The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age BoysAlexander, John L.
Religion
The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age Boys
Alexander, John L.
Sunday schools
The Organized Bible Class that is self-governing must be added to the
above. Better have the gang on the inside of the church with a
Christian-altruistic content, than to permit the boys to organize under
self-direction on the outside. The Bible Class, too, has advantages over
every other form of organization. It has the Bible at its heart, the one
thing necessary to assure permanence, and never allows the thought of
graduation. Other boy organizations meet the need of certain specified
years; the Bible Class meets all the needs of all the years, and is
flexible enough to include all the special needs that are met by other
forms of organization.
The greatest need of the Sunday school is capable teaching. By it the
Bible Class becomes efficient or the reverse. For the boy the teacher
should be a man, a Christian man, who has personality enough to command
the boy's respect, and ability enough to direct the boy in doing things.
This means a comrade-relationship of work and play, Bible study and
athletics, spiritual and social activity, Sunday and week-day interest,
and a disposition on the part of the leader to get the boy to do
everything--government, planning, presiding, achieving--for himself.
This is true teaching and leadership. The greatest thing in the Sunday
school is the teacher. For now abideth the Lesson, the Class, and the
Teacher, but the greatest of these is the Teacher.
In view, then, of all that has gone before, what shall be said of the
Sunday school and the boy? Each to each is the complement; the two
together form a winning combination. On the one hand, the modern Sunday
school should meet the boy's need at every stage of his development in a
physical, social, mental, and spiritual way. It should give him variety
and progression in the processes of his maturing, and suitable
organization and trained leadership for character-building and
man-making. On the other hand, the boy will render the Sunday school and
church his service, and through both give his heart's thought, devotion,
and worship to his Lord. This is the whole matter of the Sunday school
and the normal boy, and is our vision of the future of the church. The
past did not do it! The past is dead!
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE BOY AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
Foster.--The Boy and the Church (.75).
Lewis.--The Intermediate Worker and His Work (.50).
--The Senior Worker and His Work (.50).
Robinson.--The Adolescent Boy in the Sunday School (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
VI
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES IN SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK WITH BOYS
Five fundamental principles must be kept in mind when work with boys in
the Sunday school is attempted, and without these five principles very
little will be accomplished:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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