One Big Idea

One key to effective teaching is concentration on one "big idea."

Like a magnifying glass on a hot summer day, concentration turns ho-hum teaching into fiery hot teaching. It is the teacher's job to select what is really important to teach and converge all of the teacher's energy on that.

Too often the reason our students don't get things is there was a lack of concentration on the part of the teacher. Focus down to ONE concept. Rewrite it if you need to... but focus on one truth for the lesson.

Too often teachers teach too little because they tried to teach too much.

"How often do we do this in Sunday School?" We scrape the Milky Way with all kinds of high-sounding truth about this and that and never get around to telling people how to read the Bible for themselves, how to be a good Christian, how to memorize scripture and how to know that we are forgiven for our sins.

It is fine to explore some of the intricacies of theology and biblical background and history and cultural issues. These are good to know, nice to know, interesting to know and helpful to know. But the key thing is, how do our pupils perform at game time? Are we making disciples who know how to relate to God, enjoy God, serve God, get along with others and advance the kingdom with the gifts God has given them?

I have been guilty at times of teaching too little because I try to teach too much. I am too interested at times in all kinds of detail related to the Bible that is nice to know, good to know, interesting to know, but not absolutely necessary to living the disciple's life. I want to be a teacher whose teaching is fiery hot because of the concentration of the message around one single idea.

Select from each week's Bible Study passage one idea that you want to drive home. Pound away on that one idea. Support it; explain it; give examples of it; discuss it. Draw illustrations of it. Mold it. Shape it. Cut it. Map it. Discuss it. Ultimately, lead your group to apply this one salient idea when they get on the playing field of life.

When one idea has been imprinted in their thoughts, its much easier for it to become ingrained in their actions and life.