Sunday School

Sweet Diminutive

You may recall that we have taken the summer off from our transitional transparency meetings. In that spirit we have decided to visit other churches in our area and we are really enjoying the experience. Every other Sunday or so we continue to attend our own church. When we do, we make it a point to visit a different Sunday school class.

For the past several years we had not been attending Sunday school. We were dissatisfied with the way these classes were functioning. Mostly they were a time of fellowship and discussion, with not much in the way of learning taking place. In other words, it was a time of everyone giving their own opinion and not much in the way of really studying God's word. So we thought it might be the time to go around and visit each of the adult classes that our church has to offer to see if anything has changed.

First we visited, what for the lack of a better term, is considered to be our Senior Citizen class. The Sunday we visited a substitute teacher was in charge. The material being used was from a uniform lesson. We were warmly welcomed to the class and we were asked to come back. The discussion centered on the lesson somewhat. The title of the lesson was "Trustworthy leadership." Much affirmation was given to our current leaders, although one person asked the question about why so many are leaving our congregation. There was no discussion about that question. Usually the same people spoke and we felt we didn't learn much in this class.

Our next visit took us to a small class consisting of older couples, some about our age and some were leaders within our congregation. The title for our lesson was "Teaching that transforms" and it also was from the same uniform lesson series. This class was taught on a rotating basis and for that Sunday a women was in charge. She did a good job of walking us through the lesson and leading our discussion. Again, we were warmly welcomed. We noted that due to the size of the room this class had a limit to the number able to attend. And again, mostly the same people shared during the discussion. This class reminded us as to why we stopped attending Sunday school in the first place. Much discussion, not much learning.

Now this past Sunday was a unique experience and an "eye-opener" of sorts. Our post-high class has been asking for volunteers to share with there class. So we had decided that we would be willing to do that. We also requested an opportunity to ask our own questions of the group. All this was arranged by one of their own, the person in charge of this class. For us to prepare, this person sent a list of questions that we could answer, either one, any or all. When we arrived at the class there was only one other person present. Even though we waited no one else showed up. Not even the person who had made the arrangement. We went ahead as best we could and had a nice time of getting to know the lone young person there. We shared our experience as requested and the person seemed grateful for our being there.

This experience has shed some light on what is going wrong with our congregation. We currently have a program of financial aid for college students who attend our affiliated institutions. According to the records we have distributed funds to 11 qualified candidates. Besides this number, there would be others of this age group who are not attending school or not attending qualified institutions. Where are all these people? Are they just not attending Sunday school? And, if not, why? Over the next few weeks we will investigate this matter and report to you. This is a real mystery for us and we want to get to the bottom of it.