Adult Bible classes and how to conduct them

Contents

Chapter Page

Preface y

I. The Forgotten Class - 1

Preface

This book is the outcome of a dozen years of teaching and study on the part of its authors. Entering a field in which literature is almost wholly lacking, it is in certain respects a pioneer.

Our work aims to do two things: To discuss in some measure certain of the great problems of the adult class, and to present a collection of lessons, many of which have been used with classes. They have purposely been chosen from a variety of subjects and with a variety of forms, for they are designed not only to furnish outlines which classes may in some cases use, but to suggest subjects and methods which classes may work up for themselves. The authors believe that a suggested outline, worked out by a class or a leader with special reference to the needs of that particular group of people, will often be of far more value than any fully prepared scheme of study adopted bodily. We have not hesitated, therefore, to include a few such outline courses. At the same time, we have put in a number of courses more fully worked out, which may be taken up by classes with as much or as little change as may be desired.

We do not wish the book, because of its obvious suggestion of independent courses for the adult class, to be regarded as in any way antagonistic to the uniform lesson systems now in the field. The problem of

V lesson systems is a large one. We believe it is to be solved by experiment rather than by controversy.

The chapter devoted to Club Study has been inserted because we recognize that the Sunday-school is not the only place where Bible study makes its appeal, and we would be glad to encourage that study in the many clubs that are seeking subjects of interest and profit.

The names of all the persons to whom the authors are indebted would make a long list. A number of the chapters were published in The Sunday School Times as a series of articles on The Adult Class. The chapter on The Modern Bible Study and The Adult Class appeared in The Biblical World, May, 1903. We are indebted to these journals for permission to reprint these articles. The lesson courses accompanying the book as separate pamphlets are a selection made by the Editorial Board of The Pilgrim Press from a larger number presented. We wish to acknowledge our obligation to Rev. H. L. Wriston, Rev. Edward M. Noyes and Prof. H. M. Burr for permission to use the courses we have incorporated in the pamphlet publications. The book and the courses owe much to a wide correspondence with persons engaged in adult class work.

We wish here to express our gratitude, not only to those whose courses we used, but to many others, for courteous and often painstaking answers to our inquiries.

We send out this book, hoping that it will be of some assistance to the great army of our fellow students of the Word and work of God.

VI

Chapter I THE FORGOTTEN CLASS

FEW subjects have been more fruitful of literature, during recent years, than the Sunday-school. It is all the more surprising, then, that there is very little, indeed, published regarding adult classes. Most Sunday-school books are innocent of any suggestion that there is such a thing as Bible Study for adults. A very few pages would suffice to reprint all that has appeared in book form on the subject. Sunday-school journals give slightly more attention to the subject, but even there it is pitiably inadequate. Nowhere is the attention devoted to the subject at all in proportion to its importance. In fact, it might be interesting to speculate as to whether some curious scholar, studying in future centuries the history of the Sunday-school movement on the basis of its present literature, might not raise the question whether the adult class had more than a sporadic existence in the American Sunday-school at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The reason for this neglect of the adult class is apparent. The Sunday-school has been "the nursery of the church." Attention has been concentrated upon

■« mn i n»i m m m— — ■ —— mm— »a— nami i miii— ■ iywi— —bim

the little children. It is interesting to notice how the improvements of the Sunday-school have been most marked in the kindergarten and primary grades. Every one interested in Sunday-school work rejoices that it is so. But, meantime, the adult class has been almost forgotten. Patiently, obscurely, with little aid from any quarter, it has gone on its way, doing the best it could. Is it any wonder that it has not always succeeded, that its methods and its work have not always been worthy of the highest commendation? Is it strange that it is so seldom attractive, not in any cheap way, but in a large, manly, Christian way; or that when it is attractive, the attraction comes from the personality of the teacher, and is not of a sort which one school can borrow from another? It is to be feared that the implications involved in these questions are true. But even if they are to the fullest extent true, the discredit is not to be laid at the door of the classes which already exist. The only wonder is that under the circumstances, they are as good as they are. The discredit, if there is any, belongs to the whole situation. And yet, perhaps "discredit" is not the proper word. The situation, unideal as it is, may be only the result of the deliberation of healthy growth. We suspect that here, as in certain other departments of life, patience with the processes of growth is a part of the Christian discipline of life.

If the growth is to be normal, however, there must be very much increase of attention to the adult class. It is a common saying among educators that educational influence works from above downward. Increase of excellence in the higher grades lifts up the lower. In the Sunday-school this natural method of advance has been reversed. This is perhaps the only educational department in the civilized world where the highest grades are notably poorer in equipment and method than the lower. Many a church has a Sunday-school of which it is proud. The visitor, seeking to find the excellence of the school, is shown elaborate primary rooms, with abundant apparatus and skilled and enthusiastic teachers. This is the "show part" of the Sunday-school. The equipment and teaching in the Junior Department are described as fairly good. Two or three classes suffice for the dwindling Senior Department. The visitor finds that they have little attention and less equipment, and are "no better than they ought to be." If he is courageous enough to inquire for adult classes, he may find one or two thinly attended classes of patient and long-suffering people, who are there somewhat out of a sense of duty, and who, to speak plainly, are often "puttering" with something that is really unworthy of their intellectual caliber. As to serious planning for their special needs, or providing material equipment for their use, nobody ever did it, or, what is worse, ever supposed that they were neglecting duty by not doing it. If the pastor will add to his multifarious duties that of teaching an adult class, or if any other specially prepared person will do so, it may have good success for a time, but largely because of special stimulus, not because the Sunday-school has fostered and nourished it as an essential part of necessary work. It is not too much to say that the adult class has been the neglected element in the modern Sunday-school. But this condition cannot be permanent and the Sunday-school maintain its proper place in religious life. Elsewhere in education the most advanced stages are found to be the most expensive in labor, equipment and careful planning. We are persuaded that the Sunday-school is not such an exception to the laws of educational method as the present situation would seem to imply. The disastrous effects of the present policy are already visible in the very grievous lack of trained teachers for all grades of Sunday-school work. Such teachers ought to be the natural products of well-equipped senior and adult classes. Because we do not have enough of them, our Sunday-schools, excellent as they are in many respects, are in some danger of drying up at the roots. Ninetenths of the very serious problems of teachers would disappear without further notice if we only had adequate senior and adult classes.

It is difficult to tell which of the problems is most pressing, the problem of teachers or of Sunday-school graduation. To solve the first would go far toward solving the second, for perhaps more often than for any other reason, the boy or girl drops out of the Sunday-school because the personality and methods of the teacher fail to keep pace with the changing needs of growing youth ; and so the boy or girl leaves the Sunday-school with an unpleasant memory freshest in mind, and ever after is no friend of the Sunday-school, or only a grudging friend from a sense of duty. More direct still, however, is the relation between the adult class and the problem of graduation. It is the relation of example. If the older boys and girls see that the adult classes are not attractive to their elders and are not prized by them, no one need complain if, as soon as they consider themselves no longer children, they, too, are restless to leave the Sunday-school. They consider it as only for the little ones, and every instinct of awakening adolescent life makes them ashamed to be associated longer with children's things. The feeling is right. It is not to be condemned. If the Sunday-school suffers because of it, the suffering is due to the senseless stupidity of the Sunday-school, not to any badness in the youth. Only one thing will ever place the Sunday-school in such a position that it will not be a perfectly sensible, proper thing for a youth at the age of adolescence to get out of it. That is, to develop strong, virile, intellectually respectable senior and adult classes, so large in size and so well recognized in the structure of the school that they will command respect in the classes of the lower grades. Many a teacher of the older children, faithful, well-equipped, doing work that ought to win the loyal regard of her class, is disheartened and saddened because her scholars leave the school in spite of all she can do, when the whole difficulty is that there is no adequate adult work in the school. The Sunday-school too often compels its best teachers to suffer vicariously for the sins of its general management ; and so in this field also we once more learn that we are all members one of another.

It surely is not necessary to insist on the value of adult classes for the sake of their own members. Never before was there such a field of study for them as there is now. New light has been thrown on the Bible from all sides. A new recognition of the value of the Bible as literature has come in the last few years. Exploration and archeology have added their contributions to its interest. New applications of its principles to the present are demanded by the new conditions of modern life. The Bible and its interpretation have taken on significances of wonderful interest and importance. Now, there is no place where all this can be studied and discussed so safely, so freely and with so much practical profit as in a wisely conducted adult class. Then, outside the Bible, there is a large field of Christian life, personal and civic, which ought to be carefully considered by the Christian Church, with all the wisdom, moderation and frankness that the Church can bring. Only by such consideration can these problems be fairly met by the Church. The adult class furnishes the best place the Church has yet provided for their discussion. The fact is that the adult class is a machine for the molding of Christian public opinion whose value and power we have not yet begun to appreciate or to use. It requires no prophet to predict that the future will see a development of it far beyond any position which it has yet attained.

That the adult class has problems of its own, every thoughtful Sunday-school worker must see. The following chapters try to consider, though very briefly, some of these problems. They are practical, not academic, problems. They are concerned with the question of how to bring things to pass. They all sum themselves up in one : How to make the best and most useful class in any given Sunday-school. Such a problem is never answered by any set of rules. Conditions differ. The personnel of class and teacher are factors in the case. What is good for one school will not do in another. Principles and methods can be discussed in a book, but the application of details must be made by plain common sense.

There is one question, however, which ought to be considered as primary to any discussion of the practical problems of the class. It is this : What ought a Sunday-school to regard as its ideal in the way of adult classes? What is their object? How many should there be? What is the tone and spirit which should pervade them?

Of all departments of the Sunday-school, the adult class is least amenable to rules. The personal equation must always be taken into account. Classes must be formed to suit the tastes and needs of the persons concerned. Whether classes should be few or many must be determined entirely by the groups of people who may want them. Classes cannot be laid upon Procrustean beds. One group may want one thing and another group another. Very well, let them have what they want. The class exists for the members, not the members for the class. In fact, nothing would be better for the adult work of a school than for a group of people to come to the superintendent and say, "We want to study such and such a subject. May we study it as a part of the Sunday-school ? Perhaps others also would like to join us."

If the ideal number of classes is so variable and adaptive it follows naturally that the ideal object of the classes is also a matter of adaptation. No one object is large enough to suit all the adult classes that a Sunday-school may properly contain. One may have for its object careful Bible study, another the consideration of social questions, still another may subordinate study to the functions of fellowship and church work, and each be doing the best it can for the church with which it is connected. It is not wise for a school to say, "This one thing we do in our adult classes." Each class must be free to fix its own object. The aim of the school in its adult classes, then, should be to meet the needs of as many people as possible. The spirit must be one of large tolerance. One class may be very "liberal" and another very "conservative," one Biblical and another social, and the only unity of aim will be the greatest good to the greatest number. Group individualization is the watchword of adult class success. The adult department ought to be a school of electives with freedom of transfer from one to the other as courses change, and with a keen desire on the part of all classes to really accomplish something.

For a class must not merely mark time. If it is getting nowhere and its members gaining nothing, it ought to stop. There is no more virtue in wasting time in the Sunday-school than there is in wasting it anywhere else. To meet the special needs of special classes, to gain something worth gaining, to make a Christian use of God's gift of intellect — these ought to be the general aims of a school in its adult classes.

All this implies the probable use of more than one course of study. The uniform lesson system has its advantages. It unifies the school in a way which is sometimes very useful. But it is not to be made an idol. Often it may be broken over to advantage in any department of the school, and nowhere more often than in the adult class. If a class wants to do a special piece of work, the uniform lesson system should never be allowed to stand in the way. So long as it is an aid, use it. When it blocks the wheels of progress, let it go. Here again the system exists for the person, not the person for the system.

Chapter II WHEN STARTING A NEW CLASS

No two churches are exactly alike. Specific directions as to any sort of church work would only fit one set of conditions. There are, however, certain general requirements which must be met in the starting of all classes, and it is with these that we are concerned.

The first thing to be done is to ensure a nucleus. A class must depend for its success on one of two things : it must either have a group of people so interested in it that they will carry it through, or it must depend upon the personal attraction of the teacher. Of these two the first is by far the most stable. The especially attractive teacher is not always to be had, and even when he is, the nucleus is essential for his really efficient work. A class that depends solely for its being upon its teacher is like a church that exists only because of its preacher.

A good class is to be a permanent body. It will not be in too much of a hurry to begin. To throw down this book and say, "Next Sunday I will start a class," may begin a good class, but it is much more liable to begin a fiasco. Quiet planning for a few weeks or months is more likely to result in success.

Probably more classes fail because of general vagueness than for any other reason. Your class is to study

n the Bible; but the Bible is a large subject, and the term conveys a rather indefinite notion to most people. Many would not be particularly interested in the proposition to join a class for Bible study who would be glad to study Acts, or John, or the Book of Job. The class must actually do its work on some definite part of the Bible. Why not make a definite plan ? A Bible class must be differentiated sharply, in the formation of its plan, from a social club. The social club has its reason for being in the good-fellowship of its members. The question of what its program shall be is a secondary consideration. This is not the case with the Bible class. Its attraction lies in its program, and that will be more attractive if made somewhat definite.

Although a Bible class should be a permanent institution, it does not follow that the particular Bible class you start must of necessity be permanent. In fact, a class will often be much easier to start, and much more successful, if it is limited in time. Many a busy person will find time to study Acts for three months who would hesitate to mortgage an indefinite future to Bible study. Such a plan will hold a class to definite progress by the feeling that so much ground is to be covered in so much time. It gives opportunity for some change of personnel with the close of one course, even if another immediately begins, without the friction which might otherwise arise. There is no disgrace in a Bible class for a definite course which shall then stop. Another one next year may be its outcome.

A Bible class must have endurable conditions. It cannot do work when set in the midst of confusion.

Every part of the class must be able to hear what is said in every other part. It needs the entire time of the Sunday-school for the lesson in hand. The opening and closing exercises of the average Sunday-school, not to speak of occasional addresses appropriate enough for the school, are a stumbling-block to the earnest adult class that wants to spend its time in Bible study. How far these conditions can, if necessary, be sacrificed, each class must decide for itself; but every class has its own threshold of convenience, below which it is impossible to fall and make the work worth doing. In all other things we recognize that there is a limit at which we can say that, if the work is not done better than this, it had better not be done at all. Many people seem to suppose that there is no such limit in Bible teaching; that it is better to do it somehow, no matter how poorly or under what conditions, than not to do it at all. This is not true of adult Bible teaching, whatever may be the case with other grades. A class working below the limit of endurable conditions becomes a hindrance to Bible study.

Suppose, now, we have ensured a nucleus, a definite plan, and endurable conditions, how shall the class actually be started ?

There are only two ways of starting anything. One is to begin large, with all the prestige and influence and numbers which can be gathered; to "start off well." The other is to begin modestly, with only the people who are really interested, and to allow it to grow by its own merits. Which is the fitting way to begin a Bible class?

The first method is appropriate to a movement that must command a speedy and wide-spread interest for its success, or that depends on the popularity of a single event. It is a good plan for a county fair. But these are not the conditions of success in a Bible class. That demands genuine personal interest in its work, some homogeneity of spirit, and may be expected to grow quietly and more by natural selective process than by public advertising. The second method of beginning is much more appropriate to it. A Bible class belongs to the category of movements of thought, and all such movements are hindered more than helped by extravagant or artificial popular interest in their beginnings.

Yet the temptations in this matter are very great. Let us put the warnings against them in a series of "don'ts."

Don't think you must "start big/'

Don't let any one else think that if you do not "start big" you fail.

Don't try to get everybody in. Some good people will never want to join a Bible class. Do not judge them as lacking interest in the Bible. They may be getting quite as much out of it in some other way.

Don't try to appeal to everybody. If you do, your appeal will be too indefinite to be forceful with any one. One advantage of a limited plan is that it makes a definite appeal to a certain interest.

Don't let your pastor, in announcing the class, urge "everybody to come." You do not want everybody.

You want those interested in a particular section of Bible study.

Don't set your ideal in numbers. Make the class the most profitable Bible study that its members ever came in contact with, and it will win its own proper constituency.

Chapter III WHO SHOULD TEACH THE CLASS

Who shall teach the Bible class ? The best person that can be found. But how discover the best person? By what marks may he be known? That is a more difficult question to answer. After all, the only sure test of a teacher lies in the teaching. The qualities which make up a good teacher are capable of such a variety of combinations that it is quite impossible to say beforehand, with perfect assurance, whether any person will succeed or not as a teacher. Still, there are certain qualities which are essential to the success of a teacher of a Bible class.

i. He must be a person whose judgment the class will respect. A Bible class, if it does worthy work, will find itself in contact with subjects of difficulty and delicacy. Sometimes it will glance at them and pass on; sometimes it will discuss them frankly and fully. To do either wisely requires judgment, and the class must have confidence in that judgment. The primary requisite of successful teaching in any volunteer class is rapport between teacher and class.

2. He must be a person of broad sympathies. The Bible class will probably include people of different ways of thinking. It certainly ought to put before its members different views on many subjects. Its teacher must be sympathetic with all honest efforts to find the truth. Next to confidence in the teacher's judgment, a class must have confidence in the teacher's fairness ; and, many character sketches in literature to the contrary notwithstanding, genuine fairness is impossible without sympathy.

3. He must be a person who knows how to learn t The man who has got through doing his thinking, who has all his ideas nicely wrapped up and laid away on their shelves, to be taken down and exhibited on occasion, is not the man to teach the Bible. The Bible is a subject for a lifelong progress in study. Many good people, who might otherwise be excellent Bible-class teachers, are hopelessly disqualified because they regard their ideas about the Bible as a closed system. They welcome new views on other subjects, but not on this. It is too bad, but such persons must be laid on the shelf along with their ideas. The Bible class has no use for their teaching, no matter how true their conceptions may be.

4. He must be a person who is interested in the Bible. I do not say who is a Biblical scholar, but one who is sufficiently interested in the Bible so that he can, in time, become a Biblical scholar. The present situation is rather peculiar. Some of the best candidates for Bible-class teachers are people who do not know very much about the Bible. They are intelligent Christian people of scholarly tastes, much interested in the Bible, but really, as they themselves say, not knowing enough about it to be able to teach it. The question is not, therefore, What do they know now ? but, What will their interest impel them to learn ?

The presumption of good teaching will be against the person whose main qualification is the verbatim text knowledge of the Bible which was the ideal of the last generation. Unless counteracted by other influences, this knowledge will mean the closing of the door to other and more important knowledge.

I have not said that he must have the teaching instinct. It is true that he must have it, but how shall that be discovered without trial? I have not said that he must be spiritual in his interpretation of the Bible. If he has the teachableness of a true teacher, he will become spiritual ; for few people can help others study the Bible without finding themselves drawn nearer to God. I have not said that he must know the Bible better than his class. That may be a matter of time. Not present knowledge, but spirit; not achievement, but possibilities, are to be looked for in searching for the best teacher.

The answer to the question "who" has, after all, been in terms of quality. So it must always be. There is no ex-oMcio test of a Bible-class teacher. He is not necessarily the pastor, nor a prominent Sunday-school worker, nor a pillar in the church. He may not be in the Sunday-school at all, and may be very much surprised when asked to teach. It is possible that "he" may be "she." Yet generally, other things being equal, it is better to have a man than a woman. The advanced work of the Sunday-school needs the masculine element. Most churches have the proper man somewhere, but he is not always the first man who would come to the mind of the officers of the school. It is not always easy to find him. Wanted : A man to discover the Bible-class teacher.

But what can the Bible class do when no good teacher is available? There are hundreds of schools that are very much discouraged over the possibilities of a good Bible class. They have no teacher for it. Not only is there no expert Bible scholar at command, but there is no one who has both the leisure time and the requisite education to become a Bible scholar. If the success of the Bible class depends upon the possession of an adequately equipped teacher, their case is hopeless.

Is a teacher necessary? If the question concerned a class of children or young people in the formative stage, the answer could only be "Yes." The class could not proceed without a teacher, and if a good teacher could not be had, a poorer one must be used. The conditions of the adult class are different. Let us analyze the situation, and see what the teacher may do for such a class.

i. He may bring them knowledge. If he is an expert Bible student, that is his business. Still, the class can get along without it. They know something of the subject already. The work is not like learning a new language. They can, if necessary, pool their knowledge, and get along without the contribution of distinctly new knowledge by their teacher.