For years I’ve followed First Baptist Church Woodstock, under the direction of their Minister of Education Allan Taylor, as a model for discipleship.
His book is a great resource to begin doing Small Groups (Sunday School) right. Not just Bible Study and fellowship, but to REACH people, TEACH people, and MINISTER to people. Sunday School is not an event to attend, it’s a ministry to mobilize.
John is this a new idea? Creating ministries that minister to people and help them see God–teach them— and help them be embedded in culture and “reach” out to those in their sphere of influence — or is this a push to use the “sunday school” idea as more than a dinosaur of the church and trying to revamp it? All in all, just wanted to hear more 🙂 thanks man!
It’s definitely not a new idea. I come from the SBC tradition, and in my opinion, we did (do) Sunday School better than anyone. In 1920 was when SS started to become what it should be. Arthur Flake became the first person to hold the position now called Director of Sunday School for Southern Baptists in 1920. Unfortunately, many churches let their classes simply show up and teach a lesson. That’s not the purpose of Sunday School, at least that’s not what it was intended to be. We need to get back to the original intentions.