Hardly a day passes that we don't receive more subscriptions to our FREE e-Teacher Digest. Annette Jackson heads up that effort by gathering information to be included in each month's newsletter. She is always looking for new products (ours and from other publishers as well) that might make a Bible school teacher's job easier and more productive.
Current trends and news that affect teachers and ministry leaders are gathered from a variety of sources. We know that your time is valuable, so we do the research and offer a condensed version of the news. We always try to include links so you can dig deeper on any articles of special interest.
e-Teacher Digest also keeps you up-to-date on what 21st Century Christian is doing to support Bible school teachers across the country with workshops and teacher training. Host congregations would love to have you participate in one of their teacher training events and there is typically no charge for attendees.
We hope this newsletter encourages you, informs you, and even makes you laugh occasionally. So sign up by clicking on the e-Teacher Digest logo on our home page and encourage fellow teachers to do the same. You should receive your copy on the 21st of each month. Back issues are available by clicking on "archives" at the upper right of the newsletter. Annette would welcome any input or information that you would like to submit - annettej@21stcc.com

The following is reprinted from the Hillsboro Herald via a Jacksonville church bulletin.

Every day should be "Thanksgiving Day," but at this special time of year, perhaps more than at other times, our thoughts turn to the many ways God blesses all of us every day.

• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the one million who will not survive this week.
• If you can attend a worship service without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.
• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
• If you can read these words, you are more blessed than over two million people in the world who cannot read anything at all.

I received the following in an email today.  I thought is was a bit humorous.


This is dedicated to those born 1930-1979 — to all the kids who SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who, while they were pregnant, took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored, lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.  Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, and real butter, and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day.  And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes!  After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes -- no video games at all. No 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound , CD's or Ipods, no cell phones! No personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms — WE HAD FRIENDS, and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.  We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

As the Data Compiler for CHURCHES OF CHRIST in the UNITED STATES,  I have encountered various misconceptions about this publication.  One such is that there is a fee involved to have one's congregation listed in the book, or that a purchase must be made.  Since 21st Century Christian has been the publisher of this work (starting with the 1997 edition), this has never been the case, and it probably never will be.

The information is this book comes from many different sources.  The most valued is that which comes directly from members of the congregation—those "in the know."  Unfortunately, there are a number of churches that we have not heard from in many years.  Even if nothing has changed, it is good to hear from someone because the greater the response rate, the more accurate the data.

Have you checked what we have for your congregation lately?  You can do that online right now through the Look Up / Submit Changes link found at http://www.21stcc.com/cocus.cfm.

JUST RELEASED!

The Armor of God (the latest in the Tell Me the Story series by Bill Rasco and Casandra Martin) is now available.  To place an order or to learn more about this exciting, personal study book, click here...

A last minute call for a K-1st grade substitute teacher Sunday morning yielded another opportunity for God to prove Himself strong. The LifeLINKS to God lesson would be a quick fill-in since the regular Bible class teacher had the material with her and nothing was at the building except an extra teacher manual. With barely seven minutes to prepare, there was little time to waste. After quickly writing out the words, Hook, Book, Look, Took (which correspond with the 4 steps of the lesson) on a sheet of paper, and scanning the Hook suggestion in the teacher manual, reading the Luke 10:25-37 passage in my Bible, glancing at the Took portion of the lesson, I jotted down some key conclusion ideas, and breathed a quick prayer for guidance.

Sixteen to twenty students could pour into the classroom any moment. With two tables with space for eight students each, I was certainly not ready for a full class. Five minutes after class was to start we had only six students at one table. We spread out in the room to participate in the Hook activity identifying who is my neighbor in different scenarios. At that point three more students came into the classroom.

When we were ready to come back to the table for the Bible lesson, the original six went back to their table, and the latecomers, two girls and a boy sat at the other table.  As a matter of equity, I asked if someone from the group of six would “be neighborly” and relocate to the second table. After an awkward pause, one girl gave up her prized spot at the first table to sit with the three late-comers, one of which was a visitor. This was a sacrifice for this bubbly, popular girl to relocate to unclear turf, a table with a visitor and a shy boy. 

What happened in the classroom from then on was not of my doing but truly of the Holy Spirit. As teachers we would like to see some sign, ever so slight, of a glimmer in our students’ responses that would indicate they are not merely rote-responding, but that the Look and Took portion of the lesson yields some flash of “this is how I want to live.”

It is important to note: just at the time we were discussing how we can be a neighbor and show mercy, like the Samaritan in Luke 10, we were identifying who, when, and where we could show mercy. Most responses were “This week I could…” “Oh, teacher, this week I could…”
It was about that time I noticed a boy at the first table who seemed to appear uneasy. I actually thought, bless his heart, he has endured a last-minute lesson and the end of his attention span is near. I asked again, “What would be another time we could do a neighborly act of love and mercy, even in the next ten minutes?”  Without a word, the young boy stood up, and moved over to the second table. His action was a deliberate response to the Word of God touching his heart. He did not look to me for approval. He merely moved to the other table, made himself at home.  God is good!

I called his mother and together, we cried tears of thankfulness for a little heart touched by a teaching of our Lord. Let us never grow discouraged regarding the power of the living Word working in these little heads and hearts. Let us give God the glory, and not sell Him short in His capability to yield fruit in these little ones.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11

Shared by Lanae West of Northwest Church of Christ in Westminster, CO