The need for Middle East Children’s Ministry Curriculum

Churches in the Middle East are full of families who love God, yet, they are under-resourced. Middle East churches lack Bible teaching curriculum for children.  Sometimes churches attempt to use western children’s material written in English.  Middle East children’s ministry volunteers usually have full-time jobs that don’t leave them a lot of time to prepare children’s lessons, much less translate them from English.  In addition to translating the language, children’s teachers often find themselves needing to adapt cultural examples and expressions that come in the western material.  Some children’s ministries focused on the Middle East do provide language-and-culturally-appropriate lessons, yet these lessons are usually seasonal or thematic – they are not a comprehensive Bible curriculum for a local church to use over the course of a year or more of teaching.  Responding to this need as she worked for a local church as a children’s minister, Abla authored two years of comprehensive children’s ministry teaching curriculum, in Arabic, using local examples and expressions that will be familiar to teachers and children alike.  The primary aim of MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN EDUCATION FOUNDATION is to 

1) distribute this curriculum as widely as possible among Middle East Churches

2) train teachers to use it

3) continue to develop even more Middle East children’s ministry curriculum

In 2014, Abla’s curriculum (pictured below) was formally approved by the Jordan Council of Churches to be used in any church in Jordan (including Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox), and the Jordan National Library licensed/numbered Abla’s curriculum (the equivalent of getting an ISBN number in the USA).  MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN EDUCATION FOUNDATION is seeking similar recognition of Abla’s curriculum in as many other Middle East countries as possible. 

MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN EDUCATION FOUNDATION curriculum includes 104 weeks (2 years) of lessons.

Features of the MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIAN EDUCATION FOUNDATION curriculum:

Each lesson introduction includes:

1. Scripture passage

2. Memory verse

3. Main truth (what the child will take away)

4. Lesson summary (for the teacher and parents)

The teaching section of each lesson is divided into 5 interconnected parts

1. Activity (5-7 minutes)

2. The Lesson (10-12 minutes)

3. The Prayer (2 minutes)

4. The Discussion (10 minutes, includes questions and expected answers to help the teacher)

5. The Response (in-class response, 5-7 minutes, and at-home response)

• In addition to the lesson there are tips for the teacher found in the margins of the lesson

• The curriculum provides transition/focusing sentences for the teacher to say after the activity

• Each lesson reminds the teacher to have the Holy Bible open during the lesson, don’t just teach from the curriculum book, so as to help the children realize that what is the source of their learning.