LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Page 276

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276 PARISH SERVICES

correlates its lessons with the major church-year festivals—
Christmas, Lent/Easter, and Pentecost. It covers the narrative
portions of the entire Scriptures in a three-year cycle of lessons.
(Thus learners deal with the basic Bible narratives approxi-
mately three times in their experience in grades 1 to 8.)

The same basic design, format, and approach is being used
for the second-cycle revision of NLIC, which began with the
fall quarter of 1979. The revised materials incorporate helpful
suggestions from users and include new art and new or
rewritten lessons wherever required. They also include these
new features: (1) Teachers Guide helps on working with special
children and on mission education. (2) A four-page parents
guide inserted into each student Study Guide. (3) Seven
handbooks, “Guides for Workers in the Sunday School.’ These
provide helps, departmentally, for Sunday school teachers and
leaders and may also serve as texts fora short, departmentally
designed, teacher-training program. (4) Primary (grades 1 and
2) take-home, story-paper magazine, Story Time. Story Time
takes its place alongside Happy Times, the monthly magazine
for preprimaries, My Devotions, the monthly devotional maga-
zine for grades 3 to 8, and Interaction, the magazine for Sunday
school teachers.

The preprimary (ages 3 to 5) Life in Christ material
continues to be available to provide a complete New Life in
Christ program for nursery (age 3) to junior high (grade 8)
pupils. Like the elementary-grade materials, the preprimary
materials are Bible-story based, uniform (same Bible story on
nursery and kindergarten levels), group-graded, and correlated
with the major church-year festivals.

In response to St. Louis (1979) Res. 7-15, the board is now
planning a New Life in Christ program for preprimary (nursery
and kindergarten) levels. These new materials would be group-
graded and uniform in Bible content with the NLIC elementary
materials to the extent that suitability of grading for the three-
year-old allows. (The present revised LIC has some 100 Bible
stories for three-year-olds. A three-year cycle would add another
50.)

Like the other NLIC levels, NLIC for nursery and kinder-
garten would include these media: Teachers Guide (one guide
for N and K); Student Guide or leaflet (one for N, one for K);
Learners Activity Packet (one for N, one for K); Teachers
Packet (one for N, one for K).

B. Mission:Life

Mission:Life Green (Sunday school) preprimary materials,
continue to be available. These materials were first published
with the fall quarter of 1976 and are thus more recent than the
1971-published revision of Lifein Christ for preprimary classes.
M:L Green preprimary materials are available on three levels:
nursery (for threes), prekindergarten (for fours), kindergarten
(for fives). Lesson plans for all three levels follow a Bible-story
approach organized around unit themes. Materials are pub-
lished in a reusable teachers kit and consumable parent/
learners packets.

The Blue (day school) Mission:Life program and The Red
(weekday school) M:L program continue to be used by a large
proportion of the Synod’s elementary and weekday schools.
They will continue to be available until new materials for day
and weekday schools in the new Word of Life program replace
them.

C. Eternal Word

That’s the title of the new day/weekday curriculum. Christ
Himself, is at the center of this curriculum. It is, therefore, a
Bible-based curriculum relating the Word to the life of the
learner in today’s world.

As in the days of the early church, we too live “‘in the midst
of acrooked and perverse generation.” Our call, too, is to “shine
as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of Life” (Phil.
2:15-16). Eternal Word materials will help learners hold fast the
Word and share it with others. Plans call for the publication of
two grade levels each spring, for fall use, beginning with
grades 7 and 8 this spring (1981). Eighth-grade courses (now
available): Called to Believe—for use in weekday AND day
schools. Sixty lessons on the Six Chief Parts, teaching each in
the traditional sequence, plus a 12-lesson unit on “My Church
and Others”—my part in the local congregation; and wit-
nessing to ‘‘—isms” of our day. Called to Follow—designed

especially for day schools. A study of the Gospel of Matthew in
72 lessons. The unifying theme is What it means to bea disciple
of Christ.

Seventh-grade courses (now available): Called to Belong—
designed for use in weekday AND day schools. Sixty lessons on
the Catechism, focusing on the baptized child as a member of
God’s family, the church, and 12 lessons on worship. Called to
Witness—designed especially for day schools. Seventy-two
lessons on the history of the church from the Book of Acts to the
present.

Course Features: Each course in the series (grades 1 through
8) will have acombined text/workbook of 224 pages, 8'2"x 11”,
two-color, profusely illustrated; a teachers guide of 240 pages,
82" x 11”, one-color. Teachers guides will contain facsimile
pages of the student books for easy reference, including
answers to all student-book exercises and activities. Each
course will consist of 72 lessons. (Weekday schools, which
sometimes have a shorter school year than the day schools,
may concentrate on the 60-session unit in the course books
designed for weekday schools.)

Sixth-grade courses (available in spring 1982 for fall use):
Course A—for use in weekday and day schools. Twelve lessons
overviewing the nature and content of the Bible, including
skills for using the Bible for study and personal growth. Plusa
60-lesson survey of Bible history. Course B—especially for day
schools. Twelve lessons preparing students to cope with other
religions and Christian denominations; 8 lessons on the
Intertestamental Period; 28 lessons on the Holy Spirit and His
work (a study of 1 Corinthians 12-15 and selected chapters of
Hebrews, Romans, and Ephesians); 24 lessons on worship (the
Lord’s Prayer, liturgy, personal and corporate prayer, etc.).

Fifth-grade courses (available in spring 1982): Course A—
for weekday and day schools. Twelve lessons on the Refor-
mation. A 60-lesson unit that reviews Old Testament prophe-
cies (8 lessons) and provides an intensive study of the Gospel of
Luke (52 lessons). For congregations that practice first Com-
munion in grade 5, the unit includes a special emphasis on the
Second Article and on the Lord’s Supper. Course B—especially
for day schools. Twelve lessons on Reformation themes
(freedom in Philemon; grace and evangelism in Jonah, etc.).
Sixteen lessons on significant New Testament people. A 12-
lesson unit on selected chapters of Galatians. Thirty-two
lessons on “My Life with Jesus” (including a study of Baptism
and Office of the Keys and Confession).

Available in spring 1983 for fall use: New third- and fourth-
grade courses. Available in spring 1984 for fall use: New first-
and second-grade courses.

Preliminary plans call for the development of new curricular
materials for day schooland weekday school kindergarten and
high school levels in 1985 and 1986.

D. Magazines

With the addition of the Story Time take-home paper for
first- and second-graders, the staff now prepares and edits a
magazine for every age level. Happy Times, for ages 3tod,isa
monthly take-home magazine correlated with the themes of the
preprimary Sunday school lessons. It thus continues a home
program begun with the resources of the Concordia Nursery
Roll Program Packet for children from birth to age 3. After
Story Time, the growing child of grades 3 to 8 has available My
Devotions, amonthly magazine of daily devotions. Teen Time,
amonthly (October to May) devotional and inspirational maga-
zine, is published for the visually impaired and the blind. Teen
Time is funded by the Board for Missions, written and edited by
a BPE editor, and distributed by the Lutheran Library for the
Blind (large-print edition) and the American Printing House
for the Blind (Braille edition).

Plans to produce meditational/devotional resources for
youth have temporarily been set aside because of an insuf-
ficient number of editorial staff members.

E. Materials for Special Classes

In the past biennium the board has continued its outreach
to handicapped persons (blind, deaf, mentally retarded, and
learning disabled). A new series of lessons for leading low-
functioning youth and adults to the rite of confirmation, for use
in congregations and institutions, is scheduled for summer
1981 publication. Series II and III of Bible Lessons for Special