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Best Sunday School Curriculum: How to Choose Materials

best Sunday school curriculum

Choosing the best Sunday school curriculum for your church is an important decision. The choice of which class materials to use will greatly impact your children’s ministry. And that choice is made more difficult by all the options available these days.

When trying to pick the best Sunday school curriculum, you must wade through a lot. Options include video-based, denomination-based, student-led, volunteer-driven, and more. Plus, you’ll find material in an assortment of ministry formats and styles. These include large group/small group, traditional classroom, Sunday school, midweek, urban, children’s church, digital, and printed. The possibilities are endless!

With that said, let me make a disclaimer. I don’t believe a “perfect” or best Sunday school curriculum exists. You won’t find one that meets every criteria on your list. Nothing will suit your children’s ministry perfectly without some need to edit.

How to Pick the Best Sunday School Curriculum

So what do you do? How do you choose from the plethora of lesson options?

I don’t like to veer to either extreme of all fun (watered-down lessons) or too theologically heavy (over children’s heads, too difficult for volunteers to teach). I prefer curriculum that’s somewhat in the middle. It’s biblically sound and Bible-based but fun and engaging.

6 Tips for Selecting Curriculum for Your Sunday School Classes

If you’re in the market for new curriculum, I recommend these tips:

1. Determine your ministry’s vision, mission, and core values.

Knowing this will help you stay focused on what you need and want in a curriculum. And then the selected curriculum will help you think with that end in mind.

2. Bring a team of staff, current volunteers, and parents together to help you discern the best options.

Bringing the right people to the table will:

  • show you value the opinions of ministry investors,
  • provide different points of view and good dialogue, and
  • get more buy-in from those on the team.