We're going to need a bigger boat.

This kid is going to grow up to be a MAN!

Pam's leaving me.
She has a 6:15 flight tomorrow morning and will spend the next 10 days in Grand Rapids. She'll stay at her mom's but spend lots of time with very important friends. I'm jealous.
Meanwhile, I'm here with frozen pizza, lasagna from Costco and hot dogs.
And all the TV sports I want!!

What if you want to be a robber but don't have a girlfriend, and thus no access to pantyhose?
If you live in Phoenix you walk into the Circle K convenience store with a plastic bag on your head.
Halfway through the stick-up the would-be thief realizes he can't breathe. Apparently he never read that warning on plastic bags about the risk of suffocation. Facing imminent death he has no choice but to rip the bag off.
Smile! You're on candid camera!
I have spent hours (!) over the last several days looking at Sunday School curriculum from half a dozen publishers. It's easy to do now because they all have samples available for viewing or downloading on the internet. "Easy" in that you don't have to wait for them to mail you samples, but some of them could sure use help with web site design. Finding the curriculum downloads was sometimes pretty challenging.

Some of the publishers have taken a media heavy approach, with highly produced DVD's for each lesson.
Some publishers have gone with a large group / breakout groups format where the session starts with everyone together for the Bible story and then groups of 3 or 4 working with a teacher on a craft and application drawn from that story.
Others use a station approach, where everyone hears a Bible story, and then small groups of students rotate through stations where they do a craft, act out a drama, etc.
Some publishers provide curriculum that has the whole church, from youngest children up to the adults, learning the same Bible story and it's application for their lives on any given Sunday. The idea is that they can then talk about it as a family during the week.

Regardless of the way they structure the class session, one thing almost all of them have in common troubles me.
Let me see if I can explain.

The focus seems to be on a behavioral principle. "We should treat others with kindness." In every example I've looked at a Bible story or verse is used to teach this truth.
One result of this approach is what I'll call an ammo approach to the Bible. The behavioral objectives seem to drive the curriculum, with Bible stories and verses pulled out of Scripture to support and illustrate the behavior. Scripture becomes the ammunition used to hit the target - the desired behavioral change.
As a result, Bible stories and verses are used without regard for their contextual setting. Last week (trust God in bad situations) the story was about Joseph, this week (God will always meet our needs) the story is Jesus feeding the 5,000 and next week (God will give us victory if we trust him) it's David .
So, who comes first chronologically - Joseph, Jesus or David? Where would you turn in your Bible to read about them? After a decade in Sunday School a kid knows lots of stories but has no grasp of the whole of Scripture. Does he/she have working skills enabling them to get into the Bible for themselves?

More troublesome for me is the implication that the Bible, God's Word, is designed for our help and benefit. (This is the part I may have difficulty explaining.) In a consumer-driven culture where everything comes to ME, the Bible becomes a book designed to teach ME life skills and principles.
I think we need the sense that the BIBLE is holy writ and I can do no better than go to IT.
I do certainly believe that Scripture teaches us how to live ("thoroughly equipped for every good work"). But we need to find a way to teach the Bible in such a way that it takes on an a priori authority.
How do we do that?
Instead of beginning (logically, not chronologically) with a behavioral principle we begin with the Bible. So, for example, this quarter's lessons will teach us about Joseph. Thus, the primary objective is to learn what the Bible teaches us in these chapters of Genesis. THEN, from the major events in Joseph's life we draw lessons about our lives. The way we see God work with Joseph teaches us how he works with us.

It's subtle, I know. But the former approach, by using stories and verses from all over without attention to the chronology, seems to say the Bible is like a behavioral encyclopedia, designed to serve us. When we study a section of the Bible, either narrative or didactic, we communicate the priority of Scripture, the Word of God to which we must go to hear God speak.

And as a side benefit, after a decade of Sunday School a student will have a sense of the flow of Scripture, some grasp of the chronology of its people and events, and therefore be more likely to open it for himself/herself.

Does any of that make sense?