A lovely Sunday School is a practical, well-organized ministry of the Word: It is a teaching ministry that equipped teachers are carrying out. Furthermore, Sunday School is a church-based educational ministry that aims to engage all church members in reaching out, teaching, winning, and helping the converts grow into maturity. A lovely Sunday School is a ministry of the Word taught by a teacher, lived and seen by the learners, and demonstrated as the teacher’s life mirrors the Word through the ministries of visitation, counselling, encouragement, fellowship, and witnessing.
Historically, Sunday School did not begin in the Baptist denomination. It has its roots in the Anglican Church, but it has become God’s ordained instrument in many Baptist churches worldwide. Sunday school “was established by Hannah Ball in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1769. The systematization of faith-based education for children was credited to. Ball’s villagers. Robert Raikes (1736-1811) expressed concern for the impoverished children living in England’s slums who found their way into crime.” As many tributaries flow become a stream, stream to a river, and many have shaped the Sunday School into what it is today.
A practical Sunday school Ministry could have a dramatic effect on the evangelistic effort of the church, and effective evangelism has the potential to impact Sunday school positively. An effective Sunday School focuses on the following purposes of Sunday School: Reach, Teach, Win, And Develop.
REACH -to reach out to all ages, sexes, church members, unsaved, active, and inactive church members.
TEACH- confront persons with God in Christ through the Bible-God’s Word.
WIN-teaching is not for knowledge’s sake but to help persons commit to Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
DEVELOP – accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the beginning point in the Christian race. Converts need to grow to maturity. Sunday school is one of the ministries with this responsibility.
The Present Situation of Sunday School in Many Churches
These ideas are not meant to blame anyone. Instead, the attempt is to critically paint the picture of what happens in the Sunday School in many Baptist churches. The following are some of the situations in many churches.
Form of Religion: Having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them (2 Timothy 3:5 NIV). One of the present situations of Sunday School is its tendency to be a form of religion that denies the power thereof. The form of religion and godliness are the same. This is claiming to be Christians without any tangible evidence of a changed life. It is an attitude that dishonours His name.
Glued to the Letter: Competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life(2 Corinthians 3:4-6 NIV). The goal of Sunday School is to teach the summary of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross through the various outlines in our Sunday School manuals.
Unfortunately, some methods of handling Sunday school do not focus on the life that Christ brings. The message in our Churches should be Jesus and not a deliberate run-through of the manual without understanding the message. All passages used in Sunday School must point to Jesus. Our teaching skills must be dynamic too for effective teaching. We should try and avoid deliberate glueing or sticking to the Letter or manual as the case may be.
Not Reaching Out: Many Sunday School ministries are not reaching out; perhaps many workers are unaware that Sunday School should reach out to the lost. Sunday School is wrongly seen as a denominational programme. Though Sunday School ought to promote denominational ministry, the purpose of Sunday School is to redeem men and women to God through His undiluted Word.
Adults and Children Focused: Initially, Sunday school began as a ministry to children. But today, it has been administering grace to everyone. Therefore, it should not be for adults to neglect the children and the youths or a ministry for the youths and children who neglect the adults like some other denominations.
Sunday School and Challenges of Leadership
It is disheartening that many leaders of churches are dismissing Sunday school as a strategy that can ensure the growth of their churches. The following may be some of the factors working against the development of Sunday School:
- Some leaders have yet to experience a healthy Sunday school ministry experience.
- Some leaders have never been taught the principles of Sunday school growth.
- Some leaders assume Sunday school does not work because another prominent leader has dismissed it as ineffective.
- Some leaders do not endeavour to participate actively in the Sunday school ministry of their church. They use Sunday school preparation time during the week and Sunday school period on Sunday to attend to other matters they consider to be necessary.
Sunday school is an effective instrument to reach out to the lost and for the spiritual development of those already in Christ. The present challenges are surmountable. The need to overcome them is one of the reasons for this gathering.
Sunday School Ministry as a Viable Ministry to Grow a Church
Sunday School is a doable instrument to grow. your church if you prayerfully ensure that the church members participate purposefully and the teaching ministry is skillfully facilitated. Therefore, Sunday School will help to grow individuals who will in turn grow the Church in the following ways.
Assimilation of a New Believer: Participation in Sunday School makes a dramatic difference in the assimilation of a new believer. Participation in Sunday school benefits the prospects or class members in many ways. An observable opinion is that the converts participating in Sunday School experience steady growth. Therefore, to make Sunday school a viable instrument to grow your church, encourage new believers to attend Sunday school classes.
Learn under Adult Believers: Active involvement in Sunday school enables prospects, primarily converts, to learn under adult believers. It allows the prospect to be disciplined by a mature believer who may likely be the Sunday School teacher or a member who is led to help them along this spiritual journey.
Leads Prospects to Become Learners of the Word of God: Participating in Sunday school integrates the prospect into the circle of steady growth in the church.
Helps Members to Develop their Potential: Active participation in Sunday school, where responsibilities are assigned to class members, helps each member develop their potential -spiritual gifts, talents, and other endowments.
Methods to Facilitate Your Sunday School to Grow a Church.
Sunday school becomes a viable ministry to grow a church when the following are put into consideration:
Age-Graded Classification: When people are organized according to age group and lifestyles, such as preschoolers, younger and older children, teenagers, young adults, and adults (50s,’60, and above), the outcome of age grading will be:
- The teaching/learning experience becomes more effective than when it is not graded.
- Scripture will be better applied to life and experiences.
- Class members can openly express themselves better.
Structured Classes: A well-structured Sunday school class is a practical class for evangelism and discipleship. Members who have been disciplined can also be mobilized in different classes to reach those, not active participants and those who have not been reached. It is an excellent soul-saving method to reach homes for Christ. A danger to avoid is turning Sunday School into active church members alone. Sunday school is for everybody-church members, friends of the church, and regular s and irregular worshipers.
“Edutainment”: Members and the church when it is organized creatively. The learner will diversify methods of opening, teaching, and closing Sunday school classes.
Emphasising Members’ Unity: Organization is. Jesus’ Prayer for His church in the Gospel of John 17 echoes your church becomes a great church because of the manifestation of true love and harmony.
Engaging Vibrant and Dynamic Workers: Vibrancy is a description of anything full of energy and life. Other synonyms of the Word include energetic, exciting, and full of enthusiasm. Equally, the dynamic describes an organization’s power to adjust to diverse needs. Another goal of a lovely School School’s ministry is its capacity to make the entire church vibrant-full of spiritual strength and life-changing if vibrant workers are enlisted and enhanced for the work.
Small Group Approach: A lovely Sunday school will be able to meet the diverse needs of people if it operates as a small unit organization. This is one of the reasons why each Sunday school class should limit its membership to a maximum of 10-12 class members if they have enough teachers to handle them. Its small size allows it to benefit from the advantages of a small group. Smaller groups are highly engaging and motivational. It is a place where people can quickly build trust and unity, and the members naturally coach and mentor one another.
How to Increase Church Growth Through Sunday School
Making the Teaching Real: One of the ways to achieve a growing church through Sunday school is to be practical in your teaching. Appropriate thinking should be about how each lesson can benefit from the teaching. Sunday school will facilitate the growth of a church when the teachers and the learners practice the lesson of sick people in their homes. By the leading of the Holy Spirit, during the class sessions, identify the downcast and counsel them. Lay hands on the ill and correct those who falter in any way.
Engaging the Participation of all Class Members: All class members must be involved in the teaching and learning to ensure an impactful learning experience. They are encouraging personal preparation at home. Daily Encounter, for example, will adequately prepare each family member for Sunday School. The officers of the Sunday Schoo1 must work hard at developing a list of prospects. Growing a lovely Sunday School requires seeing and working to make prospects potential members, teachers, leaders, and workers.
Creative Promotion: Like many other human endeavours, Sunday school needs constant and creative promotion. An example of how to promote Sunday School is “Sunday School Super Sunday.” This is done on a selected Sunday, possibly quarterly, when the Sunday school will be promoted to the Church. The growth of the Sunday school, attendants, impact, and challenges are considered. A church may identify a class that is excelling numerically and recognize the class. You can evaluate it spiritually and significantly remember the class.
Prayer and Power of the Holy Spirit: All efforts can fail without the blessing from God. Teachers, pastors, and church members must continuously pray for the success of the Sunday school.
Persistent Effort: Rather than sporadic growth, one of the ways to ensure an enduring growth of the church members, Sunday School, and the church is through persistent effort to ensure class members’ growth. Some programmes of the church can bring erratic growth numerically. But such growth may not be a lasting one. The availability of a class teacher, assistant class teacher, and other officers whose responsibilities should focus on the members’ lives will lead to a steady growth of the Sunday School and the prospects’ lives.
Aim at Touching Lives: Becoming a class member in Sunday school is not the only desired goal of a practical and lovely Sunday school. Your Sunday School should aim at touching lives. An effective Sunday School ministry seeks all the class members to echo with one voice what Paul says in Galatians 2:20:”I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. It is not about Sunday School boasting that particular convert results from its effort but adding effort to see them growing through Bible study and other arms of the church such as Royal Ambassadors, Girls’ Auxiliary, Women Missionary Society, and Men Missionary Union aim to transform people’s lives.
Enlisting Potential Leaders: In the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod, the tetrarch), and Saul. 2 While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”(Acts 13:1-3 NIV).
Potential leaders are enlisted when Sunday School works. Each member of the Sunday school class is a potential leader for one ministry in the church or the other. They are like gold which is ready to be unearthed. Their presence in the Sunday school is an opportunity to confront them with the challenge of committing themselves to serve God through church ministry. When enrolled and assisted in growing, they would qualify and be ready to be sent by God to engage in the ministry as a volunteer, part-time, or full-time gospel worker.
Encouraging Person-to-person ministry: Every evangelistic effort is practically personal evangelism. Sunday directly. This can happen when a teacher and other Sunday School members
Conclusion
God’s Word can change your life when nothing else can or will. The creative power of God’s Word makes a Sunday School that uses a practical educational approach to growing the church. Sunday School grows a church when members of the class are enlisted to work, and they work together. Pastor is the first Sunday School officer. His effort and position are indispensable. Equally important is the entire pastoral team. All actions can fail without the blessings of God. Teachers, pastors, and church members must continuously pray for the success of the Sunday school. The church ought to resolve that Sunday school is not just a programme but a critical ministry to make church members grow and thereby nurture the church to grow. Determining to do so will enable the church to plan, budget for it, and work until it succeeds. Making your Sunday school become a lovely ministry means.
- Visiting members.
- Be concerned about the issues of their lives generally and not about spiritual matters alone.
- Identify members by their names.
- Celebrate them through special anniversaries-birthdays, etc.
- Pray for their needs corporately and privately.
If taken seriously, Sunday School is an indispensable investment in the members’ lives. A lovely Sunday School ministry aims to turn information into the Word of God to transform class members’ lives and launch them to reach, win souls for Christ, and make a church grow numerically and spiritually.
