BRiefs

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Do We Need a Bible Teachers Association?

If you teach Bible—in Sunday school or high school, in a discussion group of adults or anywhere else—you have no organization within which to share your concerns and interests, to learn what’s new in your field, to sharpen your skills or to press others to support your needs so that your teaching will be more effective.

The Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) would like to remedy that situation. But it is really up to you.

We would like to create under our auspices, and affiliated with BAS, an Association of Bible Teachers (ABT).

This is not for Bible scholars. They already have a very effective organization. This is for people who teach Bible and archaeology in a non-university and non-seminary setting (although we would not exclude anyone who wishes to join us). This is for people who teach Bible to, well, just people.

Whether ABT will ever be organized is up to you. We are looking for a small group of people from allover the country, people who teach Bible in various settings, but primarily people with vision, dedication, energy and a willingness to do all the unpleasant tasks—from licking envelopes to asking people for money—involved in creating a new organization. In short, we are looking for an organizing committee.

What will ABT do?

It could organize regional conventions where talks would be given by master teachers, as well as by recognized scholars. But that would be up to you.

It could have a national convention where thousands of members would gather. But that would be up to you.

At the regional conventions and/or national convention, an exhibit hall could display all the new books for teaching at our level, all the new teaching aids from coloring books to slide sets to Videos to archaeological replicas. But whether the conventions would include exhibits would be up to you.

ABT could have a variety of committees to address special concerns of our members from teaching Bible in the public schools, to programs for bringing different denominations together, to pay scales and pensions, to how to find a full-time position, to relations between those who accept the Bible literally and those who do not, to, well, you name it. It’s up to you.

ABT could have a page or more in BR or its companion magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, as a newsletter of its activities and ideas. But that is up to you.

There is obviously much more that ABT could do, but that depends on your imagination, dedication and creativity.

What will BAS do? We will serve as an organizing secretariat. We will provide advice and guidance—which may be accepted or rejected! We will even under-write the initial expenses.

If you are interested in being on the organizing committee, please write to us with your ideas and interests at Association of Bible Teachers, Biblical Archaeology Society, 3000 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008. Please don’t volunteer unless you are wholly dedicated to this project, recognizing that it will take a major effort on your part. If there is sufficient interest, we will fly a small group of participants to Washington for an initial meeting—after first developing an agenda by telephone, FAX and modem.

The rest will be up to you. But we will be behind you all the way.

Do We Need a Bible Teachers Association? If you teach Bible—in Sunday school or high school, in a discussion group of adults or anywhere else—you have no organization within which to share your concerns and interests, to learn what’s new in your field, to sharpen your skills or to press others to support your needs so that your teaching will be more effective. The Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) would like to remedy that situation. But it is really up to you. We would like to create under our auspices, and affiliated with BAS, an Association of Bible Teachers (ABT). […]