Customization. This is what I love doing…it might be the artist in me or perhaps I’m just picky when it comes to things I really care about. One of those things is curriculum. Catch up with postings #1 and #2 if your just now joining me about curriculum. The clock is ticking for some of you and may need curriculum for your students and leaders in the school year ahead!
I used LIVE curriculum last year, and my current middle school guy at Gateway is using XP3 from the folks that help put together the Orange conference and tour each year. I remember this stuff from when I first attended the Orange conference in Atlanta some years back. Now that I have my hands on it, I gotta say, not too shabby! Like I said, I love to customize things and XP3 does give you the ability to do that. I’m teaching from their curriculum this upcoming Sunday…a lesson on God dwelling with us. Though I like the meat of the message there are some things I could do without and some of my own life story I’d like to add. Well, it comes in a word document and you can move around as much as you want!
The LIVE curriculum is very similar in giving you a PDF and Word document for both your message and your small group questions. You can also have many topics and series to pick from – plenty to customize your own school year, even for each specific grade!
If you are thinking about writing your own curriculum…I’d advise against it, my team tried this a few years back. Unless you have tons of extra time to devote, it becomes a black hole of pages, fonts, and writing. Plus, there are people already giving every day to this stuff – LIVE, Xp3, others you may add to the list. In my book, leave it to the professionals and find one that fits my ministry best.
Happy curriculum shopping!
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I haven’t found any curriculum which I found useful beyond giving me a text associated with a subject/theme and possibly a nicely constructed BIG IDEA. Beyond that, I find almost all curriculum extremely frustrating for me to use, and as a student pastor it’s frustrating to give to my leaders since I haven’t found one which seems conducive for helping lay leaders make it their own. I was straight up confused by some XP3 lessons which were written in the first person and included personal stories from the writer.
Of the three student ministry classes I currently have (5th-6th, 7th-8th, and High School), only the 5th-6th graders are using a set curriculum.
I haven’t tried LIVE yet.