Children's Curriculum Evaluation

This page has been put together to assist with an evaluation of Children's Sunday School Curriculum that would support our long-term needs at Providence. The tasks will be: (1) to do a comparison of curriculum to determine whether we are using that which best suits our needs (and if not, to select one), (2) to determine how we need to structure children's Sunday School to make best use of the curriculum, and (3) to engage in an ongoing discussion about how we can best support parents with raising our Covenant Children in the Lord.

Initial Guidelines

Note: These are still in the "initial" stage, and need input from the Education Ministry Team as well as to be reviewed by the Session...but still should be helpful as is.

Goal. To help our children understand from God's Word that Jesus Christ is the redemptive center of all things.
Supporting Goal. The teaching (and therefore, the curriculum) needs to be in support of the following statement: "The spiritual nurture, instruction and training of the children of the Church are committed by God primarily to their parents." (BCO 28-1)
Timeframe. The plan should cover multiple years, with continuity from one to the next, so that they are oriented toward this single, overarching goal. The preference would be a minimum of six years. The desire would be to start this in the Fall of 2016.
Guidelines.
1. Doctrinal alignment. The curriculum needs to either adhere fully to the Westminster Standards, OR it needs to be understood where it does not adhere to the Westminster Standards and this needs to be well understood by the teachers, modified in the curriculum, and taught to the children in accordance with the standards. (Practically speaking, this means we will need to use a Reformed curriculum in which the differences from the standard are not real substantial, e.g. if Believer baptism were the only significant difference this would likely be acceptable)
2. Concept driven. Rather than merely teaching "facts," the curriculum needs to primarily teach the concepts, so that the child is more equipped to apply it to the situations in their lives (rather than just to know the "facts" or stories of the Bible).
3. Context driven. Should consistently teach the bigger storyline of the Bible (the context), so that a child is more equipped to understand how any given text or story fits into the God's overall redemptive plan (the Covenant of Grace).
4. Lesson plans. The curriculum needs to provide the teachers with lesson plans that are substantial enough to aid in week-by-week teaching.
5. Cost. Must be of a reasonable cost to fit within the Providence budget.

Possible Curriculum Sources

Great Commissions Publications (GCP):
1. About. Primary supplier of curriculum for the PCA and OPC, and our current source of curriculum. They are (obviously) thoroughly reformed and have a mission aligned with ours (and all materials are designed to be in alignment with the Westminster Standards).
2. Examples. For various examples, see their Samples area. For a specific example, see this overview of 3rd-4th Grade curriculum (PDF).
3. Issues.
  1. Not as cohesive as we would desire; it lacks the emphasis throughout all the curriculum on God's single plan throughout all history.
  2. Much less comprehensive than the CDG curriculum.
Children's Desiring God:
1. About. Ministry that has grown out of Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Piper). They have a very complete Children's curriculum, are thoroughly reformed, and have a mission appropriate to our needs.
2. Examples. For several examples, see their Curriculum Samples area. For a specific example, see this overview of the 3rd Grade curriculum (PDF).
3. Issues. Being Baptist, there will likely be a couple of issues related to doctrine:
  1. They will not provide teaching on Paedo-baptism, but rather will have an emphasis on believer baptism (although this may show up very little in the curriculum).
  2. They will likely provide less of a "covenant perspective" than we might desire.