Pastor Mathew Staneck of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Glendale has brought back the parish’s Sunday school in an effort to more effectively communicate the church’s message to kids while keeping them engaged during the process. Staneck made sure to note the new plan “is not your granddad’s Sunday school,” as the specific curriculum avoids the traditionally mundane format of lectures and memorization.
The Sunday school is free and meets every week at 10:30 a.m. after morning service. The approximately 30-minute lessons are open to everyone of all faiths, though they preach the teachings of Jesus Christ and are most closely aligned with Protestantism.
“One of the things we kept hearing is just a lack of Sunday school materials and curriculum that really meet kids where they’re at, really meet kids where they’re at. And I guess a lot of experiences for people when it comes to church or Sunday school is talking to people kind of above their heads,” Staneck said.
Staneck decided to use a program designed by the New York-based non-profit Storymakers, which offers a variety of materials on many of the Bible’s biggest stories, such as the flood, Exodus and the story of creation. The materials include board games, picture books, coloring books and informational skits with kids their own age; all in an effort to live up to St. John’s motto, “Feed My Lambs.”
“What do kids want to do? They want to play. So the way that the scriptural story or the word of God gets into the students is through little skits where the kids take little parts that kind of embody the story,” Staneck said.
St. John’s converted part of the church into its new classroom, which Staneck dubbed the “pray ground,” by taking out pews and adding appropriately sized furniture to an area to be used for the arts and crafts included with Storymaker’s curriculum.
St. John’s has a long history in Queens, as the Glendale congregation began as an offshoot from the church of the same name on Watcher St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is over 180 years old. Staneck joined the church about 9 years ago after completing his studies in Manhattan and has since come to appreciate Glendale for its neighbors and the residential aspect of the area after having lived in Chinatown.
St. John’s goal is to help parents communicate their own lessons by supplementing the children’s understanding of the world and morals, as opposed to overriding it. Staneck fondly remembers the Sunday school he attended while growing up in Islip, Long Island, which inspired him to become a pastor and reinstitute a school at his own church. Staneck has two children of his own, 8 and 4 years old, who attend the Sunday school and hopes other parents see its value amid the many extracurricular activities open to families living in New York.
“We have nothing to really bring to the table, and God in Christ gives us all things. That leads us to continue in the Word, but also to love our neighbor. The Lutheran faith is very big on, you know, loving your neighbor as yourself— the golden rule,” Staneck said. “But because we’ve approached God as beggars and we’ve received all good things from God in Christ, what do we do with our time, with our hands and feet? We love our neighbors because we’re not worried about where we stand before God, and so we can lend a hand to our neighbors.”
