Website For Religion Teachers

Website for religion teachers and teacher-trainers, created by Jean M. Furgal.
Jean M. Furgal, M.R.E.

Welcome to my website for religion teachers and teacher-trainers.

As a former adult Religious Education Coordinator, I worked in a series of churches for twenty-five years. Much of my work involved teacher training. I conducted teaching methods workshops for religion teachers, and also wrote the curriculum for fifth grade through adult classes. At the same time, I was Adjunct Professor of Scripture at College of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois.

While the years of my ministry sailed by, I honed my skills by helping religion teachers learn new teaching methods to enliven their classes. Now, through this website for religion teachers, I want to share the best of my ideas.

These pages contain teacher training workshops and classroom lesson plans. The teachers will act as students. Later, they can use the same classroom lesson they experienced in the workshop. Through this process, I will demonstrate how and why each teaching method works, and how to create material for each method.

As an alternative, if you are an individual teacher and a workshop is not available, use these lessons for yourself. You will learn much about a variety of teaching methods, and you will have detailed lesson plans.

After working 25  years as a teacher-trainer for religion teachers, I want share the best of my ideas about the use of various teaching methods.

The methods and lesson plans will be useful to religion teachers of all denominations because each teacher can add his or her own ideas. The lessons include both Old and New Testament bible stories. While my experience is in Christian churches, the Old Testament lessons given here should easily harmonize with Jewish teachings.

These methods can be used with 5th graders through adults. For different age groups, the teacher may select questions from the abundant list of questions given in the lesson plans.

I will focus on such methods as, storytelling, role-playing, illustrated lecture, choral speaking, Hollywood films, hymn study, games, tests, sacred meals, and others. Often, there will be links to more detailed theological or historical background essays.

It is my hope that some of these ideas will help you find ways to make your classes more entertaining, more educational and more inspiring.

My Qualifications

I have a Masters Degree in Religious Education from a Methodist school, Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey. I have 27 post Masters hours in Scripture from the Church of the Brethren Seminary. During the time I attended, it was located in Oak Brook, Illinois and formed part of the Chicago Theological Core. Additionally, for ten years I attended the Summer Biblical Institute at the Dominican Center in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. The featured presenters at these gatherings, both Protestant and Catholic, were world-class biblical scholars.

This website for religion teachers is something I really enjoy creating. Check back every few months to see what’s new!

Jean Furgal

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