer as much flexibility as I can (which may be more than you are able to if you don’t have associates). I teach the same class on Sundays in between worship services, as well as on Thursdays, and on occasion, I have taught a whole set by Zoom on another night. It gives people the opportunity to switch and still catch most of the lessons with the group.
Even so, the number of misses each week can be frustrating. If you teach a class online in the future, ask the students for permission to record it so that you can use it to fill people in when they miss. This backup option protects you from the need to schedule all kinds of makeup classes. I recently had a woman who I thought was a goner from class, but I kept sending her the lessons week after week, which obviously was not ideal. I met with her after the classes were over to chat about it and found out from our conversation that she had some very significant life issues (anxiety, a surgery, sleep apnea, and single motherhood) preventing her from coming. She also had watched every one of the videos intently, at her own pace, and expressed great appreciation for them. I could tell that from her perspective, I was her pastor, even though I felt like I hardly knew her. What I thought was a loss was a different kind of win than I was expecting.
The time issue also influences the way I spend the time in class. I get the impression that whatever time people have spent in their former religious backgrounds, they never actually read the Bible. So I pack as much of God’s Word into my lesson handouts as I possibly can, usually about eight pages to a lesson guide (which means I don’t get to ramble). I also try to recognize the degree to which time is of the essence. For some people, you might get one or two lessons before you start to lose their time commitment. I’d much prefer to spend those first two lessons firmly planted on the concepts of sin and grace, and law and gospel than focusing on proving the inerrancy of Scripture, describing the natural knowledge of God or the Trinity, or debating the trueness of a six-day creation, which is where many instruction classes seem to start. All those doctrines will come in time, but let’s plant some gospel seeds first! I’ve found that when students see right away the Jesus who died for them, they tend to put down the boxing mitts to talk about things they might have otherwise put up a fight about.
The suburban religious context in Appleton is certainly a consideration. The biggest competition in town is the big nondenominational churches: churches that do not correctly teach conversion, infant baptism, real presence, or church fellowship, in addition to often misunderstanding church membership. So I’ve found it necessary to point out very specifically the big differences—even copying and pasting them right from the churches’ websites—so that people start to get what the differences are and why they are a big deal. Otherwise, people seem to think that we’re all nice people and we should just all get along as nice churches.
I’ve also found it very necessary in the second half of the class to emphasize core values and expectations that come with becoming a member and being part of our congregation. It has become increasingly more normal for people to attend the majority of classes during our 15 weeks of class without having attended in-person worship. It seems crazy to me, but many seem more willing to commit to a Bible information class than to show up as a guest to public worship. Sometimes they even attend class at 9:15 and walk out the door without making it to the 10:30 service. I suppose you can start to understand that when even many of your long-time members won’t come to two things on Sunday morning, but the last thing you want is adult confirmands turning quickly into delinquents. So I spend the last four lessons emphasizing our path of discipleship. Being part of a family growing in Christ means that we worship, study, serve, and share the gospel together. It’s a way to start the process of assimilation before they say their member “I dos,” and it gives me a framework by which to start shepherding them toward things that may seem obvious to seasoned members but aren’t always so obvious to those just starting out.
I pray I’ve given you a few things to consider, relate to, or at least a few thoughts that might prompt you to ideas that make better sense for where you serve. God bless your work as you sow the seed of his Word!