Have you ever considered how important Sunday school is to the life of Berean or other similar churches?
Sunday school is a weekly meeting of church members to pray, fellowship, and study the Bible. For Berean, it is a foundational component to our discipleship ministry. I have said it before and I will say it again. If on any given morning you have to choose between Sunday school and the preaching service, choose Sunday school. In Sunday school a medium size church becomes a small church. In Sunday school everyone knows my name. In Sundays school activities are planned and relationships grow closer. In Sunday school qualified teachers, dedicated to the discipleship of themselves and everyone in the class, deliver solid messages from the Word of God and quality curriculum designed to supplement and resource the instruction. In Sunday school prayer requests are gathered and members pray for each other’s needs throughout the week. Sunday school class members take care of each other. They visit each other in the hospital and make meals; they attend each other’s baby showers and barbeque together.
How is your class measuring up?
Now having described all this, I just can’t figure out why 3 (or 4) out of 10 do not attend a Sunday school class. Can you figure it out? What else could be going on in the life of a church member on Sunday morning that would keep them from rising an hour earlier or staying an hour after 8.30a preaching service? I just can’t figure it out. I feel like I have a bowl of Life cereal on the kitchen table and I am trying to get you to try it. I know that you will, like Mikey, like it, but I just have to get you to try it.
First Class is Berean’s pre-membership class. We could teach this class on Wednesday nights or Sunday evenings or any other time but instead we do it on Sundays during the Sunday school hour. The goal is to get the future church member in the habit of staying for Sunday school or arriving early for Sunday school. We want every member of Berean that is able to be present for Sunday school to attend one of the numerous classes that meet throughout the building. For us it is not optional. Those who don’t know anyone in the church and are disconnected are disconnected because they have not made the effort to connect on Sundays at 9.30a.
Traditional Sunday school still works. It is not flashy like “Life Groups” or “cell pods” or other affinity organizations. Instead, it takes advantage of the fact that people are already coming to church on Sunday—it is the Lord’s day—and seeks to make our time in the house of the Lord even more effective.
If you haven’t attended First Class now is the time to come. If you have finished First Class, what Sunday school class do you attend?
The back of the weekly prayer sheet has a list of choices—choose one.
