Remains of the Pay

I'm in the Sunday school teaching rotation for this quarter, and I get to pick my own themes. The topic I selected for November is "Money & Finances," and the first lesson was today.

As a opening activity, I divided the class into two groups, and assigned the first to list what they think the Bible tells them about money, and the second what the world tells them about it; then I had the groups switch, so that in the end, each group had its own pair of lists. On the whiteboard I made two columns, placing all the "biblical" money ideas in one column, and all the "worldly" ideas in the other. I had hoped that the messages from the world would be fairly homogeneous, whereas the Bible's ideas would be all over the map; this would in turn allow me to make the conclusion that we are clear about secular ideas of wealth, but uncertain on what exactly the Bible says. This of course would warrant studying scripture to better understand what it teaches about finances.

In fact, the exact opposite happened: the list from the Bible was very cohesive, whereas the secular list was pretty disunified. (Note to self: these little open-ended experiments will not always yield desired/expected results.) So the alternate conclusion I drew was, "Scripture is clear on what it teaches, but the world is sending mixed signals." (Note to self: Even if an activity gives unexpected results, a lesson can still be culled from them.)

Then, I handed out a dollar to each person in Sunday school (this was also part of a Sunday school promotion I used to entice people to attend☺.) I instructed the class to imagine what they could do with that dollar (or what they could do aggregately if they combined their newfound wealth). After allowing half a minute for consideration, I told them to tear up their dollars! Muhahaha! Most people looked a little puzzled, some looked rather horrified. "You must do as I say—I am the Sunday school teacher!" I commanded. After a little hesitation and some more prodding from me, all but two students complied.

"What was the purpose of that?" I asked, hoping they would say, "To teach us not to value money too dearly."

"To teach us not to value money too dearly." One student proffered. Bingo!

Auggie had a different answer: "Tearing up my own dollar wouldn't have been too bad, since it's only $1. But since it was your money, I felt really bad wasting it. Maybe you wanted to show us that since we're really stewards of God's money, we must spend it wisely, and not waste it." Ok, good answer! Not what I had in mind, but that answer had alot of potential.

Shui suggested, "You're like God, and you gave us the dollar, and you were testing to see if we'd obey you, and do what you told us with the money. I didn't. I still have my dollar here, see?" You're like God, I like the sound of that, but wasn't too happy about the open rebellion part. Also, a good answer, but no.

"The reason I had you tear up the money was to show you that it is hard to waste money—so hard, in fact, that two people still haven't complied. The reason that it's hard is that money is useful and valuable. Today's lesson is we should value money and spend it carefully." Then we moved into the actual textual explication.

(If you want the notes & outline, leave a comment and I'll send them to you.)