FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>  
Jesus Christ stands out in startling relief. Though God comes to a soul in a marked way during Adolescence, nurture is taking a dangerous and often fatal risk in allowing life, as far as human effort can go, to enter its crisis without Him. The spiritual awakening of this period (to be considered in the succeeding chapter) would seem to be God's call to larger service, rather than His first summons to "Follow Me." With the Master's authority to let the children come, and with every condition in child life God prepared for their coming, there is no tenable position but belief that our Father meant every life to enter its period of "storm and stress," in step with Jesus Christ. APPLICATION TO SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK Sunday School work during Adolescence and maturity lays less emphasis upon methods and equipment than in the earlier periods, and more emphasis on the personal relation between teacher and pupil. For this reason the preceding study, in so far as it interprets the lives of the boys and girls, applies directly to Sunday School work, for a sympathetic understanding is the key to the relationship. "There is no greater blessing that can come to a boy (or girl) at this age when he does not understand himself, than a good, strong teacher who understands him, has faith in him, and will day by day lead him till he can walk alone." Far more than a pedagogue, the adolescent needs a friend in his Sunday School teacher, who shares his ambitions, knows his temptations, sympathizes with his successes and failures and, through it all, trusts him. This understanding and confidence, made long-suffering and tender by the love that never fails, will be a binding cord that can not be broken even by the most restless, wayward life. Because of the close relationship to be sought between teacher and pupil, other things being equal, it is wise for a class of boys to be taught by a man, and girls by a woman. The counsel of one who has passed through the same experiences and known the same temptations and difficulties always comes with especial helpfulness. But the question of sex is not as vital as that of sympathy, nor the manner of previous experience as the manner of present love. The new consciousness of distinction will make the class work difficult, if there is any marked difference in the social standing of its members. The leader must be won to the right attitude in private, the appeal being based on personal feeling for
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   >>  



Top keywords:
teacher
 

Sunday

 

School

 
temptations
 
personal
 
emphasis
 

manner

 

relationship

 

Adolescence

 

marked


understanding
 
period
 

Christ

 

confidence

 

suffering

 

tender

 

successes

 

failures

 

shares

 

sympathizes


binding
 

ambitions

 

friend

 
trusts
 

pedagogue

 
adolescent
 
understands
 

taught

 

distinction

 

difficult


consciousness

 

sympathy

 
previous
 
experience
 

present

 
difference
 

social

 

private

 

attitude

 

appeal


feeling

 

standing

 
members
 

leader

 
sought
 
things
 

Because

 

broken

 
restless
 

wayward