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Arkansas church’s Sunday schools meet any time, any place Boyce Bowdon, Dec 5, 2008
By Boyce Bowdon Special Contributor
Worship attendance in 2005 at Wesley United Methodist Church in Russellville, Ark., averaged 70. By August 2007, it had grown to about 100. But Sunday school attendance had been stuck on 55 for years.
Having half as many in Sunday school as in worship would please many pastors and congregations, but not Wesley’s pastor, the Rev. Blake Bradford, and his people.
“Sunday school is the primary setting where disciples are formed for ministry,” Mr. Bradford says. “When a small group of people study together week after week in a classroom, they grow in their understanding of the Christian faith, they develop close friendships and they serve together in worthy causes that have meaning for them and for others.”
Why wasn’t Sunday school attendance at Wesley keeping pace with growth in worship attendance?
A task force reviewed the church’s Sunday school program. They talked with members who weren’t attending. Several adults said they wanted to attend a class, but couldn’t because they were either teaching children or youth or had other church responsibilities when the classes met. Others said they would like to attend Sunday school, but had jobs on Sundays that kept them from attending.
When the task force explored ways to make Sunday school available for these people, they came up with one obvious solution: Why not have two Sunday school sessions? So they added classes during the second worship service, and also on Sunday evenings.
The second service option didn’t help people who were unable to attend Sunday school on Sunday. So the task force proposed that the church also offer Sunday school classes on other days of the week.
Then they went a step farther. They decided that just as Sunday school doesn’t have to meet on Sundays, it doesn’t have to meet at church.
Sunday school classes now meet throughout the week in homes and elsewhere. A men’s Sunday school class meets in a tire shop owned by a member.
“We want people to meet at the time and place that works best for them,” says Mr. Bradford. “What matters is not when or where we met, but what happens when we met.
“Our classes use United Methodist Sunday school resources. They are Methodist and they are missional.”
Wesley’s task force examined Sunday school models in churches across the country and adapted the parts that would fit their church’s size, setting and mission.
The mission of Wesley’s Sunday school classes, Mr. Bradford says, is to help students “know God with their heads, love God with their hearts and serve God with their hands.” To accomplish this mission, classes strive to inform students theologically, transform them spiritually and help them demonstrate God’s love through serving others and sharing Christ.
Wesley’s Sunday school attendance is no longer stuck on 55. Since September 2007, it has grown to 80. And their worship attendance has climbed to 124.
Giving Sunday school classes the option of meeting anytime and anywhere helps attendance and makes more disciples, says Mr. Bradford.
Dr. Bowdon is a freelance writer in Oklahoma City, Okla.
