Nathanael — Personal Site

Over 1,000,000 unique monthly visitors have viewed rfour.org since I launched it in the fall of 2011!

I’m humbled by these numbers but also not too surprised. The most difficult task, by far, as a Director of Christian Education is constructing a curriculum from preschool through graduation that is only taught once a week by volunteers to a student-body whose attendance rates and beliefs vary wildly.

The content on the rfour.org site is primarily a by-product of the teaching content I created during my twelve years as Director of Child, Youth, and Family Ministries at various UCC churches as I sought to solve for that most difficult task. The site contains just over 200 lesson plans as well as 150 children’s sermons, some mission trip resources, content for a confirmation retreat, and a guide/script for a “No Rehearsal Christmas Pageant” worship service.

Each of these lessons, children’s sermons, and other available resources were created and used by me. And now, those same resources are available for others via the rfour.org site free of charge and free of ads.

There are two advantages that my lessons provide that other lessons weren’t providing at the time (and many still are not providing):

Every word is written: Since the teachers are volunteers and since everyone is busy these days, it’s hard to find volunteers. And even if you have a lot of volunteers, they sometimes don’t feel qualified to teach a certain lesson. Also, they sometimes call-in sick, usually 15 minutes before the class begins. The solution to these issues? Provide a lesson plan with every single word that the teacher needs to say. Every instruction, every question, every Bible story, and every statement is provided. Obviously, the students will ask questions that cannot be anticipated, but for the most part, each of my lessons can be taught by reading the lesson directly to the students (if need be). This approach puts volunteers at ease in terms of being “qualified”, it allows for easy substitutions if a volunteer calls in sick. Just as, if not more, importantly: By having each lesson written out, you (as a director in charge of curriculum) know what was (generally speaking) taught that day in class – which allows you to build on what was taught from week to week (for the regular attendees).
Teach the story, not the beliefs: The other advantage my lessons provide are a Bible story-centric approach that teaches the story rather than a theology. Each lesson centers on a Bible story (because stories are much “stickier” than a Psalm or an excerpt from a letter) that then explains the plot, often explores character choices, and, for older grades, will sometimes refer to parallel situations in other faith stories. I wanted my students to understand what happened in the faith story, what the characters chose, and what the results of those choices were in terms of the character’s life, their relationship with others, and their relationship with God. I wanted lessons that highlighted why and how the characters in the faith stories chose to improve or neglect their relationship with God. That way the theology being discussed in class is centered on the characters’ beliefs instead of around the teacher’s beliefs and/or what the student believes (or doesn’t believe). Another unexpected benefit to this approach is that educators from all denominations can use my lessons. Since my lessons do not teach beliefs, there is very little in my lessons that directly challenges existing belief systems. And, if teaching a belief system is important to an educator, that approach can always be added, by that teacher, to my lessons.

What happens when you apply the ancient, cross-cultural symbol for chaos (which is “water” or “bodies of water”) to six well-known Bible stories? A fresh and deeper understanding of the story emerges.

That is the premise of Chaos & the Kingdom. Written for small groups and individual readers alike, Chaos & the Kingdom is a dialogical exploration of six familiar Bibles stories where water as a symbol of chaos is included in the interpretation.

It’s a surprising and surprisingly fun read. You can learn more about it (and purchase it!) HERE.

ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS

Writing and self-publishing the book was a four year journey. Using the source material written by my co-author, I organized, edited, and rewrote his work to fit into a book format to be read and discussed by small groups. I had put a good year into writing it and thought I was making good progress. But as I would read through it to make sure the chapters were refined and referring to each other correctly, I was realizing something somewhat disturbing. A book with “Chaos” in the title should be at least a little riveting, right? Instead, it was a dry and dull book. Stunningly dull, actually. In my disappointment, I put the project to the side for a few months. When I came back to it, not only was it still boring, it also defied attempts to be less boring. No matter what I did, I couldn’t overcome the dullness of the thing.

One night, after rereading and re-editing for the upteenth time, my frustration boiled over and I started to write insults at myself in the margins. Once I got going, it was tough to stop. I was slinging some clever criticisms at my own writing and it was invigorating! No wonder there are so many critics – it’s fun!

The next day, though, as I reread my comments, I felt like my criticism was unfair. So I responded to some of my more aggressive comments. Mostly in a defensive way. But I tried to make my case.

And, thus, the dialogical style of the book was born.

Learning to use two voices was its own challenge. At first, the two voices argued too much. And then they agreed too much. Also, the second voice kept pulling the first voice off-topic. All of that, though, was fun and not boring. Eventually, I realized each voice was actually a character (the teacher and the skeptic) and my task, then, was to develop the characters (or not), as they moved through the book.

ABOUT THE THEOLOGY

One of the things this world doesn’t need is more bad theology. Personally, I think the worst theology is the theology that thinks it is the correct one.

And, since Chaos & the Kingdom is, ultimately, a book of theology, I had a problem to solve: How to present theological material that didn’t present itself as the correct one.

By applying a second voice, a voice that poked at and challenged, I was able to present new ideas without equivocation (via the teacher voice) while giving the reader permission to question what was presented (via the voice of the skeptic).

ABOUT THE AUDIENCE AND MARKETING

The intended readers were church members in small study groups who were looking for another resource to read and discuss. The structure of each chapter was to help small group facilitators lead their group through each session (one session per chapter) including questions at the end of each chapter to encourage conversation. The book can still be read by an individual, but ultimately, the idea was for small groups to read the book and discuss it.

But, sometimes, you miss the mark. That’s what happened for me with the book because I didn’t appreciate how different the subject matter in the book was in relation to the makeup of small groups in churches.

Knowing what I know now, this book is for a very specific reader. It is for the individual who has a relationship with the divine but wants more, even to the point of being willing to re-think and re-arrange their understandings of the divine. While these individuals can be found in small groups, small groups are not comprised of a majority of these individuals.

In retrospect, with a different audience identified, I would have titled the book in a way that highlighted the result of the contents instead of the contents themselves, something like, “A new theology for believers who think something is missing” and would then market it accordingly. I would have also structured each chapter towards that type of reader instead of towards a reader in a small group.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS ABOUT THE BOOK

I’m thankful for the experience of writing and publishing a book. So much of it was like moving a software project from idea to launch, but the work was all incumbent upon me: The identifying of ideas, the organizing of the ideas, the structuring of the book, the actual writing, the creative problem solving within the writing, the trial runs, the adjustments based on the feedback from the trial runs, the final editing, finding art for the cover, the process of self-publishing, the marketing, the actual selling of the book and everything else was, in its own unique way, exhilarating. If I hadn’t written book at this point in my life, I’d be very frustrated and disappointed with myself for not having written one, yet. However, now that I have written one, I’ll be quite content to never do it again! But, it might still happen. Sometimes, the power of expression overpowers the appreciation of free time.