i'm an eternal curriculum tinker-er. i can never leave a good-enough lesson alone. for me, even the most well written intentional sunday morning children's lesson could always use one more edit, one tiny tweak, a pinch more fun, a reinforced key concept, a clearer-age-appropriate learning objective. i seriously have a problem. send help. or more lessons!
lately, i've been thinking a lot about the amount of time i spend + the end result of the curriculum we provide for kids. we currently use Tru, which has a million great features, but as i believe is true for every church, weekly editing is needed so that it matches our context just right.
we're a multicultural, diverse, urban church. this means that the makeup of our families are: multi-culture families {2 parent/2 races}, multi-context families {2 parent/1 minority race}, single parent families, majority race families {2 parent/white}. all of our families live in an urban enviornment which means they live in small apartments, take public transportation or walk to church, and interact daily with folks in need. our church is unique. and i love it.
but still, necessary tinkering. each week i set aside a full day to write/edit/think/plan the upcoming lessons. i need a full, meeting-free day in my favorite writing place to put together helpful lessons. and, i'm proud of what we've done. but, lately, the persistant question on my mind -- is my time worth it? is there a ceiling to tinkering an already published curriculum? can i really create the perfect lessons for my diverse community by spending a day a week editing someone else's work?
i've let my mind wander around these questions for a bit, while talking to ministry friends, trying to determine the best next steps. you know where i'm going -- we're considering writing custom curriculum for my church. it's insanely crazy. i know what it takes to write a curriculum from scratch. i've done it a few times. most recently, this wonderful beast. there are 13 CURRICULUM BOXES in that series that took us 5 years to complete. seriously. i get it. writing your own lessons is a choice reserved only for those who drink far more coffee than me. like, gallons.
BUT still, i can't seem to shake this idea. recently, at a conference, i wrote some initial notes: if we were going to do something this crazy, what would a template look like? what would the values be? how would we communicate the diversity seen in God's story, and help children notice + care for each other within their diverse, global contexts? i wrote this:
learning + friendship = faith
{in unique multicultural context}
1. connect: to each other + the world
2. notice: who do i see, who is missing, mindfulness of God's world + people
3. story: diversity in God's story
4. respond: i have a role in God's church, i contribute to the world
from these basic notes, a small group of us have been meeting regularly to discuss the possibility of putting this together into something just right for our church for this fall. it's been an absolute joy to discuss values that we so desperately desire for the kids of our church.
stay tuned. for now, what resources would you suggest that speak to multicultural, faith formation for kids? curriculum, books, music, graphics, anything really. i'm hungry for your suggestions.