I’m giving up on Sunday school after deciding it is not worth the effort.

Because I have the opportunity to choose, I am deciding to put my efforts into building a community group instead.

Actually, I’m not totally abandoning Sunday school.  I will continue attending a traditional early hour Sunday school class but I won’t teach a class at the second hour.

I’m not advocating a mass abandonment of Sunday school.   If it works for you, that’s great.

After six years of teaching a young adult class, I foresee better potential investing in another format.  Sunday school can work.  And, my class could have been more effective with more investment from me.

But, it isn’t working.  And, just because it is the way Southern Baptists have done Bible study for the past 70 years or so doesn’t mean it is the way we have to do it.  And, it doesn’t mean it is the best way to do it.  It is possible that the model doesn’t work for this generation.

Semester breaks and military deployments create major attendance shifts in my class.  At best, there is little commitment from class members.  If there is something else happening for the weekend, they are gone.  Also, there is no expectation for attendance or participation.  They come, they listen, and they go on without apparent significant life change.

I believe that engaging God’s word and meaningful Christ-centered relationships will result in life change.

My prayer is that a group facilitator and I can connect with a community group from a wide age and social spectrum to develop interlocking relationships.  In the context of those relationships, we seek to bring about life change, encourage evangelism and create a global approach to missions.

There is a lot that can happen.  There is a lot that needs to happen.  I’m ready to explore a different approach.  Life’s too short to spend on investments that aren’t producing life-changing returns.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 6:35 am and is filed under Christianity, Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.