When directing a cm that had a director before you – How to evaluate or establish curriculum

Your Question:

“I am directing a CM that had a CM director before me. How do I establish, or evaluate, the CM curriculum?”

The Issues:

Evaluating or changing the CM curriculum can cause issues within the entire ministry. If the ministry has been operating with the same curriculum for over a year, it is possible that the CM team is comfortable with it. Being comfortable with the curriculum is not necessarily a bad thing, but this “comfort” can become “discomfort” in the face of changes.

Scripture Foundation:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”  2 Timothy 2:15

Short Answer:

The The CM curriculum is the foundation for the ministry. Ideally, called, gifted, faithful CM team members use the curriculum to guide their interactions with the children. It’s true that God doesn’t “need” a printed curriculum to communicate through the CM team members to the children; but the value of a curriculum is that it sets a unified plan for lessons in every age group. Without a curriculum, the CM team members could teach anything they want to. As a CM director, you need the control that a curriculum provides to understand what the children are being taught. A formal curriculum is also a valuable tool to use in communicating to parents or grandparents what their children will learn from week to week. If the CM director before you used a curriculum, it is not too challenging to evaluate the current curriculum in light of what the Lord has shown you to do as the new CM director. If the director before you didn’t use a formal, printed curriculum, you have a more challenging task of establishing a new CM curriculum. It is important to understand that the “curriculum” isn’t just the printed lesson plans that a publisher provides. The “curriculum” is anything you use to communicate the lesson!  Under this definition, you can view the Bible, printed lesson, video clips, songs, testimonies, stories, field trips, crafts, visuals, object lessons, guests, or Zoom visits as “curriculum.” A strong CM curriculum doesn’t just include a lesson plan from a publisher, it includes various experiences through which the children receive the lesson.  So, when evaluating the curriculum, you must evaluate all that is being done in the time that you have the children. In evaluating the current curriculum, there are six global questions to guide your evaluation: 1) Is the curriculum biblically based? 2) Is the curriculum interesting and applicable to the specific ages of the children? 3) Does the curriculum provide ancillary support for the lesson (visuals, stories, craft ideas, interactive suggestions, role-play ideas, real-life application suggestions, etc.)? 4) Does the curriculum use a “scope and sequence” to develop a big picture of the children’s experiences from preschool through upper elementary ages? 5) Does the curriculum provide parent communication and support for each lesson? 6) Does the curriculum include teacher training elements to assist the CM team in its use? These six areas are critical factors in evaluating or establishing a CM curriculum. If you need to establish a CM curriculum for the first time, click here to visit the establishing a curriculum page. For more help, click on the links below.

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