April 2009

03.30.2009

“3—5—10”

Last month I talked about my herb garden, and it’s almost time to plant it again. I mentioned that I had to water it daily and compared it with Sunday School – all members need to take the initiative and “water” or reach out to others who are missing in action.

I want to continue with the topic of Sunday School. First, here are the nuts and bolts needed to form a balanced class, and they are “3 – 5 – 10”. Perhaps nuts and bolts is not the best parallel – how about “strategic numbers.” Let’s examine what these numbers (bolts) are or let’s “strategize” together.

Each class needs a minimum of three (3) leaders, listed below. Again, just like I mentioned last month, it is not hard work, but it does take a little bit of your time. Keep in mind that we’re all in this together, and we all want to see our class members grow into Christ-likeness.

1. A teacher. This is the person who prepares the weekly lesson. We use a great curriculum resource produced by LifeWay, but we must always remember that our text book is the Bible. The resource is to help us prepare lessons and provide some further explanation, but it is God’s Word that is living and active in our lives.

2. Outreach person. This is the person who looks at the role each week and determines who is missing in action within the past week or month(s), but they are not the main person to make contact with those missing. Instead, he/she will hand out a card with the missing person’s information to a class member and ask them to make contact with that person. Then, later in the week, the outreach person will follow up with the class member as an encourager to him/her in order to make sure they have contacted the person on their card.

3. Connecting person (or “party girl” as some have called it!). This person is responsible for organizing the class fellowship time – ideally this will take place at least once a month. Just like the outreach person, they don’t do all the work themselves but enlist others to help them. You all know how a potluck works, where everyone is responsible to bring something for everyone to share. This works in a similar way – everybody has a part to play and everyone helps.

When our Sunday School classes have at minimum these three leaders, we can actually get more people involved in serving God by serving people (I think that’s Biblical). More leaders can be added later, but each class should have these three to begin. Next month we’ll strategize the “5” above.

Remember, we’re all in this together, and I’m pulling for ya!

Until next month,
Danny Joe

Posted by arbc at 08:09 AM