Hopefully you’ve seen the TV show?  Mythbusters tests (and usually explodes) long-held myths and urban legends.  I wonder what the test results would be when they took on our  “friendly, relevant, uplifting, and compelling” church services? Or what the test result would be when they examined, ”how many people will ask me my name and actually engage [...]

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[Note: Many of you reading this blog already know about my work with software and the Rotation Model for Sunday School, but I've discovered that some do not!  Therefore, this brief introduction....]
I originally started experimenting with software in my Sunday School back in 1990 when my church created what has become known as The Workshop [...]

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This article posted at http://sundayresources.net/neil/2010/02/18/confessions-of-a-youth-minister/
I’ve been leading youth groups in one way or another for over 30 years. Started when I was 17 helping out with the Jr. High group in my church.
For many years, I thought I knew what I was doing, –mostly because I was doing what most OTHER youth pastors were doing, [...]

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The Brain Research Behind
the Importance of Teaching with Interactive Multimedia
an article by Neil MacQueen originally posted at www.sundaysoftware.com
with implications for teachers and preachers
This article summarized the book “Brain Rules” by Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist (and guy with the brain over his head here). Brain Rules is itself an entertaining summary of the [...]

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Is Sunday School going extinct? …or are some churches merely suffering from their own ineptness, uninspired leadership, and the accumulated effect of bad habits?
(Now you know where I come out on the issue!)
According to a recent Barna Research Study, currently, more than 9 out of every 10 churches offer Sunday school for elementary grades (92%) [...]

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Note: This article has been updated at www.sundaysoftware.com/articles/chsermon.htm
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You can buy books with children’s sermons in them. Most are ho-hum or antiquated.  Most also don’t discuss “how” to deliver the children’s sermon. And that may be the most important thing to get right:  Children First, Sermon Second.

7 Tips to Better Children’s Sermons
an article for Children’s Sermon Leaders [...]

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All systems tend to run out of steam. In physics, this law of thermodynamics is called “entropy.”  Happens in human systems too. In physics, all that’s required is some additional amount of energy to maintain the same output (”work”). But in human systems, renewing our enthusiasm and energy for something is a little more complicated. [...]

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