Progressive Sunday School Curriculum

Like all of our ministry, family ministry at the Abbey is rooted in a progressive Christian tradition. This means using many different pronouns for God, not just masculine ones. It means avoiding the language of blame and sin and focusing on how the life and ministry of Jesus can serve as a guide for our spiritual lives. It means recognizing children as future community leaders by cultivating autonomy and responsibility in ministry programming. Most importantly, it means supporting children’s wellbeing throughout their lives by emphasizing social emotional awareness, social justice, and community connection.

Sharing the stories of our faith and supporting children’s spiritual formation is important work. We are familiar with the struggle to find accessible and genuinely progressive curriculum for our youth and families. Believe me, we have tried it all! Here you can find a full year’s worth of free, truly progressive curriculum for the youngest learners and leaders in your congregation. 

Each unit has four lessons around a specific theme and each lesson contains a children’s bible story, a picture book mentor text, and a craft. The units and the individual lessons within can be adapted and done in any order. They were designed for and implemented in our 30-minute, one-room Sunday school and we encourage you to adapt them to meet the needs of your group and your space. You can order the books we use for each unit through our website! Thank you for joining us in the work of making space for all young people to feel seen, heard, and connected with one another.

Unit One: What is An Abbey?

Rationale: This unit is designed to help youth get acquainted with the principles of hospitality, generosity, and connection, as well as the work of social justice in our United Methodist tradition. 

Objective: Students will be able to describe how an Abbey/church community can promote hospitality, generosity, connection, and social justice.

Unit Three: Caring for God’s Creation

Rationale: This unit is designed in alignment with the Lent season to help students explore Lent and springtime as a time for appreciating and protecting our natural world. These lessons explore creation, different conceptions of the Earth as sacred, growth, and environmental equity.

Objective: Students will be able to describe how they can appreciate and advocate for God’s creation—our planet Earth!

Unit Two: The Nature of God

Rationale: This unit is designed to help students understand the expansive nature of God, beyond traditional masculine conceptions, as well as the ways they might feel God’s presence, and be part of God’s love. Students are invited to explore different ways of imagining and experiencing God—there is no one correct way to be in connection with God.

Objective: Students will understand that people can imagine and experience God in different ways. Students will be able to describe and practice different ways to live in and through God’s love.