Designing Lesson Planning

This module, created by Dr. Rebecca Davis of Union Presbyterian Seminary, equips educators to design clear, faithful, and effective lesson plans. It’s especially helpful for leaders creating their own content—Bible studies, youth or children’s ministries, one-time events, or any gathering with learning goals (even meetings).

Grounded in prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, lesson planning is akin to preaching: it begins with purpose. Form follows function. Decide what the lesson is meant to do before choosing activities. Strong lesson plans flow logically, are detailed enough for anyone to teach, and are written with publishable clarity.

You’ll learn to plan with:

• Guiding questions that shape a cohesive, relevant session
• Context (audience, environment, scope, research, proposition, leader prep)
• Content organized into five movements: gathering, teaching the what/why/how, and sending
• Teacher resources, including teaching points and an insights page
• Evaluation to refine and strengthen future teaching

Explore the sample lesson plan and downloadable tools to deepen your planning and strengthen your educational ministry. We hope this module is a blessing in your work of forming disciples

This series of handouts will walk you through the development of the various pieces of a lesson plan, including the teaching proposition, content, and context, as well as how to put it all together into a publishable quality document.