The Missing Ingredient to Growing Your Sunday School

By David Frasure
Several years ago the teacher of our Young Ladies Sunday School class was frustrated over the lack of participation during her Bible teaching time each Sunday morning.  “How do I get my ladies to get involved in our class discussion?” she asked, “They just sit there!”
I thought about it a few moments, trying to act like I knew the answer while I was really just stalling for time.  I also found young adults to be less than enthusiastic at times in my own teaching.  As I pondered and prayed, it came to mind how young men seemed to open up more after we had played softball together.  So I asked, “Have you ever met outside your class for times of fellowship with your ladies?”  After she responded to the negative, I encouraged her to try it and let me know if she could see a difference.  Several weeks later, she reported that she saw a major difference in the participation level of her ladies and sincere warmth from the ladies toward her as a teacher.

I’ve grown to believe that the fellowship or party outside of the Sunday School classroom not only brings more warmth to a small group, it is also the missing ingredient for evangelism through the Sunday School. 

There is a loneliness plague in our society.  Unchurched people are not sitting at home thinking, “I wonder if the church has a good Bible study on loneliness,” but they are longing for meaningful relationships.  Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, says that people aren’t looking for a friendly church, but they are looking for friends.  John Hayes, Senior Pastor of Jersey Baptist Church, says, “People will bond or bust.”  It is a fundamental truth of ministry that new people will make friends or they will make tracks.

Let’s face it.  The average Sunday morning worship service is not a great place for personal conversations and bonding with a few good friends.  But the more intimate, small-group Bible study, is a good place to begin bonding with others and building relationships.  Those relationships are tremendously enhanced when we meet in more informal ways outside of the classroom.

Let me challenge you to reconsider the evangelistic value of the Sunday School, and specifically the class fellowship that includes unchurched people.  When Sunday School becomes an evangelistic front door to the church, there is a great potential to involve many more in outreach and we will keep and develop more of those who are reached.