It's around this time each year that many people are busy planning and preparing to serve the youngest members of their church for another 12 months.

These gracious people are, of course, our Sunday School teachers. And, week-in, week-out, their role is to help children become wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:15).

That's why we're excited to announce the recent arrival of the final three instalments of the Teaching Little Ones series—just in time for the beginning of Term 1 (in Australia; in the UK and US release will be in March 2007).

The Teaching Little Ones syllabus is a six-year curriculum designed for children ages 2-8. It provides everything Sunday School teachers need each week: lesson plans, story scripts, prayers, activities and craft ideas. The six CD-ROMs each contain one year's worth of material (i.e. 40 lessons per year):

1. ‘First Steps’ (for ages 2-3)
2. ‘Learning about God’ (for ages 3-5)
3. ‘Introducing the Bible’ (for ages 3-5)
4. ‘Promises’ (for ages 5-8)
5. ‘Kingship’ (for ages 5-8)
6. ‘Salvation’ (for ages 5-8)

The latest CD-ROMs (numbers 4-6) represent a unique approach to teaching the Bible to young children, relying heavily on biblical theology to show the development of key themes—promise and fulfilment, kingship, and God's salvation of his people—in both the Old and New Testaments. Full details of the syllabus (and sample lessons) can be found at www.matthiasmedia.com.au/tlo/.

The material is being provided in electronic form, and this has two significant advantages: (a) lessons can be easily distributed to teachers by email, and (b) for each lesson, teachers can choose from a selection of activity ideas, and need only print off activities they are using. In other words, the electronic format gives users much greater flexibility than would be achievable through paper-based curriculum distribution. (In total there are over 3,000 A4 pages of material on the six CD-ROMs. This would never be viable for traditional paper publishing.)

Written by Stephanie Carmichael (author of Their God is so BIG, a guide to teaching Sunday School to young children) and illustrated by several talented artists, the Teaching Little Ones curriculum offers biblically sound and age-appropriate lessons based on the following principles:

• that Sunday School ministry is fundamentally about teaching children the word of God, and modelling godliness to them;
• that God's word can be taught in a meaningful and relevant way to young children;
• that the developmental differences across this age group require significant differences in the way they are taught the truths of Scripture from year to year;
• that Sunday School teachers need to put some preparation into a lesson in order to ensure they themselves have a good understanding of the passage or theme, but that they often need help in knowing how to present the material in a meaningful, memorable and ‘age-appropriate’ way;
• that teachers need several easy to implement ‘activity’ ideas to choose from for each lesson;
• that the material should be as affordable as possible to local churches, big or small.

Purchase of the CD-ROMs allows the purchaser to print off multiple copies of lessons for use in their church without any licensing fees. The material can be used year after year, and is therefore very cost-effective.

And if you are still thinking about the shape of 2007 for you, your family, your church or your small group (perhaps contemplating some “ministry new year's resolutions”), don't forget Peter Bolt's brilliant little planning tool Mission Minded. It will help you plan an effective, gospel-centred ministry to the people around you (both Christians and non-Christians), with the goal being to help them make progress in their relationship with God.

January is also a time when people start to look forward to another year of growth, fellowship and encouragement within their home group Bible study. It's also a time when decisions have to be made about what topics or books to study. In a week or so, we'll be distributing our new Small Groups Catalogue which will give you plenty of ideas and options as you kick off 2007.

Last, but certainly not least, we'd love you to pray for the ministry of Matthias Media in 2007. We've posted a word or two about this in a recent CHN on our website which includes some ideas of what you could pray. Many thanks to those of you who continue to bring our needs before God!

Well that's all the news for now. Thank you again for your interest and your partnership in the growth of the gospel.

Yours in Christ,

The Matthias Media team