E134: Teenager Church: What 25 Years With Youth Taught Dan Bikman About Real Teaching

What does it actually look like to teach youth well? In this episode of Teaching Restored, Kevin Jones and Julie Hilliard sit down with Dan, a seminary and institute coordinator from southern Alberta, Canada, who has spent over two decades in the classroom and now trains teachers across the prairies. Dan shares the practical system he built for reaching teenagers — the "spiritual warm-up" of choral reading, hymns, and prayer that unites a class in the first 15 minutes, his commitment to confirming literacy before diving deep, and why he'd "rather teach four verses really well than forty misunderstood."

Along the way, Dan tackles the real struggles every teacher faces: getting quiet students to participate, handling resistance without taking it personally, balancing structure with variety, and why he sticks with "caveman scriptures" (paper, no phones) in a digital age. Whether you teach seminary, institute, Sunday school, primary, or you're newly called and wondering where to start, this conversation is packed with usable tools and a refreshing reminder to slow down, set real expectations, and trust the Lord to do His work. Share it with a teacher who needs it.

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