May 2009

“3—5—10”

Those are the strategic numbers for Sunday School. Last month I wrote about the “3.” For the Sunday School class to run efficiently there should be a minimum of 3 leaders: a teacher, an outreach person, and the party person.

It’s important to know that all three of these strategic numbers work hand-in-hand together. If you’re missing one part, it will have an effect on the other two. For this reason, I highly recommend that you have all three of these leaders in place as quickly as possible if your class doesn’t have them already.

Now on to the number “5” and how it is connected to the number “3.” Each of those three workers needs to build relationships with and minister to a maximum of five (5) members of the class. Pretty simple isn’t it? Think about the implications of this simple strategy. If there are three leaders each ministering to five other members, this means that you have a minimum of eighteen people in the class that are in some sort of regular contact with each other. We don’t have one super leader doing all of the work teaching, reaching, and planning fellowships. Instead we have a microcosm of what the church body should look like, where multiple people are serving and caring for others. Sounds Biblical you say? It is.

What do you do if your class has more than eighteen already? Then you’re ready to add more care group workers. Every time you add a worker, it takes the load off of one or more of those first three leaders. The idea is for each worker to have no more than five people they minister to. With five, each worker can contact one person each day via phone or email, or meet for coffee, lunch or whatever.

What about couples? Can couples work together to minister to other couples? It can be done, however it’s been discovered that in such arrangements, wives contact wives regularly, but the guys seldom make or receive contacts. Therefore, I suggest men contact men and women contact women. Not, surprisingly, this sets up a perfect organization to communicate information related to women’s or men’s ministries too.

When asked about your Sunday School class, wouldn’t it be great to say something like this, “We have 23 people on our ministry roll, and an average of 10-12 in attendance each week. We also have 7 people from our class who serve as leaders in other areas of our Sunday School class, so we actually take responsibility for ministering to 30 members. We have 6 care group leaders who touch base weekly with about 5 members each.”

Next month – the number “10,” what does it mean?

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

Until next month,
Danny Joe

Posted by arbc at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)

May 2009

ne Parson’s Opinion


While on vacation, Beverly and I spent a few days in Albuquerque. Between the meals at Mexican restaurants (Did you know they serve sopapillas with your meal in the Mexican restaurants in New Mexico? I mean, the honey is right there on the table!) we attended two baseball games!

Albuquerque has a AAA farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers called the Isotopes. They played the Iowa Cubs, who, of course, are the AAA farm team for the Chicago Cubs. We saw two games, with each team winning one game.

The Isotopes have a short stop whose last name is “Hu”! That’s right, “Hu” - pronounced “who”! So, in the stands, you would hear people doing a play off of the old Abbot and Costello routine: “Who’s on First”! But in Albuquerque, it went like this: “Hu’s up to bat? Hu’s on first? Hu’s on second?” Ha!

I imagine at different times in your life, you have asked the “who” question. Possibly you phrased it this way: “Who is in charge of the world?” Sometimes it seems like no one is. Sometimes it seems the pagans are right and chaos rules the universe. That is, it seems!

But reality and perception may not be the same thing. It may seem that no one is in charge of the universe. It may seem whoever is in charge is taking a break. It may seem that whoever is in charge is not very powerful. It may seem that whoever is in charge is not very loving.

But let me remind you again, reality is not always the same as perception.

Let me remind you of some realities:

Psalm 14:1 - “The fool says in his heart, 'there is no God.’”

Revelation 19:6 - “For our Lord God Almighty reigns.”

I John 3:1 - “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

When things seem chaotic, remember the reality is, they are not! Remember “Who” is in control and remember He is working in you, through you and around you. He does this even when it looks like He is not!

See you on the Lord’s Day,
Jim

Posted by arbc at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)