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One ongoing expense for churches is children's Sunday school curriculum. But what can churches do when budgets tighten? Church leaders care about children, and they want the most effective curriculum for those children, but what happens when the funds aren't available—or get scaled back—for such purchases?

Over the years, people have told me that a church needs to pay a lot for excellent curriculum. I sincerely disagree. Expensive curriculum doesn't guarantee that it's written to engage your children so they will remember, understand, and live God's Word. Some of the best curriculum options are also the best curriculum buys—curriculum can be affordable and excellent!

As you consider curriculum, keep the following five important thoughts in mind:

1) Curriculum must be biblically sound. If a curriculum isn't solidly grounded in God's Word, its creativity or affordability doesn't matter.

2) Remember families. It's the parent's responsibility and joy to teach his or her children about God, His Word, and how to know and walk with Him. It's the church's role to equip parents and build on what they teach their children. We shouldn't replace parents as the primary teachers of their children. So, it's important to engage parents. One simple way to do this: Follow a unified scope and sequence for preschoolers through elementary-aged children so that all children learn the same Bible lesson on Sunday. This allows parents to continue the learning at home all week. Some think if we teach the same lesson to all ages, it loses relevance. I strongly disagree. Every Bible lesson has relevance for all—preschool through adult.

3) Churches should select their curriculum with their vision in mind so the scope and sequence equips them to accomplish the goals of their vision. In these difficult times, you may need to look at your scope and sequence and focus for one or two years on the core of that scope. All of the resources reviewed here (and online) would allow you to do so in an affordable and excellent way.

4) Look at lesson options. Can one week's lesson be used for two weeks? Can you simplify elementary curriculum activities so preschool children utilize the same curriculum? If the answer is yes to both of those questions, then you can experience real savings by buying curriculum every other quarter, rather than every quarter.

5) Traditional curriculum can get expensive with student books and take-home papers, but there are ways to eliminate the need for these items, which can bring costs down. For instance, purchase the teacher books, but not the student materials. The teacher books average between $6 and $9 per age level per teacher each quarter. You'll need to replace learning activities provided in the student materials, but the curriculum kits reviewed here provide options for each lesson that don't require the student materials.

In our comparison chart available online (YourChurch.net), I look at three types of curriculum (large group/small group, nontraditional, and traditional) used by many churches, each excellent and affordable, and all offering the ability to reproduce their materials. Here, I've focused on three "Super Savers," which was a tough decision, since I also really liked Group Publishing's Hand's On Bible Max and Lifeway's Worship Kid's Style. But these three stood out most:

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