Creating “A Laboratory for Christian Living:”
Experiential Bible Study, Learning Styles, and Teaching Styles

In his book, Teaching for Results, veteran Baptist educator Findley Edge suggested that the Sunday School classroom should be “a laboratory for Christian living.”

What did Edge mean when he suggested this analogy?

Edge believed that, when we gather to study the Bible, our lives outside the classroom should be dramatically transformed.  Simply put, people will know that we were in Sunday School on Sunday by the way that we live out our faith on Monday. 

How can participation in Sunday School lead us toward this dramatic transformation?

Edge believed that the Sunday School classroom should be a hospitable, structured environment in which class members and guests can openly share their personal experiences, needs, struggles, dreams, and crises.  In this environment, members and guests can examine their personal issues in light of biblical truth.  As in a chemical reaction, the personal experience of the learners and the truth of scripture, determined through solid biblical exegesis, are placed “in solution” in anticipation of a powerful reaction.  In Sunday School, Edge believed that learners develop and use a variety of skills for theological reflection, skills needed to enhance the interaction of experience and truth.  Finally, Edge argued that learning is not complete until “hands on” application takes place.  Learners must lead a radically different life outside the classroom context.  When personal experience, biblical truth, theological reflection, and “hands on” application are integrated, lives are transformed!

In this conference, we will explore how you can take steps to make your Sunday School classroom “a laboratory for Christian living.”  In our time together, we will focus on three specific strategies.

• First, we will explore Experiential Bible Study (EBS).  EBS is a specific, easy-to-use teaching plan that integrates personal experiences of the learners, solid biblical exegesis, reflection on life experiences, and “hands on” application.

• Next, we will explore learning styles.  Some people learn best through personal experience; others are excellent biblical scholars.  Some people prefer to reflect on life experience, while others just want to “do something.”  Using the Learning Styles Inventory (LSI), you will come to better understand your own learning preferences, the learning preferences of the students in your class, and how these preferences can make “the laboratory” a more exciting and collaborative space.

• Finally, we will explore teaching styles.  Many teachers choose one or two, “tried and true” teaching approaches for use in the Sunday School classroom.  In this phase of the conference, we will use The Trainer Type Inventory (TTI) to help you identify your own teaching style and expand your repertoire of teaching methods.

Our goal for this conference is that, on the Sunday following the event, you will be able to use two or three specific strategies that will make your classroom a more effective “laboratory for Christian living.”