Ministry :: Sunday School Leaders

Jan

Everyone Needs a Class!

By Mark Miller · Comments (0)

Bad Lessons run off more people than good outreach programs can bring in. You will literally kill your church visiting if all you ever visit is Chronic Absentees. If you’re not enrolled in Sunday School, you ain’t got no class! Enrollment is the most important statistic in the church.

These were just a few of the snappy little sayings by Andy Anderson. Everyone needs a class, but If you’re not enrolled in Sunday School, you ain’t got no class! It is so powerful to hear someone share how a class of people ministered to them in their time of need and brought them to Jesus. In September of 2006, I arrived at my classroom to find a message from the pastor on the marker board: Pray for Beth Smith. I had no clue that Beth was sick. On Saturday, I had chaperoned the High School Band to a Band Contest and we returned at 2:00 in the morning. Both of Beth’s daughters were in the band. When they arrived home, Beth had responded to them. Beth’s husband, Chuck, was accompanying a terminally ill boy on a Elk hunt as a part of an organization like Make a Wish. The next morning Beth was very lethargic and was rushed to the hospital. The majority of the members of Sunday School class spent that day and Monday morning with Chuck, Jordan and Jessica at the hospital. Beth never came out of the diabetic coma that she was in and died on Monday afternoon. During the next few days, our class took the lead and ministered to the family and continued to do so to this day. That experience led me to the conclusion: That my desire is that every Tennessean would have a Sunday School class like mine to minister to them in a time of need.

Andy is shouting from the grave: If you’re not enrolled in Sunday School, you ain’t got no class! Sunday School leader do you understand the importance of enrolling people in Sunday School? In my opinion, every church member should be a member of a Sunday School class. After someone has been won the easiest and most efficient way to assimilate them is a Sunday School class. In fact, Thom Rainer’s, President of LifeWay Christian Resources, research indicates that if we get someone connected to a Sunday School class or small group that 85% of these people will still be connected to your church 5 years later, compared with only 15% of those who only attend worship. Join me in believing that every person needs a class.

As a young minister of education, Andy convinced me that enrollment is more important than baptisms, church membership, and attendance. He would declare, “Enrollment is the most important statistic in the church.” In fact, I agree with my friend Bob Mayfield who says, enrollment is the forgotten factor in evangelism today. Churches are dropping people from the rolls instead of adding people to the roll. When your enrollment increases, your attendance increases. When you enroll lost people, your baptisms increase. When your enrollment increases, your offerings increase. When your enrollment increases, your membership increases. A pastor from West TN recently took the Power Up Your Sunday School Challenge and his church enrolled 41 new members in 7 weeks and the attendance grew from 80 to 120.

Daniel Edmonds, the State Sunday School Director in Alabama, has a great definition for enrollment. He says that enrollment is a covenant making, attendance increasing, relationship building, evangelistic opportunity. Everyone needs a class that will enter a covenant to pray for them, to love them, to minister to them, to challenge them in their spiritual journey. But if they’re not enrolled in Sunday School, they ain’t got no class.
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Mark Miller, State Sunday School Director, Tennessee Baptist Convention

Categories : Flake's Formula, Ministry, Outreach/Evangelism, Prayer, Small Groups, Sunday School

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Jan

Add Supporting Leaders as you Grow

By Daniel Edmonds · Comments (0)

In starting a new adult group, one could begin with as few as one or two leaders. Numerous classes have been started through the years with a willing teacher and a list of prospects. On the other end of the spectrum, some start classes with a much larger number of leaders and members. Wherever you are on the spectrum, do not miss the opportunity to add supporting leaders as you grow.

Arthur Flake in his book, The True Functions of the Sunday School, speaks of the Sunday School as the employment agency of the church: “With proper executive leadership any Sunday school in any church can be so organized that a place of useful, joyous service may be made for every member of the church (42).” Flake even responds to those who say we should not rush people into a place of service; “It is false reasoning to say that they cannot serve until they have grown in Christian experience. Jesus used the twelve when they were yet immature (32-33).” Giving people an opportunity to discover and grow into the good work for which they have been created is not being “pushy” (Ephesians 2:10).

I co-authored a book with Dr. Lawrence Phipps, Growing Sunday School TEAMS, in which we demonstrated how to help people discover their place in the Body of Christ through “building Bible study groups in the church.” The invitation is for everyone to discover their place on one of the TEAMS. A modern picture of the Body of Christ is a team of people with a variety of gifts, talents, and abilities coming together to accomplish a mission. The five major positions are Teaching, Evangelism, Administration, Ministry, and Service. A variety of roles are available in each position to enable every member an opportunity to grow and serve. Each position should provide “entry-level tasks” so that new members can serve. I have posed the question to leaders, “If a non-believer began to attend your class, would there be an opportunity for that person to serve?” Watching people come to know Christ because they served in a mission project alongside believers who shared their faith is a true joy.

As you add supporting leaders, you are allowing people to take a “baby-step” toward a life-time of service in the Kingdom. These supporting leaders will have the opportunity to grow into the key leaders of the near future.

Arthur Flake said, “As it was in New Testament times, so it is today. In all our churches we have capable people of varied gifts and talents who, if enlisted and trained, will be able to do valiant service for Christ. Let us see how all these may be utilized in a practical way through service in our Sunday schools (34).”
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Daniel Edmonds, State Missionary, Office of Sunday School & Discipleship, Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Flake's Formula, Leadership, Ministry, Organization, Sunday School

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Jan

New People to New Groups?

By Steve Gladen · Comments (0)

This is part two of two. View part one here.

At Saddleback Church, we have adopted a methodology that has helped us take our small group ministry from 280 adult small groups to over 3,500 adult small groups over the last twelve years. Since 2004, we have had more people in our small groups than in our weekend attendance. How has this happened? What is our methodology for ensuring evangelism still takes place?

We have found two things to be true. One, it is far easier to start a new group than to get an existing group to multiply. I learned to avoid division by stopping talk of multiplication. Now we add. Two, it is also easier to empower a new person to start a new group with a couple of friends they already have than place them in an existing group of people they may or may not know (or like). We call this the Two Friend’s Rule—if you have two friends you can start the journey and begin a group! If you don’t have two friends…well, uh…there might be another issue.

Our primary strategy, and we have many sub strategies, is our Campaign Strategy. See Small Groups With Purpose, Chapter 17 for more information. This Campaign Strategy is something we do once a year, usually in the fall. We align the five learning modes around a central compelling question and implement it throughout the church, from the children to the adults. Everyone is on the same page, with a similarly themed sermon series, and delivery of additional materials through the small group system. Roll these factors together and the result is exponential growth and alignment in your small groups. If you don’t have small groups, this strategy is the perfect way to begin them. If you do have small groups, but they all seem to be going in different directions, this is the perfect way to align them.

So, how long do we allow our groups to continue meeting? We let our groups go for life, if they like. We don’t tell them that ahead of time, we let them discover that! Letting our groups focus on building community helps instill some natural by-products. First, it helps them see that you care about their spiritual health and the community needs they have. It also builds trust and opens communication for you to teach evangelism in a safe way that won’t disrupt community in the process.

A common question I get asked at almost all of our conferences, is if you don’t encourage groups to multiply, won’t they become “Us Four and No More” or “Us Seven till We Get to Heaven”? Again, just because we don’t birth groups, it doesn’t mean we don’t have the people in the groups do personal evangelism—we do! So if they don’t add people to their group, but still effectively do personal evangelism; then it is a win/win. Also, my experience has been, even when you don’t plan to add people to the group—you do. People move, schedules change, life stage changes happen. There are many factors that influence the dynamics of the group. Whatever the factors, however, a group has two options: either it will dwindle to nothing or organically grow.

A key component to launching Groups For Life is to use the yearly Campaign to give people a reason to leave their group. The pastor needs to challenge the people in the group to leave annually. Why? Because leaving a group is hard when you launch it for life. People need a reason to leave, and the pastor asking them to is a great reason. It may be that they just aren’t gelling with their current group, or it may be that God as plans for them to step it up and begin leading another group. Whatever the reason, you need to provide them with an easy out. Over the years three couples have left my small group and started new groups during a Campaign…never to come back. Is that bad? No. Is that strategic? You bet!

Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Leadership, Ministry, Small Groups, Sunday School

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Jan

New People to New Groups?

By Steve Gladen · Comments (0)

This is part one of two.

When I was in Seminary taking classes on World Missions, one thing my professors stressed was if we wanted to bring the Gospel to other cultures, we needed to be sensitive to those other cultures. We had to focus on principles that would be cross cultural and never bring American idioms into foreign cultures. The principles were biblical, so they would be true in both cultures, but the methodologies must always be flexible and sensitive to the culture. American methodologies don’t necessarily work in other countries, and vice versa.

In my early years of leading a Small Group Ministry, somehow I forgot what I learned in Seminary. When I began small group ministry, I read all the books on Cell Groups, Meta Groups, Small groups, and anything about community in general. All those books from churches around the world and in the United States, taught generally the same methodology—start a group, go a certain amount of time and then birth or split into multiple groups. The phrasing might have varied, but the focus was the same –divide the groups and multiply into new ones. In essence, the books all advocated building community for a short period of time, and then disrupting that community so more groups, and thus evangelism, could happen.

For years I tried to teach that, push that, beg for that to happen; all with the same results – a very small percentage would heed my leading. My goal was for the groups to multiply, but all they did was divide – against me! Now, it could have been an issue with my leadership; but when I talked with the people in other churches, they were having the same problem. Even when I talked with the people in the trenches of the churches writing the books on small groups, I would hear about the same type of problems I was experiencing. What sounded good on paper, wasn’t working out in the day-to-day life of small groups.

Even knowing all this, I continued to try to make it work, because that’s what books said to do. But then, an old tape that was in my head from Seminary kicked in. What was the principle and what was the methodology being used? Where were these methodologies coming from? I started doing some research and realized most of the American small group influence was coming from Korea, China and Columbia. In those areas, their methodology was working and working well. But bringing what worked in their culture into an American culture wasn’t cross-cultural; just as I had learned (and forgotten) in Seminary. The principle wasn’t wrong, but what I learned the hard way was (at least for me in a Southern California culture) the methodology was. The principle was evangelism. They birthed groups in order to see evangelism happen. There is nothing wrong with that! Who doesn’t want to see evangelism happen? What I found to be true was “how” to do that makes a big difference. I want the same principle to happen here at Saddleback Church—evangelism and aggressive evangelism at that! But that methodology just was not working for me. Why was this such a struggle for my church, and the American church in general?

In order to answer that question, I needed to look at what I had been learning about my culture. In doing thousands of Spiritual Health Assessments, I learned the majority of people scored low on the purpose of evangelism. It just wasn’t a strength in comparison to the other four biblical purposes (fellowship, discipleship, worship, and ministry) found in the Great Commission and Great Commandment. Consistently, most people scored the lowest on evangelism.

Another thing I learned in looking at our culture was “community” (community as in Biblical fellowship) was in a fractured state. Family social foundations have seen two major cracks happen. One is the reality that adult siblings are now living greater and greater distances from each other, making family gatherings much more difficult, if not non-existent. Take me for an example; I have three brothers and a sister. Each one of us lives in a different state. Getting together as a family takes a lot of planning and traveling for everyone. As a result, it doesn’t happen as frequently as we would all like.

Another issue attacking the family foundation is divorce. Like it or not, divorce has lasting impressions on the children. We are in our third generation of this rippling effect, sending people looking for “community” that the family system lacks. When you look at these three factors, it is no surprise that very few of the people in my ministry were willing to give up the sense of community they had found within their small groups. And yet, all across America, Small Group Point Leaders are dying on the hill of believing in a principle, but totally missing the correct methodology for their culture.

Let’s all agree, we want to do evangelism in our small groups. Let’s also agree that if birthing groups out of groups is working in your culture, that’s awesome! Let’s also agree, that if it’s not; we need to figure out how to accomplish evangelism in the context of small group life in a way that’s a cultural fit.

Tomorrow will continue the exploration of the cultural impacts on small group ministry.

Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Ministry, Small Groups, Sunday School

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Jan

Why Your Group Should Start a New One

By Josh Hunt · Comments (1)

I taught for several years that if we are going to see a doubling group movement in our country, the groups themselves must embrace the vision of growing and dividing. After all, a group of 10 that doubles every 18 months can reach 1,000 people in 10 years, and a group of 10 that doubles every 18 months would reach the whole world in approximately 43 years. (Yes, I do say this a lot.) What an incredible opportunity!

So, why isn’t it happening? My reasoning was: We don’t want it to happen. The group has to first embrace the vision.

I had good reason to think this. I have had lots of people over the years say to me, “But we don’t want to double our class. Our class is comfortable the way we are.” I assumed that groups that were growing were made up of a different breed of people—people who were fired up about the vision. With these race horses, we could grow using any method or no method. I reasoned that groups that were growing must be comprised of people who really embraced the vision of doubling groups.

Not so. There was almost no difference (2%) in the likelihood of growth between those in the top and those in the bottom of this scale. I was shocked. People who really embraced the vision were only slightly more likely to be doubling, when compared with those who didn’t embrace the vision.

How can we explain this? Here’s my attempt:

Imagine you’re rocking along, facilitating a group, but not overtly pushing it to grow and multiply. How aware are you of your group’s feelings about growing and multiplying? How likely would you be to report that your group is strongly opposed to the idea? Not so much, right?

Now, suppose you get bitten by the group multiplication bug. You start actively talking to your group about growing and multiplying. What kind of response do you expect to get?

In case you’re not sure, trust me, it’s highly unlikely that your group will openly embrace this. You start ranting and raving about growing and dividing, and they’ll start recoiling and resisting. How aware are you now of your group’s feelings about the vision? How likely are you to report that your group is strongly opposed to growing and multiplying? Very likely.

The more the leader embraces the vision of growing and multiplying, the more likely he or she is to be aware of the group’s resistance. Eventually, as the leader succeeds in growing and multiplying the group more people get on board with the vision. But it takes time.

In short, I still believe that if a group has embraced the vision it is more likely to be growing. Conversely, though, the more the vision is cast, the more aware the leader is of resistance. These factors offset each other, I think. But the facts remain the facts.

The lesson we can take away is this: If you want to grow your group and birth new groups, you don’t have to wait for your group to catch the vision. Sometimes they’ve already embraced the vision and sometimes they haven’t. Either way, groups usually only embrace the vision after they‘ve seen it work a couple times.

I had a man come up to me after a conference in the Houston area with this testimony: “I bought your book [You Can Double Your Class in Two Years or Less], read it, and put it into practice. Our group grew. I presented the idea of multiplying. They hated it! They hated me! They hated you, Josh! But we did it anyway. Attendance actually dropped for a while. But, we rocked along. We kept doing the things that had caused us to grow—having parties and inviting every member and every potential member. We had the group well-organized and lots of people involved. A year went by. I looked up and noticed we had as many as we had had before we divided. The other group was doing just about as well. I realized we would have never gotten that many to come to our small group. So, we divided again. People were grumpy, but not as badly as before because they had seen some positive results. We grew again, and recently divided again. I’m starting to think I can do this!”

Most people catch vision after they see results. It’s much the same way in other areas of life. You don’t have to be excited about grilled chicken, broccoli, and exercise to lose weight; you just have to eat broccoli and grilled chicken—and, of course, exercise.

Lesson: Don’t wait for your group to embrace the vision of growing and multiplying; just work the plan.

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This is an excerpt from Josh Hunt’s book “Make Your Group Grow”.

Categories : 5 Weeks of Flake, Growing your Group, Ministry

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