I hope you are praying about your Sunday School ministry. Ken Hemphill is helping us all in his book Revitalizing the Sunday Morning Dinosaur: A Sunday School Growth Strategy for the 21st Century. I do not wish to tell you what to do but to challenge you to think.

We need our Sunday School to involve everyone in church growth, soul-winning, discipleship, and world evangelism. Too much depends on how great the musical program in our church is or how great the preaching is. Why don’t we let everyone get under the burden? Let’s ask God to help us involve our entire church in reaching souls. 

Please read the following quotes from the book and meditate on them. I am not an authority, but this book is written by someone with true authority on the subject.

For example, if we conclude that Sunday School’s primary purpose is to foster fellowship among believers, creating new units by dividing large classes doesn’t make sense to the participants. That is why we hear the familiar refrain, “Why would they ask us to split our class? We are just now developing good fellowship.” Such matters as age grading and promotion of pupils are meaningless if the Sunday School’s primary purpose is fellowship.

If Sunday School’s primary purpose is quality Bible teaching, there is little reason to have small classes and create new units. “Good Bible teachers” are few. If our focus is on quality Bible teaching, we should put all the adults in a few classes and let our master teachers lecture. Many churches do exactly this.

I have no quarrel with the importance of the worship service in fueling church growth. Worship and Sunday School are partners in growth, not opponents. Yet numerical growth built only through the large worship experience is often a very volatile growth. When the exciting worship leader leaves the church, many worship-only attenders look elsewhere for another great worship experience. Once a church reaches people through the front door of worship, the church still must assimilate them into the small-group structure. Otherwise they will exit through the back door of apathy.

The people will usually make the greatest commitment to that which the pastor gives greatest emphasis. Lay persons commit to serve in the Sunday School when they see that this is their pastor’s priority.

A well-organized Sunday School integrates outreach, assimilation, and teaching. This Great Commission vision for the Sunday School gives it the necessary balance to function properly.