Daily Innovation, Ministry Insights, and Thoughts from Todd Rhoades for Pastors and Church Leaders
Sunday Schoolsaurus: How Sunday School Became a Dinosaur
How did Sunday School become a dinosaur? Pastor Mark Wilson contributes his ideas: "When I was a kid, more people attended Sunday School than the Worship Service. That was what really counted. In fact, there was a "scoreboard" near the front of the church that listed: Sunday School Attendance This Week, Sunday School Attendance Last Week, and Sunday School Offering..."
We don’t have one of those scoreboards in our church here in Hayward. (We use “score cards” instead—a little box in our bulletin that tells last week’s worship attendance and how much money was given in last Sunday’s offering. So, I guess, you could say we’re still keeping score—but counting something different. )
I’m embarassed to admit how few people come to our Sunday School. For example, a few weeks ago, we had 748 in our worship services—and only 118 in our Sunday School classes.
People gave over $11,000 in the offering—but our Sunday School offering totaled less than $50.
As I’ve conversed with other senior pastors of large, growing churches, it seems that our situation is the norm. These days, a church with a strong, thriving Sunday School is the exception rather than the rule.
What in the world happened to Sunday School? Why is the old dinosaur on the verge of extinction?
Here are a few possible explanations:
1. The focus of Sunday School has switched from Outreach to Instruction.
Originally, Robert Raikes invented Sunday School to reach the uneducated and unchurched children of the community. It was an evangelism tool—much like churches use ESL and computer classes today. Now, it is primarily a vehicle to instruct the children of church members (with a few classes in Christian coping tossed in for their parents.)
2. The “invitation” of friends is to the worship service, rather than a Sunday school class.
As a kid, I always looked forward to the big “bring all your neighbors to Sunday School” contest! The winner would receive a special prize, on the line of “Let’s Make a Deal.” I’ve not heard of any Sunday School Contests in a looong time—but who would scramble to bring unchurched friends to a program that’s not designed for them? The Worship Service has become much more “seeker friendly” (thanks to Willow Creek and Saddleback), and by default, the Sunday School has become more “seeker hostile.” (One guy told me he didn’t dare go to Sunday School because he didn’t people to know how stupid he was about Bible doctrines.)
3. Midweek gatherings have replaced Sunday School as the “second hour.”
35 years ago, the Sunday School was the “first hour.” Over the next couple of decades, it slipped to the “second hour.” Now, it has taken a distant third, with midweek programming capturing the second spot. I have never yet seen a church that is good in both small groups and Sunday School—it’s either one or the other.
Our midweek, for instance, is going full steam ahead! We have tons more children and teens at our midweek gatherings than on Sunday mornings. There are nearly as many adults in small groups throughout the week, than gathered in our worship services. Perhaps it’s because our midweek programming remembers point #1: Outreach. Over half the kids who come midweek are not from “churched” families.
4. Sunday School is the “coffee shop” and the midweek programs are like “Starbucks.”
Traditional Sunday School—sitting around a table with a flannelgraph board, reminds me of the old downtown coffee shop. It’s a quaint memory—but I’d rather go to Starbucks.
5. The biggest reason for the demise of Sunday School is because the leaders have quit working it.
It’s easier to launch something new, than to transform a sacred cow. Whenever Sunday School leaders monkey with the format, the traditionalists holler, “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it! What??? Get rid of the quarterly?? God forbid!”
So, rather than fight the battles, the leaders move into other areas (i.e. Midweek) where they can provide creative and relevent ministries without the cumbersome structures.
I wonder, if the leaders of children, teens and adults were given total freedom to create a ministry that would have maximum Kingdom impact on the lives of their students—and if they were willing to roll up their sleeves and really work the Sunday School hour—what might happen??
Maybe Thom Rainer is right when he says, “Sunday School has not stopped working for churches; churches have stopped working Sunday School.”
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I serve as Senior Pastor of Hayward Wesleyan Church in the northwoods of Wisconsin. You can visit his blog “Revitalize Your Church” here.
FOR DISCUSSION: What are your thoughts? Is Sunday School thriving, or is it dead at your church?
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My name is Todd Rhoades, the 'behind the scenes' guy here at MMI. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the developer of a of a website called ChurchStaffing.com. I hope you'll enjoy your time here and tell all your colleagues about MMI! 
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Posted by Jeff
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 7:44 AM
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 8:59 AM
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Posted by David Wilson
Monday, October 23, 2006 at 8:19 AM
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Posted by
Monday, October 23, 2006 at 8:29 AM
Post Your Comments:Sunday School where I am is pretty typical of what is described here. Many people, even the otherwise movers and shakers of the church, stay away from SS and just come to church. The excuse is a hybrid of “too busy/too early.” I had to laugh at the “scoreboard.” There isn’t one here, but there still are in many churches I know. And maybe it’s my particular place, but midweek Bible study doesn’t see high attendance either.
I’m hoping that a new cell group ministry helps to address some of these things.
Oh, and I have to take issue with the coffee shop/Starbucks analogy. Give me an independently owned place with soul and style over regulated corporate coffee any day. Maybe a better analogy is 8-tracks and CDs or something.
Exception to your rule!
Our church is an exception to your rule. We run about 400 in worship (two services) and Sunday am Bible Study runs about 375. Our midweek program has climbed from 35 to about 100 b/c of a switch to a small groups model for midweek. We also have about 40-50 people involved in small groups during other days of the week than Wednesdays.
I don’t know a “secret” but one thing we do is sandwich Sunday Bible study in between the two different styled worship services and highlight that hour consistently as the time that the whole church family is together doing the same thing.
We also will do a sermon series twice a year that runs 8-12 weeks and has companion Bible Studies. For instance, we are in an 8 week series right now about being a missional church. I’m preaching through the topics and those same topics are being taught in the Bible Studies, allowing people to go deeper and dialogue about the sermon.
I preach the value of Bible study almost every week, too. As I interpret scripture during the sermons, I challenge the listeners by saying, “But don’t take my word for it. Go read this stuff yourself. And if you don’t know how to read your Bible, make Bible study the number one priority in your spiritual health.”
Gary Long, Houston, TX
I’m on staff at a church and don’t even know what we are running in SS. I think we are doing pretty well, we run maybe 50 more in worship. We are Baptists after all, the quarterly was brought down from the smokie mountains and brought before the peoples. Talk about tradition, we changed the name of our SS classes to “Connect Groups” where we connect to God and to each other; man you would have thought we removed some books from the bible or something. We still have one class of senior men who say we are “turning away from our Baptist roots “.
I have couple of comments. I think it is time we stop calling it Sunday School. Honestly does anyone like going to school? Also our church does not do “Sunday School,” in the morning but Sunday evening. Attendance has gone up since we started doing so. Just a thought. Also can small groups not be considered Sunday school I think so. Maybe it is not the it is going extinct but rather changing?
We are tallking about canning our Sunday School. We get so little response from it and put a lot of energy. Instead we are planning on making our children’s church something that can’t be beat.
When we were in Filipino minstry Sunday School was just dead, until we renamed it and had breakfast attached. Suddenly the masses were pouring in to attend “Breakfast and Bible Study for all Ages”
We aren’t against Sunday School but are finding with our limited resources in a struggling re-start, Sunday School just drains us all.
Sunday School. It’s over for us. In fact, we never had it, I don’t think. We use small groups (we have about 30% or so of our people in small groups) as our “discipleship” focus. We have been really stressing them, and the numbers are growing).
I’m afraid Sunday School became a way for people to go to church twice on Sunday and then feel like they did all the “spiritual work” then needed to for the week. We have to hear the work and DO it. Too often Bible Study and Sunday School and stuff like that exists in a vacuum, where there’s no “works” in your life to “prove” your faith, a la the book of James.
I don’t go to church. I AM the church. I don’t buy religious goods and services… I serve God and worship Him with my whole being. Sunday School is, to me, an easy way to avoid actually living the Christian life, and instead a way to just talk about living the Christian life. Every time I’ve ever seen it up close and personal, that’s been my impression. (And it is a stupid name, too. I mean… who wants to go to SCHOOL on Sunday, for pete’s sake...)
Just my .02, I’m sure I’ve inflamed someone. Sorry, it is only my opinion after all…
We’ve discussed what to do about the SS/small groups/Wed night conundrum (yeah, got to use conundrum!!).
My concern is that we have too many discipleship offerings with no real focused attempt for transformation. The sermon isn’t connected to SS which isn’t connected to Wed, which isn’t connected to…
I get tired thinking about it.
Well I guess by those standard we are thriving. We have SS attendance of about 100 and worship service attendance of about 10-20 more. This is very consistent too. It’s the first church I’ve been in where the numbers are nearly equal. Personally I’d really like to start the cell group or small group thing. I’d also like to blend the ages of the current SS structure but you know those senior citizens - they won’t budge. We have a lot of visitors in our SS - sometimes up to 15 at a time, and we do seek out people (mostly kids) in the neighborhood to pick up and bring to SS. We have empty nesters who sort of “adopt” them in church. But I think the article is right about SS no longer being for the unchurched. I think that’s a shame. Honestly it wasn’t until I began teaching SS that I learned so much. We have a lot of visitors in my class and the unchurches ones rarely return even when we try to befriend them. I think that may be the reason - they just don’t understand all that Baptist quarterly stuff.
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