The Lab Kit
Everything you need to start your own teaching labs
What is a Teaching Lab?
A place to teach the Bible and receive a coaching.
An opportunity to practice and grow in the skill of Bible teaching.
A safe place to try new things.
A way to discover help teachers discover their unique voice.
A training ground to test teachers before sending them out.
THE GOAL OF LAB
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Learning to teach is scary! Plus there are so many gifted communicators out there. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re not good enough or that someone else could do it better. And most of us are afraid to get it wrong, theologically and in delivery. But we believe more local teachers are needed! So we're here to cheer you on. Now, we’ll shoot you straight—if we really think you’re not gifted at this, we’ll let you know. Teaching isn’t for everyone. BUT, most teachers we encounter ARE gifted to teach; they just need some confidence. We want to give you the encouragement to teach with boldness and confidence!
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Most of the time, a teacher has no idea where they are uniquely gifted. You might be great at observing the text or illustrating it. You might be great at summarizing passages of scripture or maybe you’re a great story teller. Part of our job is to identify what you are uniquely gifted at so you have even more confidence to lean in there. The same goes for weaknesses. Everyone has places that just don't come as naturally. We identify those weak spots and help provide direction for how to strengthen those areas and remind you why it matters to do so.
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We see ourselves as coaches, not critics. So as problem areas are addressed, we’re also looking to provide clear and measurable steps forward. We’ll provide some ideas to try, some new ways to use your notes, resources to check out, a possible practice to do at home.
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We’re aware that God is often calling people into teaching for their own sanctification as much as anything else. And we don't want to ignore that aspect but instead provide holistic coaching and care for you in this journey. That means sometimes we will address motivational issues or talk through your fears and insecurities.
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We've heard it said that it takes 200x of teaching to find your own voice. We hope to shorten that through labs by identifying what makes each teacher unique. We want to provide the courage for you to embrace exactly who God made you to be as a teacher.
Read this First!
The Lab Guide is your one-stop-shop for all things Lab! The why, what, and the how are all covered here. Make sure you read this at least once before you start your labs. In this guide you’ll learn:
step-by-step instructions to run your first lab
a check list of needed items
how to facilitate a lab including what to say at the beginning and end of lab
guardrails you need to keep lab a safe place for ongoing growth
Feedback Form
We designed our feedback form to provide the structure and questions to make sure you can give helpful and quality feedback to anyone teaching in a lab. You might consider printing a bunch of these because you’ll use one per teacher in each lab.
What does quality feedback look like?
We’ve taken all the guess work out of this question and provided you with clear steps to giving the feedback that encourages and challenges growing teachers.
Watch a Lab
Coaching with Lindsay and Kelly
One of the best ways to grow is to watch others do it! We’ve saved some labs (plus our feedback forms) for you to watch and learn.