Reformed Adult Sunday School Curriculum: How to Choose or Build One

A good Reformed Sunday School curriculum for adults keeps Scripture at the center, is faithful to your church's confession, follows a clear progression over several years, fits the teachers and the class you actually have, and is honest about its own theology. Those five tests apply whether you buy a curriculum or build one. Below are a checklist built on them, the main kinds of adult content, buying versus building, a sample multi-year cycle, and how to equip teachers and review each quarter.

What makes an adult curriculum Reformed?

Not the label on the cover. A curriculum is Reformed when it teaches what Scripture teaches as your church confesses it, in that order.

Scripture comes first. The Westminster Confession says the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary "for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life" is either expressly set down in Scripture or "by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture" (WCF 1.6). The 1689 London Baptist Confession calls Scripture "the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience" (LBCF 1.1). An adult class should leave having read the Bible, not only having read about it.

The confession comes second, as a faithful summary and a guardrail. It keeps a class from drifting toward the teacher's favorite themes, and it says ahead of time where your church stands on baptism, the covenant, the church and worship.

Many churches prefer material written without denominational distinctives, so it can serve congregations from many traditions. For them that breadth is a real strength. For a confessional church it means more adapting, because every curriculum takes positions, even when it does not name them.

A checklist for evaluating any curriculum

Run any series, bought or homemade, through these questions. It does not need a perfect score, but you should know where it falls short before the first Sunday.

Scripture at the center

1. Does each lesson start from a passage and stay with it, or does the text only launch the writer's topic?
2. Is the passage read in context, as its first readers would have heard it?
3. Do the applications grow out of the text, and does the lesson show how the passage points to Christ without forcing it?

Faithful to your confession

4. Does it agree with your confession where your church's teaching is distinctive: baptism, the Lord's Supper, the covenants, the church and its government?
5. Where it differs, can you adapt those lessons without rewriting the whole series?

A clear progression

6. Does each lesson build on the last, and does the series connect with what the class studied before and will study next?

A fit for your teachers and your class

7. Can your teachers prepare it well in the time they actually have?
8. Do the length and depth fit your calendar and your class, from new believers to members who have read for decades?
9. Do the discussion questions move from observation to interpretation to application?

Honest about its theology

10. Does the author or publisher state their theological commitments plainly?
11. Does it describe other positions as their own holders would?
12. Are its citations of Scripture and the confessions accurate when you check them?

Add the practical questions last: cost, permission to copy handouts, and whether the format works in your room.

What kinds of content belong in adult Sunday School?

Over several years, an adult class needs more than one kind of study.

• Books of the Bible. The backbone. Working through a book teaches adults to read Scripture for themselves and keeps the class from choosing only favorite topics.
• Doctrine, confession or catechism. Shows how Scripture's teaching fits together. The Shorter Catechism's own outline makes a strong frame: "what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man" (WSC Q. 3). For a full plan, see how to teach the Westminster Shorter Catechism to adults.
• Church history. Shows how God has kept his church and why the confessions say what they say. Tie it to Scripture so it does not become a lecture series.
• Christian living. Prayer, the Lord's Day, work, money, suffering. Useful, as long as the lessons rest on texts rather than tips.
• Apologetics and worldview. Helps adults answer questions from coworkers, children and their own doubts. Choose material that builds confidence in Scripture, not in clever arguments.
• Marriage and family. Serves couples and parents directly. Balance it so single members and widows are not left out of the year.

Should you buy a curriculum or build your own?

Both are sound choices. They cost different things.

Buy when your teachers need structure, when your week has no room for writing, or when a publisher you trust already covers the book or doctrine you want. Build when nothing available fits your confession or your class, when you want the class to follow the preaching, or when a gifted teacher also writes well.

Many churches land in between: they buy a good series and adapt it, cutting lessons, adding confessional references and rewriting applications. Either way, someone still has to read every lesson before it is taught.

How do you plan a multi-year cycle?

Paul reminded the Ephesian elders that he "did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27, ESV). No single quarter can do that. A cycle of several years can at least keep any part of Scripture or doctrine from being left out for good.

Here is one example of a three-year cycle, for a church that plans by quarters. It is an illustration, not a rule.

What matters is the pattern, not the particular books:

• Each year has an Old Testament book, a New Testament book, a doctrinal series and one other kind of study.
• Text and doctrine alternate, so neither crowds out the other.
• Shorter, lighter series go where your calendar is most interrupted, often the summer.
• A quarter has about 13 Sundays, but holidays, guest speakers and a review week need room, so plan 10 to 12 lessons.

Keep a simple record of what each adult class has studied, year by year. When someone suggests a new series, the record shows whether the class needs it now or studied it two years ago.

How do you equip lay teachers?

Christ gave shepherds and teachers "to equip the saints for the work of ministry" (Ephesians 4:11-12). Training your adult teachers is part of that work, and no curriculum can do it for you.

Lay teachers can learn to handle the main things of Scripture well. The Westminster Confession says the things necessary for salvation are so clear in Scripture "that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them" (WCF 1.7). Your teachers need those means, and your help.

• Give them the whole series first. The aim, the outline and where it fits in the cycle, before they prepare lesson one.
• Meet before each quarter. Read the main passages together and agree on the central point of each lesson.
• Teach a simple method. What does the text say, what does it mean, how does it point to Christ, and what does it ask of us?
• Stock a short shelf. A good study Bible, your confession and catechisms with Scripture proofs, and one reliable commentary on the book being taught.
• Let new teachers co-teach. A quarter beside an experienced teacher trains better than any manual.
• Visit and encourage. Sit in now and then, and follow up privately with specific encouragement and, where needed, correction.

Teaching in the church stays under the oversight of the elders (Acts 20:28). Bring them into decisions about who teaches and what material is used, so no one carries that weight alone.

How do you evaluate a curriculum after a quarter?

At the end of a quarter, ask whether the series did what it set out to do. Keep the review short and honest.

1. Ask the class. Can members state the main point of the series in a sentence or two? Which lesson helped most, and which confused them?
2. Ask the teachers. How long did preparation take? Which lessons needed the most correction or rewriting?
3. Check the theology. Did anything taught need to be corrected later, from the pulpit or in conversation?
4. Check the progression. Does this series prepare the class for what comes next in the cycle?
5. Decide. Keep the material as it is, keep it with changes, or replace it, and write down why.

Keep that note with your cycle record, where the elders and future teachers can use it.

What to do this week

• Write down what your adult classes have studied over the last two or three years.
• Run your current curriculum through the checklist and note its weakest test.
• Sketch the next four quarters, using the example cycle only as a starting point.
• Ask your teachers what they need from you before the next quarter begins.

If you build some of those quarters yourself, the Sunday School curriculum builder in Hokmah Expositor drafts a series overview and then each lesson, one at a time, from one of eight suggested tracks (among them Catechism Explained, 12 lessons on the Shorter Catechism) or your own theme, in 4 to 13 lessons. You choose the class (adults, couples, young adults, teens, catechumens or new members) and keep the lessons to Scripture alone or add a Westminster or 1689 layer. The drafts are for you to examine and adapt; you and your elders remain responsible for what is taught. The checklist and the cycle above work either way.

Sources

• Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1 (sections 6 and 7), The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, https://www.opc.org/wcf.html
• The Shorter Catechism, Q. 3, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, https://www.opc.org/sc.html
• The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scriptures," The Reformed Reader, https://reformedreader.org/ccc/1689lbc/english/Chapter01.htm