High explosive Sunday schools

Trevor and Thalia Blundell now work full-time encouraging and equipping people to teach the Bible to children, through leading training days and writing Sunday School materials.

EN: Did you go to Sunday School as youngsters?

Trevor: Yes, but very irregularly.

Thalia: No. I grew up in a pagan home.

Trevor: I went because some of my friends did and it was a great rumble. After some years, I joined the confirmation class/youth group (around 12 years old) and proceeded to run amok. Sunday School was boring and terrifying, especially when the end of term written examination was held and I had forgotten it was coming up.

EN: Were you converted as children?

Trevor: Alas, I was not converted until I was 19.

Thalia: When I was in my early teens, my mother started to go to the local Baptist church. She did this for a few years, during which time she decided my brothers and myself should go to church or Sunday School. A local GP and his wife ran a Bible class for teenagers. If you went for one month, you were entitled to go on the Easter holiday to Capernwray Hall. Some of my friends were going, so I tagged along. That Easter, I heard the gospel for the first time and I was converted.

EN: Tell us about how you met.

Trevor: In 1975, I left Australia to travel the world, no time limits set. I worked in South Africa for Burroughs Computers for a while then hitch-hiked/bussed my way from Cape Town to Nairobi in a wounded-fly fashion. I arrived in London on Easter Saturday 1976 and took up residence at the Foreign Missions Club. The next day, I attended St. Helen's Bishopsgate because a friend, John Chapman (Chappo), was doing a locum on dialogue evangelism for the Rev. Dick Lucas. Over the next two years, I got involved with a home group and socialised in a large group of Christians from St. Helen's. In 1978, I informed Thalia that I was returning to Australia to get married and settle down. She asked me: 'Who?' and I responded that I didn't know! That really flushed the kangaroos out of the bush!

EN: How did you get involved in St. Helens?

Trevor: In 1981, we returned to the UK for health reasons and started attending St. Helen's Bishopsgate again while we looked for permanent accommodation. In 1982, I became involved in the youth work at the Good Shepherd Mission, Bethnal Green, and it became evident that we couldn't commit ourselves to a local church and fulfil satisfactorily the developing work in the East End. So we pledged ourselves to St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, even though living in West London.
In 1984, the Sunday School Superintendent had to return to New Zealand to take care of ageing parents and we were approached by members of St. Helen's Church to care-take the Sunday School. At this stage, we were organising the creche because our own children were of that age.

Thalia: I got involved at St. Helen's in 1964 when I was a student nurse at Barts and, apart from when we lived in Australia following our marriage, have been there ever since.

EN: And the jobs you did before getting into TnT?

Trevor: I trained in Sydney, and finished up as a Systems Development Accountant for Du Pont. In 1993 I started full time with TnT.

Thalia: Before our children were born, we decided that I would give up paid employment. I have not regretted that decision.

EN: How did you start writing the TnT Sunday School material?

Thalia: At that stage at St. Helen's, all children under three were looked after in a creche room and those aged three and over went to Sunday School. The number of under-threes became too big for the room, so those aged two and a half went to Sunday School where they were barricaded with their adult carers in the toy corner. When they became three, they moved up to Sunday School. At this stage, we were responsible for the creche. (Trevor has always had a way with children, having done a lot of children's work in Australia.) Our eldest child, Emma, was nearing three and we watched the three-year-olds migrating back to the toy corner. So we decided to tell the children a Bible story to prepare them for when they entered Sunday School. This was in 1983. There was no suitable material for that age group so another of the mums sat down with me and we produced a 1-year syllabus covering the main Bible stories. We had no idea how long this would take to write. It took us a year. We managed to keep about two weeks ahead of the children.
By now, Trevor and I were in charge of the Sunday School on a caretaker basis. Over the next year, the number of babies kept increasing until we needed to take the children to the Sunday School building at just under two years old. We soon discovered that children of that age did not cope with a Bible story, so we developed an eight-months series of simple concepts about God, which is now marketed as 'First Class'. By this time, some of our church children were coming up to high school age. They were bored with traditional story-telling so we decided to teach them simple Bible study techniques. We could not find suitable material for this age group, so designed our own. By this time, we were fully aware of the work involved. We were left with a large group of three to nine-year-olds, who were using commercial Sunday School materials. For some time we had been concerned that the children were growing up without any idea of Bible chronology, which we felt was exacerbated by the way the materials dotted around from Old to New Testament and back again. So we designed a three-year syllabus along chronological lines.

EN: When it came to giving up your job to take up TnT full-time - how did you ascertain that this was God's will for you?

Trevor: Since 1984, we had been doing Sunday School teacher training for St. Helen's and associated churches by invitation. We had also been organising and running summer camps for the St. Andrew's Businessmen's Partnership. From 1990 onwards, various influential friends from St. Helen's and other churches began suggesting that we consider doing this training full-time because they thought it was greatly needed. We declined the challenge. Over the following years, we were encouraged by our friends to reconsider the opportunity and in 1992, it became clearer that now was the time to say yes. My job was moving out of London, Thalia was working full-time in a voluntary capacity administering the Sunday School and preparing teaching materials, and we were using every spare minute to keep things ticking over. Then we were approached to get involved with the 8-11's programme at Word Alive. The choice was either move out of London and stop what we were doing or go into full-time ministry. Our church leaders were fully aware of the situation and encouraged us to start TnT Ministries. Added to this, our friends provided a financial package that demonstrated their faith and mixed their practical resources with our family's spiritual and physical needs. Throughout this time, many people joined us in praying for wisdom to know God's leading.

EN: Was it an easy decision?

Trevor: The decision was made easier when we sat down with our children aged 9 and 11 and said that if we went into TnT Ministries, it would mean all four of us being involved and not just Thalia and I. They asked rather matter-of-factly who was going to put the bread on the table and clothes on their backs. We assured them that God had looked after us so far and we had no doubts that he would do the same in the future, even though some things may have to change. 'Does that mean that you won't have a real job like other fathers who go to the office each day?' asked Andrew. 'Yes, but I will work from home.'

EN: How did friends react?

Trevor: Our friends were confident, excited and wonderfully encouraging. Their main reaction was: 'Took your time about it, didn't you?'

EN: There is a lot of Sunday School material around in the Christian market. What do you think makes TnT special?

Thalia: The chronological approach for 3-9s, plus teaching simple Bible study skills to 9-11s. Because we believe that the Bible is our resource, not our Sunday School material, we are keen that people prepare their Sunday School lesson from the Bible.

EN: How has the TnT work grown?

Trevor: The work has grown in spite of the fact that we don't advertise. We did one mailshot in May 1993 when we sent out a very basic brochure to people on the Proclamation Trust mailing list. As a result of that, we had to employ someone for a few weeks to open and answer the responses. Ever since then, we have kept our heads below the parapet and serviced word-of-mouth enquiries.

Thalia: By the time TnT was formed in 1993, we were running six training days a year and supplying 11 churches with photocopied hand-written materials. All this was in our spare time! Since TnT was formed, the work has gradually increased. Now we run between 12 and 16 Saturday training days a year, and in the autumn are commencing a series of midweek training evenings at venues within easy reach of the M25.

EN: Has what is required in a good Sunday School changed over the last 20 years?

Thalia: One of the problems we see in Sunday Schools today is that some people have lost confidence in the power of God's Word, so seek to bolster it up with an emphasis on entertainment. Of course we want children to enjoy themselves when learning about God, but teaching his Word must be central. We cannot compete with the world when it comes to entertainment, so if that is our main thrust we will fail.

EN: If you could give one piece of advice to all Christian parents about the spiritual welfare of their children, what would it be?

Trevor: Hebrews 9.27. It is our duty to prepare our children for judgment and that means ensuring that they know and understand the gospel.

Thalia: Spend time reading the Bible with them. Make it enjoyable, which means time in preparation. Both 'First Class' (first lessons in knowing God for 2-3's) and 'A Class Above' (two books of simple Bible stories with craft work for two and a half to four-year-olds) will help you get started. Now that our children are teenagers, we read the Bible together after supper.