Get your own Free Home PageRenewed interest in Sunday School work holds promise for the future of the churches. While many fine thin have been done in the past, new interest shows that people want to do more than has been done in the recent past.
Revival of interest in Sunday School and other Christian education efforts is essential. When the success rate of the efforts of churches is compared with conditions of the world, it is obvious that church work has fallen into dire circumstances. The present rate of evangelism is low when compared with the growth of the population of the world. Someone has said that the combined effort of all churches results in only winning approximately 31 percent of the people being born. That means that every day Christianity becomes more of a minority religion.
A concern that holds implication for Christian teaching is the invasion of cults. Many of the
converts of cults are coming from the membership of mainstream denominations.
A challenge to feed the sheep
Something Jesus said in a conversation with Simon as they dined near the Sea of Galilee has important implications for Christian education today. Jesus said to him, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?"
"Peter answered, "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
Jesus then said, "Feed my lambs" (John 21:16).
The same question was repeated two times with the same challenge being given. The challenge to Peter and the other disciples should be the goal of Christian education today--feed the sheep. If people are really fed when they come to Bible study, it will probably overcome many of the concerns that Christians are expressing today. People will more likely attend a Bible study if they are really being fed and are having needs met.
It is imperative that churches and Sunday Schools return to the goal of "feeding the sheep." What has been done in the recent past is no longer working in many churches. The revelation is startling when conditions within churches across the country are considered. A recent visit with a group of churches composing a local association revealed that five of the churches in that association were in imminent danger of having to disband. One of the churches had experienced a split and, in spite of its being well located in a small town, was struggling for survival.
The condition in that local association is not unique among missionary Baptists. In many local associations some churches are just barely surviving; and unless something happens soon, they will not survive. Those conditions, however, are inexcusable. All of the churches, except a very few which are located in dying communities, can reach people.
There are approximately fourteen hundred churches which affiliate with the Baptist Missionary Association of America. The overwhelming number of those churches are small, but they can grow if they will accept the challenge for growth and follow the Lord in a renewed effort to reach out through Christian education to the lost around them.
Even the churches that are located in remote areas, which seem to have no hope, usually have potential. A student of BMA Theological Seminary pastors such a church. When the student was challenged in evangelism class to witness to people, he said he had no one in his church field to whom he could witness. He said that cows would be his best prospects because there were more of them than there were people.
A year after the student made that statement the Sunday School of that church tripled in attendance, and the student arranged to move near the field so he could be more involved in the ministry of that church.
That student's experience shows that churches need to stop thinking defeat and start thinking
success. There are hungry people all around. If churches will make plans and prepare to "feed"
those hungering for the Word, great things can happen. God wants to bless His churches, and any
church that becomes a part of the work of "feeding the sheep" will be the recipient of those
blessings.
A challenge to plan creatively
Church problems require creativity. As an example of the need for creative planning, consider the following account of what one church did. The church in question was made up of a fine--but small--group of people. They knew the Bible as well as, if not better than, most church people. The church had good facilities and the facilities were well located. Everything seemed great for that church to have a dynamic ministry, but instead it had steadily declined during the past few years.
What happened to that church that made it decline? The people did not stop studying the Bible; they stopped being evangelistic. The Bible study gradually became a study to gain Bible knowledge. They ceased to teach the Bible to win the lost, and consequently attrition began to take its toll.
The church finally came to face the question of what could be done to turn the situation of the church around. The church decided that there had to be a revival of the Sunday School. Several things were considered. Some thought was given to creating several classes, but the number was so small that it did not seem feasible. After some time of prayerful consideration, the church decided to try a "unified Sunday School." Initially there would be no effort to establish separate classes. The congregation (approximately twelve people) would be organized as one Sunday School class. Under the plan, the Bible study time would flow right into the worship hour.
To help the idea of a unified Sunday School class get off to a good start, a special study was selected. The members were encouraged to launch an enrollment effort and enroll new people for the class. In a few weeks the church had enrolled approximately four times as many as had been enrolled in Sunday School during the past year.
After a short time the success of the program created a new challenge. There were enough children and teens attending who needed special attention that additional classes had to be organized. Workers were enlisted and the classes begun. As a result of the creative effort of that church, within one year the church had a Sunday School with five classes and a stable enrollment. Instead of worrying about survival, the church began to have an attitude of excitement expecting God to bless with additional growth in the coming year.
What is the message in the story of that church? The message is that churches need to look at
their situation, determine a strategy that will work for them, and go to work. It is amazing what
God can do through the efforts of His people when they are willing to try to do the work He has
called them to do.
A challenge to understand problems
(1) Failure to provide training--One problem of the Sunday School is that teachers do not receive the help and training they need to understand how to do their work. Being a Sunday School teacher is a tremendous responsibility, but often a person is assigned a class without being told what is expected of a teacher. An extreme example of that failure was illustrated at one church during the annual election of Sunday School officers. A young man had just been saved a few weeks before the annual business meeting. During the business meeting a deacon nominated that young man to serve as Sunday School superintendent. The young man sat panic stricken. He did not know how to refuse the position so he just sat silently. After the meeting he went home and that is where he stayed. He never came back, probably because he was embarrassed at his inability to fulfill the role to which he had been elected.
What a different story it could have been had that young man been given time to grow and been assured that he would receive training and assistance to help him fulfill his work.
(2) Boredom--Mike Harmon, while addressing a leadership class at BMA Theological Seminary said, "People do not attend because they do not want to attend; they do not want to attend because they are bored when they get there." Brother Harmon hit the nail on the head. Even though some people will attend Sunday School no matter how bored they are, not many new people will be won through a boring program. Teachers must be equipped so that they can have a challenging program for the people who come to be a part of a class.
(3) Losing sight of the purpose--A third problem for Sunday Schools is the problem of losing sight of the real purpose of the Sunday School. When people begin to think of Sunday School as an organization solely designed to teach each other Bible facts, decline will occur. Sunday School should have for its purpose to teach the Bible in such a way that the lost will be won and the saved developed to the point that they begin to live a life more conformed to the image of Christ. If educational efforts do not lead in that direction, all will be in vain. It does not matter how much Bible knowledge members accumulate; such a school has not accomplished its real purpose. The ministry of Sunday School is not just imparting Bible knowledge; it is teaching the Bible in such a way that lives are changed. If that purpose is lost, the school fails.
(4) Friction--Friction among members will cause a Sunday School to lose even the people it has. It will also cause visitors to seek another place to go besides that kind of Sunday School.
(5) Lack of Friendliness--People are lost from the Sunday School program because of a lack of friendliness. In some Sunday Schools a visitor can hardly wait for the class to be over so he can go home. W hen members do not project an attitude of friendliness, visitors usually plan never to return.
A Sunday School class can show visitors that they are wanted and welcomed. Every visitor needs to be greeted and welcomed personally by members within the class. Arrangements need to be made to show visitors where classes meet. Such arrangements will help visitors overcome the threatening feeling of being in a strange place and not knowing what to do or where to go.
(6) Inadequate Facilities--It is important to have adequate room to house the people who attend Sunday School. It is also important that the facilities be cared for adequately.
Once a pulpit committee invited a prospective pastor to visit their church. They carried him on a tour of the education building which was very adequate for that congregation. As rounds were being made, the visiting pastor noticed that one member of the committee was going ahead of the rest of the group. The pastor discovered that the advance committeeman was rushing ahead to straighten up the mess in each of the rooms.
It was good that the committee felt embarrassed about the rooms not being well cared for, but
the action they were taking at that time was too late. The facilities should have been kept in good
shape for each Lord's Day. When people gather to study the Bible, they need rooms that are
clean and orderly. Certainly, no visitor should be subjected to a room that is needlessly in a
disorganized mess.
A challenge to understand Sunday School function
What can be done to improve the Sunday School teaching ministry? Almost all things work better when the people doing the work know what they are trying to do. That principle has application to Sunday School work. Arthur Flake sought to define the purposes of the Sunday School in a study course book entitled The True Functions of the Sunday School. If the goals of Sunday School are known and an effort is made to meet them, progress will result. Among the functions of Sunday School identified by Flake, the following are suggested as being of primary importance:
(l) Teach the Bible--A Sunday School should be designed to teach the Bible to all the people according to their needs. The Bible should always be the text book, and needs of people should always be the target in every Sunday School.
(2) Provide places of service--A Sunday School should provide places of service and development for all class members. No other organization within the church can focus on that function better than the Sunday School grogram. The work of the Sunday School requires the services of many people, and each person working has special opportunity for growth and development as a worker. When one new person becomes a worker, his work will usually result in an average of ten new people being added to the Sunday School enrollment.
(3) Discover and reach new people--A Sunday School should discover and reach the unenrolled and unenlisted. It is a disturbing phenomenon when a Sunday School class ceases to try to locate and reach out to new people. It is easy to determine if a class is trying to carry out the function of discovering and reaching the unenrolled and unenlisted. Classes that do not have a prospect list or a plan for contacting prospects are not fulfilling that function.
(4) Promote worship--A Sunday School should promote the worship service of the church. It is horrifying to see people going home after Sunday School rather than going into the worship service. Someone suggested that to help people see Sunday School as a part of the total church program it might be good not to dismiss at the end of the class but let the Sunday School flow into the worship hour. Teachers need to remember that part of the genius of Sunday School is that it meets just before the preaching hour. People can be prepared for the worship hour during the Bible study of Sunday School.
(5) Magnify the winning of the lost--The design of the Sunday School is of such a nature that it
should result in someone s being responsible for every lost person in every age group within the
community. One of the problems in many churches is that members are depending on the pastor
to bring in the lost; at the same time the pastor is depending on the people to bring in the lost. As
a result no one is doing the important work of reaching out to the lost. A Sunday School
functioning as it should will avoid that failure. Responsibility will be assigned for all ages of lost
people in a graded Sunday School.
A challenge to understand motivation
Another way improvement can be made in Sunday School work is to identify the reasons that people attend and devise means for ministering to the needs revealed in those motivations.
The following factors have been identified as being the primary reasons that people attend Sunday School:
(1) Study--People who attend for study bring their Bibles and study their lessons. When they come to Sunday School, they expect to be taught.
(2) Social involvement--People who attend for social purposes have a deep-seated need for fellowship. When such people attend Sunday School, they expect to have some opportunity for visiting.
(3) Ritual--People who attend because it is their ritual are usually the most faithful of all attenders. It does not matter what is going on at Sunday School, they are going to be there. They will attend because they are supposed to attend.
(4) Help--Some people attend to get help with life's problems. People who attend for that reason expect the Sunday School lesson to be very practical. If the lessons do not deal with the here-and-now issues of life, they will consider attendance a waste of time.
(5) Membership--People who attend because they are members view the class almost like a church. They usually have great pride in their class. They would resist moving from their present classroom because they usually have done special things to the room to improve it. This group usually receives offerings for special class projects.
(6) Special events--Some people do not attend Sunday School because they believe it is for children only. This group of people will go to great efforts to have their children and even their grandchildren in Sunday School but they themselves want no part of the traditional Sunday School class. Such people can sometimes be reached through a specialized class that is obviously designed exclusively for adults.
Many people who attend Sunday School evaluate the school with such comments as "I wish they would get better literature"; "I wish they would reorganize the Sunday School"; "I wish they would have more Sunday School socials"; or some other similar wish. As long as the wish is that
"they" do it and no one specifically is made responsible for doing it, it will not get done.
Someone must be responsible for helping a church have a quality educational program through
the Sunday School ministry.
A task too big for one person
Who is going to do the important job of improving the Sunday School? What about the superintendent? Should he not feel responsible for leading the church to have a quality Sunday School program? What about the pastor? Certainly he should feel responsible for the ministry of the Sunday School. In the end, however, the task of improving the Sunday School must be viewed as being too big for one person.
Large churches employ staff personnel to lead in the development of Sunday School. Small churches do not have resources adequate to have staff personnel other than the pastor. Such schools must look in other directions for help in Sunday School development. Churches that have small Sunday Schools probably should select an education committee and charge that committee to work with the pastor and the superintendent in planning and working toward a quality program.
Many "little" duties must be fulfilled if the Sunday School is going to function the way it should. Those duties should be identified and assigned specifically to someone. Duties such as controlling the temperature, cleaning the room, ordering the literature, directing the outreach, and seeing that visitors are welcomed have to be done. Many people can share in those responsibilities if assignments are made. Everyone should have some responsibility, but no one should be overloaded.
After the duties have been identified, workers enlisted, and assignments completed, a list of
those assignments needs to be posted so that everyone can see it. By posting the list, the persons
assigned will be reminded of the responsibility every time they see the list. Also if a task is
neglected, the guilty person will feel responsibility to the entire group; for everyone will know
who should have done the task.
The pastor
What is the pastor supposed to do concerning Sunday School? The pastor cannot be everything to the Sunday School, but he must assume a prominent place. It is not likely that any pastor can neglect the Sunday School and have a successful ministry. For a Sunday School to be dynamic and growing, the pastor has to maintain personal interest in its operation. The pastor should be pastor of the Sunday School just as he is pastor of the rest of the church. He should feel responsible for making sure that the Sunday School in the church maintains a quality educational ministry.
The pastor must assume responsibility in seeing that Sunday School teachers and workers
receive adequate training for their various tasks. Without his encouragement it is not likely that
there will be teachers' and workers' meetings, and without his promotion it is not likely that the
Sunday School will grow. The pastor has a big assignment when it comes to Sunday School. The
smaller the school, the greater will be the pastor's responsibility.
The Sunday School superintendent
What is the Sunday School superintendent supposed to do in Sunday School? In too many places
the concept of the superintendent's work is that he alone is responsible for bringing a devotional
during the opening assembly. Bringing a devotional is not necessarily a superintendent's
responsibility. Instead, the superintendent along with the pastor is responsible for overseeing the
work of the Sunday School. He must help plan for new classes, enlist workers, and assist in
training them for their assigned tasks. He needs to be concerned with the records of the Sunday
School so that he can make more realistic plans for the future. The superintendent should be
interested in the promotion of the Sunday School. He should be willing to work closely in a
supportive role with the pastor in devising promotional plans that lead to growth in the program.
The teacher
What about the teacher in the Sunday School? Everybody knows that a teacher is supposed to teach. A teacher should teach the Bible to develop class members, to promote real Christian living, and to win the lost. While the teacher should use the quarterly, all teaching should be done directly from the Bible. In order to teach effectively, the teacher must seek to know and meet the needs of all those who make up the class. The teaching task is a heavy assignment, but teaching is not all of the teacher's responsibility.
The teacher needs to help build the class. No teacher should be content with the number of people presently enrolled in the class but should seek ways to reach others. One teacher once said that he never went visiting for his Sunday School class. He said that he felt it would be very egotistical for him to go out and ask people to come hear him teach. While that teacher had an interesting point of view, he was wrong. If the teacher does not visit prospects and members, class members will not be interested in outreach either.
The teacher needs to be concerned with developing a prospect list. The teacher does not have to compile the list personally, but the teacher needs to see that the list is developed. Every class needs to have identified prospects. Without prospects a class tends to sit still as far as growth is concerned.
The teacher needs to be concerned with developing plans for social activities for his class. Again the teacher does not have to do that work personally, but he must see that it does take place.
The teacher needs to be in the class promptly each Sunday. Preparation needs to be made for
welcoming class members and visitors as they arrive. The superintendent needs to be notified as
quickly as possible when it is necessary to be absent from a class. The teacher needs to be loyal
to the entire church program and faithfully attend the worship services. The teacher needs to
grow in Bible knowledge, in spirituality, and in personal prayer life.
The church body
What should teachers be able to expect from the church where they serve? Certainly teachers should expect the church to provide teaching materials that are needed. The church also needs to make available to teachers audio-visual material so the lessons can be presented with greater effectiveness.
Teachers should be able to depend on the church to provide training for the work that is being done. The pastor can help. He can help in counsel and in specific training. One biblical qualification for a pastor is that he be "apt to teach." Nowhere can his teaching be put to better use than in teaching teachers how to do their teaching.
Teachers need to know what the church expects of them. The church can identify expectations and not leave teachers in the dark about important issues.
Teachers need to know that the church will provide a substitute when an absence is necessary. If
the church is too small to provide a substitute for each class, perhaps a pool of three or four
substitutes can be chosen. If three or four extra people prepare to teach each Sunday, no class
will ever have to face an unprepared teacher.
Organizing for classes
Is it necessary to have a class for every age group? Certainly that is the ideal arrangement, but it is not always possible in a small church. Neither is it necessary to have such groups in order to have a quality program. In the early days of America all ages of students were taught in a one-room school building. The evidence, if accomplishment can be the criterion for judging, suggests that many of those people received a quality education.
In spiritual matters as well as in factual information, it is possible for younger children to learn
from older children. It is also possible for older children to learn as they relate to younger
children. A small church, therefore, need not be frustrated because there are not enough children
to have a class for every age group. Instead of being frustrated, the small church needs to seek
creative ways of forming special class groups that will benefit all the children whom God has
given.
Organizing the classes
Most classes should have some form of class organization. Class officers give more people
opportunity to work. In most classes there should be a class president to lead in the conducting
of class business. There should be a vice-president to assist the president. There should be a
secretary and assistant secretary to keep all class records. Most classes should have an outreach
leader with responsibility for keeping the prospect list up to date and making visitation
assignments. The outreach leader needs to be a person who works well with the teacher and who
will take seriously the responsibility for outreach. For that reason the outreach leader should
probably be appointed by the teacher rather than being elected by the class.
Recruiting teachers
How should teachers be recruited? Quite often the method for recruiting teachers involves stopping people as they leave the building and asking them to take responsibility for a certain class. Selection of a Sunday School teacher deserves more than just a casual momentary request.
Often in the recruitment process, the prospective teacher will be told, "Sure you can do it; there is nothing to it." Such a statement is just not true. Being a Sunday School teacher is s great responsibility, and it should never be downplayed. Recruitment is important enough that it probably needs to involve a visit in the home of the prospective teacher. The prospective teacher needs to be made aware of the responsibilities and potentials of the teaching assignment under consideration. That approach will probably cause the prospective teacher to consider the assignment more seriously.
If a person says that he does not wish to teach, no one should try to do any arm-twisting. It would be better to have one big class for all the Sunday School than to have several classes with teachers who are teaching against their wills.
In doing the recruiting it is important not to write off any potential teacher. Every child of God has special abilities. Sometimes it will require training to unlock those abilities, but that should be a part of the total program of recruiting. Often good potential teachers are overlooked while mediocre teachers are overworked.
Another important recruiting technique is to begin early. It is terrible to wait until the last minute
to begin recruiting. It will usually result in several persons being placed in wrong positions. If
teachers are to be elected in the fall, they should be recruited in the spring. That will give time
for training and preparation before they have to begin teaching. Early recruitment will avoid
desperate measures.
Every Christian teacher wants to do a better job. Every Christian teacher wants to reach more people through the teaching ministry. Wanting to do a better job and wanting to reach more people is admirable, but unless that "want to" is translated into some definite action little or no growth in quality or quantity of ministry will occur.
A teacher can take several actions in the quest for a more effective teaching ministry. Before
implementing any change, however, there must be prayerful considerations with a view to local
applications. While universal principles for Christian teaching do exist, there is no single right
action for every teaching situation.
Make it easy to become a part of the class
In some places it is more difficult to become a member of a Bible study class than it is to join a church! Some have established rules that require attendance for three consecutive times before a candidate can be enrolled. Some Sunday School classes start over in their enrollment each church year; at the end of the year the slate is wiped clean, and the first day of the new Sunday School year is enrollment day. Only those people who re-enroll will be part of the new Sunday School. Another example is a class that requires a vote of the members before placing a person on the membership roll.
Some classes have valid reasons for the various rules that have been formulated concerning class membership. Sometimes a class desires to have a high percentage of member participation. By admitting only highly qualified people for membership, that goal will be realized. Others feel that keeping attendance records on individuals who seldom attend is a waste of time and consequently purge their rolls of those who are not regular in attendance.
While some classes have valid reasons for keeping enrollment clean, the practice probably results in a high price for the ministry of the class. Those individuals who are not regular need the ministry of the class as much as, if not more than, those who are faithful in attendance. Also those individuals who do not attend regularly are the best prospects for class growth. If a person has allowed someone to enroll him in a class, he has at least some measure of interest in being a part of the class. Usually it is among those who attend only occasionally that the evangelistic prospects will be found. To discount those people and not seek ways of reaching them through the class will probably result in the class having an ineffective outreach ministry.
How can you make it easy for a person to be a part of your class? If it does not create a problem among the regular members of the class, try to remove all barriers for class membership. When someone visits the class for the first time, ask him about joining the class. If there is a willingness on the part of the visitor, sign him up before he leaves the room. He may not be regular, but you will have his name and address. He will be a good prospect for your class. If he doesn't come back, the class can pray for him, someone can call him, others can visit him. If he is a lost person, someone in the class can go and witness to him.
Another opportunity for making it easy for a prospect to be a part of a class can occur during
visitation. When you discover someone who is nat presently enrolled in a Bible study class, try to
enroll that person right there in the home. Not everyone enrolled will attend the class, but many
will. Those who do come will result in a larger teaching ministry; those who do not come will
result in a growing prospect list for the class. Either way when a person has been enrolled in the
class, a possibility for a greater teaching ministry has been created.
Make it hard to be removed from the class roll
In some classes if a person becomes haphazard in class attendance, his name is placed at the back of the roll book. If his attendance continues to decline, eventually his name is removed from the roll. Unless some other class enrolls that individual, no one will feel responsibility for reaching out to him through a Bible study ministry.
People are too precious to be lost just to keep a class roll nice and clean. Instead of dropping people from the roll, identify them as prospects and devise plans for reaching out to them. Include them in extra activities the class plans. The class should send them regular announcements about class activities and try to get a new quarterly in their hands each time a quarter begins. The class should continue to make contact with the person and, above all, continue to lift up the person in prayer. God can succeed when all human efforts have failed.
When should you remove a person from the class roll? It is appropriate to remove a name from the roll when the person dies. A person's name can also be removed from the roll if he moves out of the geographical area served by the class or if he joins another group.
Why should it be made so hard to get out of a class? It needs to be remembered that a class and the church are not synonymous. The church cannot place people on the membership roll who are not saved; the class can. The Bible study class can be used as an outreach to people who cannot be placed on the church roll. The class can include non-church people in a special way and thus create a bridge between them and the ministry of the church.
A class can be effective in reaching out to people who have been defeated by life's problems. A
class can be the arm that reaches out from the church to reach the individuals that otherwise
would be claimed by the world. A class can do all the things that have been described without
having a number of inactive people on their roll. The problem, however, in not retaining them on
the roll is that the class begins to lose the sense of responsibility for reaching those people. In a
way the class that removes the fringe people from its roll washes its hands of those people.
Make it inviting to attend the class
Often when a visitor attends a new class he feels out of place. For a class to help visitors overcome that feeling is a difficult challenge. There are, however, things that can be done to make the visitor feel more at ease.
(1) Do not wait for a visitor to introduce himself. It is not the responsibility of a visitor to introduce himself to the class members. Rather it is the place of the members to become acquainted with the visitor. Members will be more successful in making visitors feel at home when they can cease acting and become genuinely interested in knowing new people.
(2) Do not exclude a visitor from ongoing conversation. Being in a crowd of strangers who are talking and laughing among themselves puts a visitor under a great deal of stress. Often class members continue with whatever conversation they have going and never think about including a visitor. At the end of the class the members may hurriedly speak to the visitor and then rush to continue their visit with fellow class members. Such behavior makes a visitor feel out of place.
Once a visiting pastor stood in the vestibule of a large Baptist church waiting on some friends.
During the wait, member after member passed without speaking to him. All over the area little
groups of people gathered and began carrying on private conversations, leaving the stranger
standing alone and feeling very conspicuous. Fortunately, the stranger was a committed
Christian and was determined to attend church regardless of how he was received. What if he
had been a sinner who had finally ventured up enough nerve to slip inside the foreboding walls
of the church house seeking help? Do you think he would have continued standing alone very
long?
Make it easy for a stranger to find the class
It takes a lot of nerve for a person who has never been to a class to attend. The best way to overcome that problem is for someone to bring the visitor into the class and introduce him to everyone present. Since that is not always possible, it is important when a person decides to come to a class that he be able to find it easily. No one wants to experience the embarrassment of getting in the wrong place.
A man once decided to attend Sunday School at a medium-sized Baptist church. His family had already attended the Sunday School and knew where their classes met, but because of business activities he had never attended. He knew the pastor and a few individuals, but that was about all the knowledge he had of the church and Sunday School. It was raining the day he decided to make his first visit, so he drove near the door and let his family out so they would not get wet. He drove out to the parking lot and then hurried back toward the auditorium.
Since the Sunday School was departmentalized, there was no one in the auditorium. In fact he saw no one to ask where he should go. He continued standing in the door of the auditorium hoping that someone would come along. Finally, the organist came into the auditorium to begin practicing for the service. The fellow walked bravely up to the organist and asked for information concerning the class he should attend.
The organist was very courteous and said, "I know just the class to which you belong." She ushered the visitor along the hall to a door to a small classroom. As she turned to go back to her practice, she assured the visitor that he was at the proper room. When the visitor stepped through the door, he discovered a small group of men, the youngest being at least ten years his senior. They welcomed him, but it is certain that during the class the visitor was wondering, "Why did the organist think I belonged in this class? Do I really look that old?" Needless to say the visitor did not join the class but began looking for a more compatible group.
The visitor did keep attending Sunday School at the church because he was a committed Christian. But what if the visitor had only been nominally committed? Do you think he might have looked for another church, or even worse, never gone back to Sunday School again?
A reception center staffed with one or more persons who are knowledgeable of the Sunday School organization is a welcomed sight to the first-time visitor. Not only is the visitor greeted at the reception center, but he also can be introduced to the class to which he belongs.
D. O. Silvey once wrote, "The Sunday School is not of the church; it is not an arm of the church;
it is the church at work." It is time for the Sunday School to renew its diligence and begin doing
again those things that will result in sinners being brought to Christ and Christians being
strengthened in the Word.
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____________. Working With Seniors and Adults. Little Rock: Baptist Publications Committee of the North American Baptist Association, n.d.
____________. Growing a Strong Sunday School. Little Rock: Baptist Publications Committee, 1953.
Silvey, D. O. Happy Teaching. Little Rock: Baptist Publications Committee of North American Baptist Association, n.d.
____________. The Enlisting Sunday School. Little Rock: Baptist Publications Committee, n.d.
Towns, Elmer. The Ten Largest Sunday Schools and What Makes Them Grow. Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1970.
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