A Thought about Sunday School

[Sandy]

Like any church ministry, Sunday School was designed to meet a need, but in many churches, it became a maintenance program. When I use the term "done right," I mean that its leadership must continue to find ways to make it relevant. If it becomes routine, and people do it just to maintain it, or because they feel obligated, it will decline. I've seen Sunday School classes become small ministry groups in a church, and before long, they are starting a new class to accommodate the number of new people who are coming. I've seen Sunday School classes expand their ministry and outreach by launching a home group, and reaching people that won't come to church for a variety of reasons. For some of them, the group becomes their church, which is Biblical. There's nothing that says they need to go to a formal worship service on a Sunday morning in order to be the church. Some people eventually do go, but others find Biblical community in a small group.

[Ed Pettibone]

Thanks Sandy for the reply. Good thoughts.

[Sandy]

I'll add that for many churches, Sunday School functioned as a "small group ministry" among adults. If you look at the way most Southern Baptists have done Sunday School, that's exactly what it was, and how it continues to be structured in those churches which keep it relevant, and use it for ministry. Traditionally, in other denominations, it's been primarily a program for children and youth, and hasn't involved a lot of adults. Some of that has to do with the way a church structures its ministries. Some churches tend to be more dependent on clergy for Bible teaching, and don't delegate a lot of responsibility in that area to laypeople. So they meet those needs in different ways. I think the key to success is trained leadership and particularly well trained, knowledgeable, gifted teachers, a strong curriculum plan, and class leadership that are engaged in ministry.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

Having been a part of training teams for SS workers in the 1070's and 80's, I realize SS is morphing from what it was when most of us were growing up. In some churches, it still works to perfection, but chances are that a variety of curricula and options are part of the story. For some people, it is their primary fellowship group. For others, there is a real depth of Bible study. Creativity says that there are places where times other than 9:15 or 9:45 work better. A weekday event is a great way to create a different kind of Bible study in a setting other than the classrooms of most churches. I can walk through those rooms and tell that they were created in the 1940's or 50's. People like a more relaxed atmosphere for Bible study and small group participation. Rows of chairs in front of a lectern are not welcoming for group interaction. Circles and more informal settings with coffee pots, orange juice, donuts, and other refreshments make it much more readily structured for grouping. Also, new people fell much more welcomed in a less formal setting.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

At the last church I served in Texas, the adult Sunday School rooms didn't look like classrooms. They were furnished with stuffed chairs, couches, inn tables, lamps, coffee and refreshment bars, and small tables. Even my Fellowship Class, which was the adults 70+, met in the library on padded seats arranged in a circle, with a coffee table in the middle. The young adult/college area actually had a coffee house motif, complete with the machinery to make lattes and expressos, booths, and a counter with stools.

I think it is important to make sure that the adult members of your church are involved in a regular Bible study that provides a reasonable level of content, and from there, are encouraged in their individual Bible study. For a lot of people, 9:30 on Sunday morning works well, and if there's something worth going for, they will come. For others, especially harder to reach people who aren't thinking about getting up and going to a church building on Sunday morning, a neighborhood Bible study might be the way to get them involved. It's also good for getting your church members out into their neighborhood, and meeting people.

The only "traditional" issue I encountered as discipleship minister there for five years was how to "count" the attendance. We used the traditional system to count those in Sunday School at the church building. Then we had each group report their non-duplicating attendance during the previous week to the class they were connected to. Non-duplicating was anyone who attended Bible study who hadn't been at the church's Sunday School on Sunday morning. So we'd put it in the newsletter as Total Bible Study, then a "Sunday School" category, then a "Non-duplicated Home Group" total. That satisfied the bean counters who didn't think that a person should count in the attendance if they weren't in the church building.

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

Um no Ed. Problem?

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

That's ok Ed. I didn't understand your statement.

[James]

At HBC the Sunday School classes are the heart of the church. Most of the church ministry happens through the SS classes.

Having said that, we do have a problem in SS with the literature choices we have. Both the Formations series and the uniform lesson series are lacking and the Baptist today stuff is not much better. The problem seems to be that the lesson writers have been told to avoid controversy at all costs. For example, I taught the unit on the Epistle to the Hebrews several years ago and found the lesson books and the choice of focus texts to be devoid of any mention of apostasy which is the whole point of the epistle. Lesson after lesson, year after year, the lesson writers give us pabulum.

Still, the adult SS works at HBC. Those of us who are really disappointed with the literature just deals with the Bible, but we deal with the whole chapter (and yes our teacher knows that the chapter divisions are purely arbitrary) or the whole book. And we do not ignore the hard parts or the controversial parts. We have a 2,000 volume research library presenting every side of the issues at hand. The library is beginning to be used by the SS teachers for whom it was created.

[linda]

What works may vary.

Our two Wesleyan churches in town have dropped adult SS from the Sunday morning lineup. One is restarting it, or so I hear. The other is considering doing so.

The local 3 Baptist churches have kept it Sunday mornings and it is much better attended. It sounds great to recognize that it CAN happen at other times and places. But then the whole fragmenting the family even more, or carving out yet another time, just isn't working here. Families can carve out a couple of hours on Sunday morning. But if mom, or dad, or both have a small group on say Tuesday evening, teen Susie has one on Thursday, preteen Betty on Wednesday, and the little one's still meet on Sunday morning, church is actively working against a strong family life.

Two of the Baptist churches have recognized it helps to limit the length of the Sunday morning service to around an hour if you want a strong Sunday morning SS. And the third continues with a well attended SS but also opts to offer midweek meetings for those that prefer them.

Maybe it isn't either/or regarding Sunday School, but sometimes both/and.

[Ed Pettibone]