Bro. Duncan Sabean began teaching in the Meriden Sunday School in 1989, the year after he and Sis. Diane moved to Connecticut. Sis. Diane joined the Sunday school staff a year or two later. After teaching separate classes for a while, they joined forces and team taught for many more years. They have taught middle schoolers. They have taught beginning readers. Most recently they have won the hearts of our littlest children who flock around them with great admiration. Sunday school teaching has been a career occupation for them.
Bro. Duncan and Sis. Diane announced their retirement from teaching this year, and, at our end-of-year Sunday School Open House it all happened quite spontaneously: their former and present students who were in attendance rallied round for a group photograph. Included in the picture are two mothers with their children. One couple in the picture are engaged to be married. Also included are three young sisters who will, God willing, start their own careers as full-time Sunday school teachers next year.
When we teach the children, we don’t just teach a curriculum. We teach who we are as disciples of Christ. Eight of the eighteen students in the picture are now brothers and sisters in the ecclesia. The eagerness with which they joined together for the photograph tells its own story of who our brother and sister are and who they have been as teachers in the Sunday school.
It occurs to me that the “Teacher’s Prayer” is a fitting complement to this brief tribute:
“I want to teach my students how to walk in God’s pure way,
To live a life acceptable throughout each precious day;
Not just to learn the names of kings or how the crowds were fed,
But how to trust God’s Holy Word wherever they may tread.
To understand eternal truth and God’s great love to man,
To look to Jesus as their friend, and learn of God’s great plan.
For if these nurtured ones do grow in wisdom and in grace,
Then I shall feel that I have tried to humbly fill my place.
And so I ask your guidance, God, that I may do my part,
To teach these precious jewels of Thine to love Thee with all their heart.”
The author of this poem is unknown, but each dedicated Sunday school teacher rewrites its meaning in his or her own life.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One