Author Archive for Jason McNair – Page 3

Start with the Right DNA: N-Network of people on Mission

By Jason McNair · Comments (1)
Sunday, August 25th, 2013

There are 168 hours in a week. If the average class meets once a week for one hour at a time, then that leaves 167 hours left. Obviously, we need to sleep, eat, work, play with our family, go to school, and do all the normal stuff of life, but there still remains an important question: What are we doing during those “other hours” with other members of our Sunday School or Small Group that further expands the Kingdom of God? Are the people of our class ON MISSION ministering to and with one another?

Over time, the people in a new group will eventually build trust and demonstrate transparency toward one another in many ways. It is a natural progression for a healthy group. A great way to progress beyond just a trust level of relationship is to serve together on some form of mission project. When people work together toward one goal, and the goal is not for their own benefit, something happens in that relationship. I have seen and experienced this phenomenon in people serving on Mission trips and Disaster Relief activations.

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There is something about the common goal that builds a bridge between people that can’t be reproduced any other way.

So how can a group make networking people on mission a part of their DNA? Here are some suggestions that might get your group thinking in that direction:

  • Schedule one Saturday a month to do a class service project for a neglected population in your church or community
  • As a class, adopt at month to staff the Nursery Care extended session and provide the volunteers needed for that month
  • Partner with a different generational class in your church to go serve together in some mission activity in the community
  • Adopt a local middle or high school sports team and pledge to, as a class, serve the team pre-game meals or wash the dirty uniforms
  • As a class, go back-to-school shopping on behalf of a neglected population in your community and distribute these items to the families who need them
  • Volunteer to read to (or listen to) children in a local primary or elementary school once a week. In our community, schools are always looking for more volunteers.

What will your group do to be on mission together?

__________________________

Jason McNair is on mission with the Adult II (creative name, I know) Sunday School class at First Baptist Church in West Valley City, when he is not serving the churches and missions of the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention as a Strengthening Churches Consultant

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Categories : 31 Days of Extreme Sunday School

Coffee with my Homeboy

By Jason McNair · Comments (1)
Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

Arthur Flake:  Sunday School Missionary

A couple of years ago, as a way of recognizing state Sunday school directors, Bob Mayfield of Oklahoma provided coffee cups with Arthur Flake’s picture on it and the phrase “Arthur Flake is my Homeboy!” and his picture on the side.  The back contained the five principles that have become known as “Flake’s Formula”.  The previous year, we received T-Shirts with the same design.  As I wore the shirt in the halls of the LifeWay building, I bumped in to Ed Stetzer who commented that “there may be only 1000 people in the world that think that’s an awesome T-Shirt, and half of them are in this building”.    I don’t know if I totally agree with his research and analysis, but the point is, many people have forgotten the impact this great missionary had on the Sunday school movement in its early days. What is most amazing about his impact is the timeless relevance of the five principles he came up with as a strategy for organizational growth.  Nearly every time these principles are tried, they work and the result is numerical and spiritual growth.

So who is this man we call our homeboy?  Arthur Flake was a department store salesman in Winona, MS in the early part of the 20th Century who gained such success as the Sunday school director at First Baptist Church, Winona that he was asked to travel the state and beyond inspiring others to expand their ministries.  In 1920, he was asked to join the Baptist Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (now LifeWay) as their first national program leader of Sunday school for Southern Baptists. Flake would conduct and teach others to conduct enlargement clinics leading to what some would be called Sunday school revivals.  Part of these clinics centered on a five-step formula now famously called “Flake’s Formula”:

  1. Know the possibilities.
  2. Enlarge the organization.
  3. Enlist and train the workers.
  4. Provide space and resources.
  5. GO after the people!

If you take the first letters of each of the five steps or principles, they spell the acronym KEEP-GO. The formula still works, over 90 years later! Perhaps Flake’s greatest contribution to the Sunday school movement was the idea that the organization should be expanded in anticipation of growth (based on the possibilities), not just in response to growth.*

On days when I feel like I have run out of good ideas to encourage and strengthen the Bible teaching and reaching ministries in the churches I serve, I pour me a cup of coffee in my little mug and am reminded that the best new ideas are often the time tested ones that are not new at all, thanks to my homeboy.

* portions of this article are taken from David Francis’ book, Missionary Sunday School, pp 45-46
©2011 LifeWay Press
________________________________
Jason McNair serves as the Religious Education Consultant for the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention. He also enjoys teaching an adult Sunday school class with his homeboys at First Baptist, West Valley City, UT.

 

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Categories : 31 Days of Missionary Sunday School, Bible Study, Enlistment, Evangelism, Flake's Formula, Growing your Group, Leadership, Learning, Ministry, Sunday School, Teaching, Training
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Our Commission: Go after the People

By Jason McNair · Comments (2)
Monday, August 27th, 2012

This is day 27 of 31 Days of Missionary Sunday School

Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. — Matthew 10:6-7 “The Message”

As Christians, we hear a lot about “The Great Commission” (Matthew 28:16-20).  Churches and denominations often base their missionary focus and organization around these final words of Jesus as he commissions his followers to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” This article is in no way discounting the vital importance of those words and the weight that they have on the missionary movements of the past and of today.  I just think we miss something, as believers, if we think this is the ONLY time Christ told his followers to GO after the people.

 

Earlier in Matthew (Chapter 10), we read about a more personal commissioning of Jesus’ closest followers.   You might call this passage “The Lesser Commission” (but that is in no way minimizing its importance).  In this case, the “lesser” refers to the number of people whom this commission was intended; the disciples.  Matthew 10 (the entire chapter) gives step-by-step instructions to this rag-tag group of disciples who left everything and followed Him.  He warns them of setbacks they will face and challenges them to overcome expected persecution because of the name of Jesus, whom they are about to bear witness of, to an unbelieving world.  These disciples are commissioned to go after the people, unashamed and unhindered by the burdens of this world, knowing that Christ will go before them and that, no matter the outcome, Christ has assured His followers an eternal reward.

 

As Sunday School leaders we, too, have been given this same commission.  While “The Great Commission” still applies to all of us, we have the added responsibility of partnering in the disciple making process for those whom we have been called to teach.  This added responsibility puts us under the challenge of “The Lesser Commission”, as well.  I encourage you, as Sunday school leaders, to take a few minutes and pull out your Bible (or pull up the Bible app on your phone or tablet). Read Matthew 10:1-42 with an eye toward how these verses apply to your given call to go after the people in your assigned people group. What is He commissioning you to do? Go after the people.

_______________________
Jason McNair serves as the Religious Education Consultant for the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention. He also enjoys teaching an adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in West Valley City, UT.

 

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Categories : 31 Days of Missionary Sunday School, Bible Study, Enlistment, Evangelism, Growing your Group, Leadership, Learning, Ministry, Mission, Outreach/Evangelism, Sunday School, Teaching, Training

Celebrate When You Send out Missionaries to Serve

By Jason McNair · Comments (1)
Sunday, August 28th, 2011

As a Sunday School missionary serving in Utah and Idaho, I am in an area where there is a predominant religion different than my own. This religion permeates much of the culture in the area.  One of the things they are recognized for is sending off their young people on mission for two years.  It’s a part of their culture.  Now I am not endorsing the merits of their religion or the legitimacy of their spiritual condition.  I only bring it up to point out an interesting fact.  As a community, they know how to celebrate the sending out of their missionaries.

If you have ever been in the baggage claim or TSA security area of SLC International Airport, you have seen what I am talking about.  Huge banners are displayed with balloons, flowers, stuffed animals and a massive party atmosphere that would send most TSA agents on high alert. This is all for the purpose of sending off or welcoming home their missionaries.

I say all that to ask, why do we not celebrate the sending off of our own “missionaries” who are leaving our adult Sunday School classes to serve the children, preschool, and student ministry departments?  If there is anything Baptists are known for, it is fellowship.  So why don’t we throw parties for adult volunteers that leave our classes to work in other areas of the church?  Too often, this is done in silence as the summer schedule winds down and the nominating committee twists the arms of people in our pews to “serve their time” by teaching in a SS class, like it is some sort of punishment.  That should never be the case.  These are times of celebration. Our adult classes need to create an atmosphere where service is a blessing and something our people look forward to being a part of.

Here are some tips to help change the attitude of service in your adult department to a culture where people look forward to their opportunity to go out on mission and serve in other departments of your church.

  • Have a commissioning service at the end of the summer for adult members going out to serve
  • Create a class poster with the names and photos of those serving the preschool, children and student departments as a constant prayer reminder in your class room
  • Have adult classes adopt children and preschool classes with the intention of providing for all the staffing needs of that class
  • Include the names of associate or in-service members on the ongoing class prayer list
  • During major holiday seasons, have adult classes host class parties for children and preschool classes where their missionary is serving
  • Occasionally offer additional adults to go and substitute teach for the missionary in service allowing them to attend their adult Sunday School class
  • Invite the missionary in service to every class party or event
  • Include them in the care group ministry of the adult class so that they are contacted every week, just as all the other members of the adult class
  • Create a culture of service within the DNA of your adult class so that serving in other areas becomes a natural part of being a member

These, and other ideas, are covered on page 38 of David Francis’ book Transformational Class: Transformational Church Goes to Sunday School.

___________________________

Jason McNair is the Religious Education Consultant for the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention.  He also teaches an adult Sunday School class at First Baptist Church in West Valley City, UT (when he is not standing in a TSA security line at SLC International Airport watching missionary welcome celebrations).

 

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Categories : 31 Days of Transformational Class, Sunday School

The End is Just the Beginning

By Jason McNair · Comments (1)
Saturday, January 29th, 2011

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning”

Those words were penned by Louis L’Amour in the first chapter of the book,  Lonely on the Mountain. This was the seventeenth and final book in “The Sacketts” series of novels and short stories. While these words are a fitting end to a classic tale about a family setting out to tame the wild, frontier West at the turn of the century, it can also be applied to how we prepare and present small group bible studies week after week.

Recently, I joined the Sunday School leadership team of our church by taking on the role of lead teacher in one of my church’s adult Sunday school classes.  I am enjoying the week by week preparation involved and discovering that what I love most is experiencing the “Ah-Ha” moments when we get around to real life application of scripture.  As we search the scriptures, we discover that many lessons are naturally suited for life application, sometimes leaping right off the pages of God’s word. 

In the presentation steps of a lesson, the Life Application portion is often placed at the end of a class time.  This is a logical place to put it. After all, “we’ve always done it that way before.”  I don’t know about your class, but in some classes that I have attended, we tend to get “off track” at times and chase a few wild rabbits.   It’s only natural in the discovery learning process that we find times when we want to dig a bit deeper in certain area of scripture, so rabbit trails are not all bad, as long as you, the teacher, bring it back to the focus of your lesson.  The danger of rabbit chasing is that it eats away your class time and you may end up with no time left for Life Application.  If you develop a habit of doing this week by week, you will have a class full of very knowledgeable pupils that have no idea what to do with the lessons you have taught.  Here is a suggestion that might help keep that from happening.

As you prepare your lesson, “begin at the end and make the end only the beginning”. Huh?  As you plan the step by step activities for your class, begin with the last activity you want to do (usually, your life application activity) and work backwards to the introduction.  You will still teach in the same order you always have, but the priority of your preparation is now placed on the Life Application step.  As you plan each succeeding activity, you will have the same amount of time to do it all, but you will have prioritized the time devoted to application. When you prioritize “the end” of your lesson, it becomes “the beginning” of putting into practice the truth of God’s word every day of their lives.

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Categories : 31 Days to a Better Teacher, Ministry, Small Groups, Sunday School
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