sunday school - lifeway · pdf filesunday school manual h w t o ˚ ... how do i conduct a...

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The How To Sunday School Manual is a compilation of short, to-the-point articles from experts and practitioners that offer practical tips and advice for organizing and leading your church’s Sunday School ministry.

This manual • Serves as a reference guide for the person expected to know how to administer an effective Sunday School;• Gives you practical actions you can take for planning, leading, and evaluating your Sunday School; • Provides all the forms and tools needed to complete the actions outlined.

A CD-ROM is included that features electronic forms that support the articles in-cluded, a recommended reading list, and 5 books written by David Francis.

© Copyright 2009 LifeWay Press No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing by the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to LifeWay Press, One LifeWay Plaza, Nashville, TN 37234-0175. ISBN: 1-4158-6598-1 Item 005164710 Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 268.1 Subject Heading: SUNDAY SCHOOLS—ADMINISTRATION Printed in the United States of America

All Scripture quotations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®

, copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

To order additional copies of this resource: Write LifeWay Church Resources Customer Service; One LifeWay Plaza; Nashville, TN 37234-0113; fax order to (615) 251-5933; call toll free 1-800-458-2772; e-mail [email protected]; order online at www.lifeway.com; or visit the LifeWay Christian Store serving you.

Leadership and Adult Publishing LifeWay Church Resources One LifeWay Plaza Nashville, Tennessee 37234-0175

How To Sunday School Manual

ContentsForward—Wayne Poling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Introduction—David Francis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Foundational Sunday School Principles— Bruce Raley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Understanding the LifeSpan Spiritual Development Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20The Creation of This Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

InvITe Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 How do I model Invite to my church? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 How do I do a Sunday School evangelism check-up? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 How do I evaluate our “Invite” attitude? . . . . . . . . . . . 28 How do I encourage my leaders and members to enroll people anywhere anytime? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 How do I develop guidelines for enrolling and dropping people from our rolls? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 How do I discover real prospects? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 How do we set up and use a prospect system? . . . . . . 33 How do I make intelligent prospect assignments? . . . 35

How can I help our members see the importance of reaching others? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 How do I lead our church in planning a high attendance emphasis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 How do I change members’ mind-set about Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 How do we help unchurched people understand what Sunday School can mean to them? . . . . . . . . . 41 How do we help unchurched people understand what Sunday School is? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 How can I help a class be open to new people? . . . . . 43 How do I encourage classes and members to be evangelistic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 How do we contact first-time guests? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 How do we reclaim absentees? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 How do I prepare others to make a contact? . . . . . . . 49 How do I train outreach evangelism leaders? . . . . . . . 51 How do I train leaders and members to witness? . . . . 52 How can we make guests feel more welcome? . . . . . . 53 How can name tags be used effectively with guests? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 How do I determine what leaders our organization needs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 How do we move people from worship only into Sunday School attendees? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

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How do I identify the growing seasons for our church? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 How can we move VBS participants to Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 How can we plan events that encourage our members to invite unchurched people? . . . . . . . . . 60

DISCoveR Introduction – David Francis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 How do I model Discover to my church? . . . . . . . . . . . 63 How do I conduct a Discover Evaluation? . . . . . . . . . . 65 How do I evaluate teaching in my church? . . . . . . . . . 66 How do I train teachers to teach more effectively? . . . 67 How do I help teachers continue to develop their skills? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 How do I find and develop apprentices? . . . . . . . . . . . 70 How do we determine what space and equipment is required? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 How do I do a space walk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 How do I conduct an assessment of our equipment and furnishings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 How do I help teachers use the space they have? . . . . 76 How do I help teachers use technology effectively? . . . 77 How do I establish a library of resources for teachers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

How do I choose Bible study curriculum? . . . . . . . . . . 79 How do I help those who teach learners with developmental or physical disabilities?. . . . . . . . . . 81 How do I help leaders stay spiritually fit? . . . . . . . . . . . 85

ConneCT Introduction – David Francis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 How can I model Connect for my church? . . . . . . . . . . 89 How do I conduct a Connect Evaluation? . . . . . . . . . . . 91 How do I help make care groups function effectively? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 How do I create an awareness of God’s call of people to serve? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 How do I help people discover their places of service?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 How do I administer a spiritual gifts inventory? . . . . . 97 How do I help people get connected in our Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 How do I facilitate classes’ meeting the needs of others? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 How do I equip leaders and members to minister? . . 105 How do I train care group leaders? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 How do I support Sunday School fellowship activities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

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How do I lead in developing a Sunday School vision statement?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 How do I make Sunday School a priority with the church, staff, leaders, and members? . . . . . . . . . . 133 How do we develop a Sunday School leader covenant? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 How do I honor and encourage teachers and leaders?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 How do I conduct a commissioning service?. . . . . . . . 136 How do I deal with ineffective leaders? . . . . . . . . . . . 137 How do I create a Sunday School Planning Team? . . . 138 How do we develop a Sunday School strategy plan? . . 139 How do I lead our church in annual planning for our Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 How do I conduct Sunday School Planning Team meetings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 How do I develop a Sunday School budget?. . . . . . . . 144 How do I help class leaders effectively plan their Sunday School work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 How do we reorganize our Sunday School without bloodshed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 How can we effectively group people? . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 How do I help preschool leaders group preschoolers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

How can we build community through the Sunday school? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 How do I show others how to use technology to get connected?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 How do I help classes stay connected with associate members? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 How do I build an effective Sunday School prayer system? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 How can I lead our Sunday School to be more missional? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 How do I help classes develop a class covenant? . . . 116

ADMInISTeR Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 How do I Set the Standard as THE leader? . . . . . . . . . 119 How do I use the Growth Spiral to evaluate our Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 How do I use the Growth and Evaluation Plan to evaluate our Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 How do I use the Flake’s Formula to evaluate our Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 How do I use the Sunday School Growth Worksheet ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 How do I use a church and community profile? . . . . . 129

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How do I prepare my church for both Sunday School and off-campus Small Group ministries? . . 172 How do we get ready for a new Sunday School year? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 How do I get records ready for the Sunday School year? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 How do I start a special needs ministry? . . . . . . . . . . 175 How do I lead my church to develop security policies for our preschoolers, children, and students? . . . . . 177 How do we implement the use of a volunteer application form and background check system? . . 179 How do I ask the right questions when developing a security policy for our preschoolers and children? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186CD-RoM Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

How can we effectively start new Sunday School units? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 How do I manage enlisting?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 How do I enlist a new leader? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 How do I help my church define job responsibilities?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 How do I help leaders make training a priority? . . . . . 156 How do I determine the training needs of leaders? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 How do I/we develop a training strategy for our leaders? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 How do I locate and develop potential leaders? . . . . 159 How do I prepare new leaders for their first day?. . . . 160 How do I train the Sunday School Director? . . . . . . . . 161 How do I know it is time for multiple Sunday Schools? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 How do we start a second Sunday School time? . . . . 163 How do I coordinate multiple Sunday Schools? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 How do I help my church effectively organize and use their Sunday School records system? . . . . . . . 165 How do I start a new Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 How do I restart a Sunday School? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 How do I help Sunday School leaders work together? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171

Introduction

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I n recent decades, there has been a debate about the purpose of Sunday School. Using the word

“the” suggests Sunday School has (or ought to have) a single or at least one preeminent purpose. Some argue forcefully that evangelism is the primary purpose. Oth-ers view Sunday School primarily as an assimilation strategy, where members connect through fellowship and ministry. Still others advocate that the purpose is foundational discipleship through Bible study.

The term “Sunday School” has also been a part of this debate. I have often joked that this is a perfect name, except it’s not just on Sunday and it’s not a school! For that reason, some churches have renamed Sunday School. Sometimes that has helped them refocus the purposes; more often, it has not. Therefore, in many churches, the question remains: What is the purpose of Sunday School (or a functionally equivalent ministry by some other name)?

A one letter change to the question can clear up the debate. Add the letter “s” to the end of “purpose,” and restate the question: What are the purposes of Sunday School? Rather than giving a definitive, one-

size-fits-all answer, let’s think through the question from a few different perspectives.

Sunday School and the Purposes of the ChurchRick Warren popularized five church purposes:

worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism. LifeWay President Thom Rainer recommended adding a sixth: prayer. George Barna suggested a different sixth: stewardship. Others argue that missions is a sixth purpose. So which of these 5-8 is the purpose of Sunday School? The answer is yes! Different churches and different classes will lean more toward one or more of these purposes—either seasonally or all the time. But all the purposes will show up in some way in virtu-ally every Sunday School group. In fact, the health of a Sunday School class might be best determined by how well it balances the purposes.

Sunday School and Simple ChurchIn their breakthrough book, Simple Church, Thom

Rainer and Eric Geiger found a strong correlation within healthy, growing churches of a clearly communicated

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groups. Groups that focuses primarily on discipleship are designed to be “closed.” That is, they are primar-ily for developing believers, with expectations around regular attendance, preparation for and participation in the group discussion, usually involving prescribed study materials, and often a set number of sessions. Therefore, they need to be closed to new participants once the group has started its course of study. Open groups, on the other hand, are, well, open! An open group expects new people to be in attendance every time it meets. That expectation drives every other decision, including how the room is set up and curricu-lum choices. But Sunday School classes can be great places to promote Discipleship groups. In fact, there is an emerging trend where D-groups are extensions of Sunday School classes. Typically, no more than five couples (or eight individuals) from the same Sunday School class—or their associate members who serve in the preschool, children, or student classes during Sun-day School—covenant to be a part of a group for a set period of time. Usually, they meet during the week at a time agreed upon by the group, and study material they

process that moves members through an easily understood path toward spiritual maturity. The pro-cess answers the question, “What’s my next step?” In these Simple Churches, there was one primary program aligned with each step. Sunday School is ideally suited as Step Two in a process where Step One is the primary weekly worship experience—which is typical. Why? Because you can accomplish the first two steps of your process with every member of the family, on one trip to the church! Additionally, Sunday School provides dozens of opportunities for ministry involvement, which is usually another step in the process of most Simple Churches.

Sunday School and DiscipleshipSunday School classes do provide the opportunity

to learn through Bible study and teaching, which is foundational to discipleship. But there is still a need for groups that focus specifically on spiritual growth, which Southern Baptists have typically called disciple-ship groups. A Sunday School class that balances the purposes of the church are designed to be “open”

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by a church or denomination as it is a unique com-munity of people. Every group has to decide what its purposes will be.

Three Dimensions of a Balanced Sunday School ClassThe basic unit of the Sunday School is the class.

The basic principle of growing your Sunday School is starting new units that are intentional open groups. Healthy, growing, reproducing classes strive to achieve a balance among multiple dimensions. Three such dimensions aare identified in my book, The 3D Sunday School.

A 3D Sunday School helps people invite, discover, and connect. If you are a veteran Sunday School leader, you may see a parallel to the three terms reach, teach, and minister. Those classic terms make up another excellent framework for achieving a bal-anced and focused Sunday School. Reach, teach, and minister are three tasks for leaders. They identify what leaders do. Invite, discover, and connect are three dimensions that involve every member.

have selected from a list of approved books or courses. They experience the differences—and benefits—of both types of groups and tend to resist the temptation of merging the two kinds of groups into one.

Sunday School and Small GroupsAre small groups more like Sunday School classes

or Discipleship groups? Again, it depends on whether they are open or closed. I cannot emphasize enough that they cannot be both at the same time. Neither one is better. They are just different. An open small group may function very similarly to a Sunday School class. A closed small group may function more like a Disciple-ship group. But small groups also have their own range of unique characteristics. That’s because they are part of a movement. Sunday School is also a movement. The Discipleship movement is also unique. Each shares and borrows practices from the others, yet remains unique as well. This is important to remember when discussing the purposes of any kind of groups, includ-ing Sunday School classes. At their core, any one group is not so much an expression of a program prescribed

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How Sunday Schools Get out of BalanceSunday Schools get out of balance when any one

of the dimensions becomes more important than the others. The three dimensions are just another way of expressing the Great Commission’s charge: go, baptize, teach. Jesus commanded us to take the good news to people, to assimilate people into the church, and to guide them into a lifelong process of discipleship. All three Great Commission dimensions are important.

If Bible study becomes most important, the class may do a very good job of teaching, but will become functionally closed. A symptom of this is when mem-bers and leaders begin to demand “really deep Bible study” because “we’re all mature Christians.” It sounds reasonable, but this idea reflects a misunderstanding of the intent of Sunday School to reach and incorpo-rate—invite and connect—new people, too.

If assimilating people—getting them connected and involved—is emphasized as the primary function of Sunday School, just the opposite may happen. Inten-tional discovery of Bible truths and how they apply to life may take a back seat to fellowship. Many churches

Members of a 3D Sunday School class view the class as a Great Commission team. 3D Sunday School class members covenant together with prayerful and strategic intent to execute all three dimensions of a balanced Sunday School.

Members enter into a kingdom “conspiracy” to work together to make their class a safe and hospitable environment that motivates members to invite un-churched friends, relatives, associates and neighbors (FRANs). They invite people not merely because the class is responsible for getting people to attend Bible study, but rather because the class is responsible for attending to the lives of people.

Members in a 3D class covenant together to create group experiences in which people discover the great truths of the Bible and the faith stories of believers.

Members in a 3D class work together to provide people the opportunity to connect through fellowship and ministry.

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will figure out a way to keep the discover and connect dimensions in balance!

Invite, discover, and connect are intentionally interrelated—like the three sides of triangle. The three dimensions actually should be viewed as three strands of a rope or cord. The third strand always gives strength to the other two. Which of the three strands is most important? Each of them and all of them! The same is true with a 3D Sunday School.

The primary purpose of this manual is to help you take intentional actions around each of these three di-mensions. This manual is intended to be more practical than philosophical. But behind these practical ideas is the philosophy of Sunday School ministry captured in the 3D Sunday School series. Visit www.lifeway.com/sundayschool to view or download all four books in the series: the introductory book and more detailed books on each of the three dimensions. You’ll also find training plans and audio-visual overviews. My prayer is that you will use those resources and this manual to do Sunday School “on purpose” in your church!

today have adopted a philosophy that views the wor-ship service as the “front door”—the place through which people are first exposed to the church. The Sunday School is viewed primarily as the assimilation strategy for those who have come through worship. It is the place to get people connected. That sounds okay too, but if the Sunday School surrenders its evangelistic outreach dimension, a class may turn inward, making it difficult to sustain a passion for reaching out—even to new church members.

Lifting up outreach and evangelism as the most important dimension of Sunday School has issues as well. This mind-set is probably a reaction to the reality that outreach and evangelism seldom become the most important dimensions. I have never heard a Sun-day School leader share this problem: “We are inviting so many people that we cannot get them connected and help them have a good Bible study experience.” It would be wonderful if this was the challenge fac-ing your Sunday School! I am confident that if classes will make the invite dimension more deliberate, they

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