Author Archive for David Francis – Page 2

Missionary Sunday School

By David Francis · Comments (4)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2012
This is the first post for 31 Days of Missionary Sunday School

Throughout the month of August, my friends who serve as the leaders of Sunday School in Baptist state conventions will be expounding—and expanding—some topics from my newest little book, Missionary Sunday School. You can download the book free to your computer at www.lifeway.com/davidfrancis or to an iPad at the iTunes store (http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/david-francis/id14461861).

The book—and the daily articles you’ll read on this blog—attempts to answer this question: “What might a Sunday School look like if it saw itself as a missionary enterprise: thinking and acting out of a missionary mindset?” The book is written in honor of America’s greatest Sunday School missionary, Stephen Paxson. Paxson organized over 1,300 new Sunday Schools enrolling over 83,000 across the Midwest in the 1800s. He encouraged and strengthened more than 1,700 existing schools with 131,000 additional participants. His remarkable story is woven throughout the book.

The book’s three chapters are built around three building blocks of a missionary Sunday School: One Mission, His Story, Every Person.

The one mission of Sunday School is transformation. Personal spiritual transformation in the lives of individuals who are becoming more and more like Jesus. Congregational transformation within churches that are acting more and more like the body of Christ. Cultural transformation that makes the communities around the churches more and more reflect the impact of the kingdom of God. The Sunday School movement has a rich history and heritage of this kind of transformational impact. In the United States, the spread of a constitutional republic across the continent is interlaced with the spread of a transformational movement that helped ensure that the citizens of that republic would be a literate people with a solid moral foundations. That movement was called Sunday School.

His Story—the Bible—is the textbook of the Sunday School. The centerpiece of the movement is Bible teaching and learning. Sunday School without Bible study is not Sunday School. The movement holds to the belief “all the Bible for all of life.” The old hymn that says, “I love to tell the Story, for some have never heard…” also says “I love to tell the Story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting, to hear it like the rest” and “’tis pleasant to repeat, which seems it time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.”

Every person reminds us that Sunday School is for everyone. A missionary Sunday School embraces the missionary principle of the people group. Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all peoples. One of the most significant things a Sunday School class can do is clearly and specifically identify the people group it is responsible for reaching, teaching, and ministering to. The people group my wife Vickie and I teach is pre-Kindergartners. What’s yours? 3rd graders? Middle school boys? High school girls? Young married adults? Without kids? With kids? Parents? Empty nesters? Seniors? I asked this question recently during a conference and heard some great ideas. One of my favorites was “wives of deployed servicemen.” Another was “parents of troubled teens.” A few months ago, a lady identified her people group as “widows over the age of 90.” When I asked where she got prospect names, she answered immediately “the obituaries.” That is missionary mentality at work! What under-reached people groups are in your community? Could you start a Sunday School type ministry on a Tuesday afternoon at an apartment complex? A Saturday morning Bible club at a mobile home park? My friend Bruce Raley, after being hospitalized on a Saturday night, helped start a class for the people group, “medical professionals who work swing shift.” The class met faithfully at 10:00 pm on Saturday nights.

Knowing your people group will even make the welcome time in your worship service more productive. I call it “fishing in a barrel!” Instead of just greeting the folks immediately around you, look across the worship center for those in your people group who may not yet be part of a group or class. Then get over there and invite them! You can be a missionary right at church!

I am looking forward to reading all the articles this month. I hope you’ll join me in checking in each day. I just subscribed so I don’t have to remember! Many blessings as you lead a missionary minded Sunday School!
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David Francis, Director of Sunday School LifeWay Church Resources

Comments (4)
Categories : 31 Days of Missionary Sunday School, Evangelism, Group Life, Growing your Group, Leadership, Mission, Small Groups, Sunday School, Teaching, Unreached people groups

Arthur Flake’s Five-step Formula to Sunday School Growth

By David Francis · Comments (1)
Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Arthur-FlakeThis month at Sunday School Leader.com, we are focusing on five principles of effective Sunday School and small group work that have stood the test of time and are as effective today as they have ever been. I challenge you to invest a few minutes every day at this blog. Your ministry in your group will improve, and after 31 days of exploring the possibilities, you will walk away with a deeper appreciation for Sunday School and an appreciation for the commitment your church has made to make disciples through its small group strategy.

KEEP…Go!  That’s a helpful acronym to remember the 5-step formula for growing Sunday schools and small group ministries attributed to Arthur Flake, who in 1920 became the first person to hold the position now called Director of Sunday School for Southern Baptists. From his office at the Sunday School Board in Nashville, Flake worked alongside folks in the Baptist state conventions who had similar responsibilities. I think he would be thrilled to learn that commentary on “Flake’s Formula” would be the theme for the daily articles throughout January 2012. He would be pleased that the authors of these posts would be folks who lead the work of Sunday School in 42 Baptist state conventions reaching all of North America—and even one supporting Hawaii-Pacific churches. He would be fascinated that a new exhortation could be delivered for 31 consecutive days through a “post” on a “blog” that can literally reach Sunday School leaders of any denominational affiliation—or none—anywhere in the world!

Just a layman. That’s a pretty remarkable legacy for a department store salesman from Winona, Mississippi! You see, Mr. Flake was not seminary trained. He was not a vocational minister. He probably never aspired to anything greater than serving well as the Sunday School director in his church, First Baptist Winona. But Flake’s leadership did not go unnoticed. After effectively transferring his five principles through associational then state-wide assemblies, he was asked to serve in a national role. Remarkably, Flake’s Formula still works today! Here’s an overview of the principles state leaders will expound on this month:

Know the possibilities. Flake advocated surveying the community to determine what persons might be prospective Sunday School members. Goals were established based on real actionable information. There are lots of ways to do that today. The key is to set an attainable goal. Could your Sunday School attendance reasonably increase by 50? The first few articles in this series will expand on this principle.

Enlarge the organization. Flake advocated expanding the organizational structure in anticipation of growth; not just in response to it. Upon encouraging every church to have a class for babies, I’ve heard the same response dozens of times: “But we don’t have any babies.” And you never will if you don’t enlarge the organization in expectation that you will! The same principle applies to any other age group, life stage, affinity, or interest. The average Sunday School will need to add five new classes to increase attendance by 50. More ideas in part 2 of this series.

Enlist and train leaders. A growing organization must have leaders who are properly enlisted and adequately trained. The typical Sunday School will need to enlist and train about 15 new leaders to staff five new classes that will result in a growth of 50 in attendance. Part 3 of this series will provide some thoughts on this.

Provide space. To start new classes or groups, you’ve got to have leaders and a place to meet. To start five new units, you’ll need five “spaces.” Not necessarily rooms. Not necessarily at the church. You’ll get some fresh ideas in part 4 of this series.

GO after the people!  The other four steps don’t matter if you don’t do this one. That’s why Flake started with a survey that produced real names and addresses. The last set of articles in this series will provide some ideas for getting names and contact information. And a few creative—and probably some tried and true—methods for going after people, inviting them to the transformational Bible study groups for all ages and stages we know as Sunday School—or its functional equivalent by some other name!

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David Francis is Director of Sunday School at LifeWay Christian Resources. His popular little annual books, many of which reference Flake’s Formula, can be downloaded free at www.lifeway.com/DavidFrancis or at the Apple iStore.

Comments (1)
Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Flake's Formula

Transformational Church Goes to Sunday School

By David Francis · Comments (2)
Monday, August 1st, 2011

In the twelve months since the release of the book by Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer reporting its findings, the Transformational Church research project has already begun to create a buzz within

the Sunday School and Small Group movements. A lot of leaders are asking this question: “What might it our Sunday School class or small group looklike if it reflected the seven elements found in the Transformational Churches?” I’ve attempted to answer that question in a little book, Transformational Class: Transformational Church Goes to Sunday School.

Seven Elements

In the Spring of 2009, a team of LifeWay consultants fanned out across the country to conduct interviews with pastors from multiple denominations whose churches scored in the top ten percent of the initial quantitative research phase of the Transformational Church project. It is my privilege to lead that team, which assembled in Nashville to debrief this qualitative phase with LifeWay Research VP Ed Stetzer. It was amazing to hear that what I had recorded in my interviews with pastors in New England was also observed by our consultants across the country and across denominational lines. Want to know what the seven elements are? Visit www.transformationalchurch.com!

Missional small communities

If you’ve ever heard Dr. Stetzer speak, you’ve likely heard him exhort church leaders to get people out of rows, into circles, and from those circles to engage them in missional activity in their communities and beyond. I believe that a group that intentionally pursues the seven TC elements will likely become that kind of class: a Transformational Class!

The Power of One Class

If you’ve ever heard me speak, you’ve likely heard me exhort Sunday School and small group leaders about the power of each and every class to choose to become a group that practices the 3 R’s of a Great Commission group: reaching people for Christ, releasing people to serve, and reproducing itself for Kingdom impact. The seven elements can help guide such intentionality in every one of the 400,000-plus Sunday School classes in Southern Baptist churches, as well as small groups and classes beyond the SBC.

 

From seven elements to thirty topics

I am so grateful for my friends who serve as the champion for Sunday School in the 42 state conventions that serve Southern Baptist churches. While most of them wear multiple hats, I think of them first of all as State Sunday School Directors. It is in that role that these outstanding men and women sponsor this blog. They have identified thirty topics that relate to a transformational class. Each day this month, they will tackle one of these topics. By the time you’ve read them all, you should have a pretty good grasp on the kinds of attitudes and actions it will take to turn your Sunday school class into a transformational small community. I’m looking forward to reading every one. Hope you are, too!

_____________________

David Francis, Director
Sunday School, Discipleship,
Church & Network Partnerships
LifeWay Church Resources

Comments (2)
Categories : Teaching, Transformation

Why “Great Expectations” Sunday School?

By David Francis · Comments (6)
Monday, July 26th, 2010

I have frankly been blown away by the positive response to my latest little book, Great Expectations : Planting Seeds for Sunday School Growth.  You’d know why I’m so surprised if I told you the story behind why I decided to use that theme this year, which Bob Mayfield has invited me to do!

Some of my friends have commented, “We like your little books (which have been dubbed“Franciscan Epistles” within LifeWay), but they really all say the same stuff.” That’s probably true of Great Expectations, too!

I experienced a huge breakthrough last year in terms of my own expectations about Sunday School. The catalyst for that breakthrough was during preparation for an online debate with Small Groups specialist Rick Howerton http://www.lifeway.com/sundayschoolvssmallgroups/ . As Rick, Bruce Raley, and I prepared, we had something of a simultaneous flash of insight that Sunday School was being pressured to fulfill expectations that were the domain of small groups on the one hand and discipleship groups on the other. It was frankly a moment of enlightenment to feel the freedom of just letting Sunday School be what it is! And to celebrate that its balance of biblical community and biblical content in an open group environment is exactly what makes it effective as perhaps the finest assimilation tool God has given the church.

Setting aside unreal expectations , however, is not the same as suspending all expectations! Sunday School  classes that grow have high expectations. High Expectations was the original working title of the book, based on the tremendous research boost Sunday School received from Dr. Thom Rainer’s book High Expectations: The Remarkable Secret for Keeping People in Your Church. My boss, Church Resources VP John Kramp, actually recommended the Great Expectations title.  Any parallels to the Charles Dickens classic by the same name are purely coincidental. If there is one allusion you could draw from the classic, it might be that Sunday School has sort of been down on its luck, but I believe the rest of the story is not yet written, and Sunday School may yet make a huge comeback.

The book does conclude with a really big expectation: a proposal that Southern Baptists could start 100,000 new adult classes by 2020, with 1,000,000 more adults in attendance. Plus all the kids! At the end of the day, that’s why I wrote Great Expectations, Bob! And as the champion of “Power of One,” you know that it will always come down to the work of individual classes, one at a time choosing to just muddle along or decide to act on Great Expectations.

For the next 31 days, you’ll enjoy reading articles based on the Great Expectations theme written by the finest Sunday School leaders in North America. These men and women, all members of a fellowship called the State Sunday School Directors Association (SSSDA), share a common passion for making disciples through Sunday School classes, small groups, and discipleship groups. I hope you’ll come back every day this month to be challenged and inspired toward great expectations .

Comments (6)
Categories : Great Expectations, Sunday School
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