Something That Seems to be Working Thus Far

[Pete Vecchi]

We were having struggles with our Sunday School. We had the traditional Sunday School time (before the morning worship service) for years. We tried several different things over time to try to get people interested in attending. But more often than not by the beginning of 2012, the entire Sunday School attendance normally consisted of the 2 pastors and their families (total of 5 people), and sometimes one or two other people each week.

We were at the same time beginning to see several people ages upper 20's to low 30's attend our services more and more--and we even had several people join the congregation. When we talked to one of the young adults about what would help make him want to attend Sunday School, he mentioned not having to get up as early on Sundays, since it was usually his only opportunity to sleep in. We also noticed that after the services, a number of people often hung around visiting for 30 minutes or more, after which time many of them went out to eat lunch.

The suggestion was made to change "Sunday School" from before the service to a "Bible Study" discussion after the service, with the discussion being based on the message that was preached during the service. Along with the Bible Study, we also have a lite lunch.

We started this format on the final Sunday of February. Since that time, generally at least 75% of the people who have attended the worship service have stayed for the lite lunch/Bible Study.

This may not work for everyone, but it is something that appears to be working for our congregation, and I just thought I would share the info here in case something such as this might be an attractive option for other congregations.

[Ed DiSante]

We have been doing the same thing in Hingham since Lent with the same results

[Roy Richardson]

We were having struggles with our Sunday School. We had the traditional Sunday School time (before the morning worship service) for years. We tried several different things over time to try to get people interested in attending. But more often than not by the beginning of 2012, the entire Sunday School attendance normally consisted of the 2 pastors and their families (total of 5 people), and sometimes one or two other people each week.

We were at the same time beginning to see several people ages upper 20's to low 30's attend our services more and more--and we even had several people join the congregation. When we talked to one of the young adults about what would help make him want to attend Sunday School, he mentioned not having to get up as early on Sundays, since it was usually his only opportunity to sleep in. We also noticed that after the services, a number of people often hung around visiting for 30 minutes or more, after which time many of them went out to eat lunch.

The suggestion was made to change "Sunday School" from before the service to a "Bible Study" discussion after the service, with the discussion being based on the message that was preached during the service. Along with the Bible Study, we also have a lite lunch.

We started this format on the final Sunday of February. Since that time, generally at least 75% of the people who have attended the worship service have stayed for the lite lunch/Bible Study.

This may not work for everyone, but it is something that appears to be working for our congregation, and I just thought I would share the info here in case something such as this might be an attractive option for other congregations.

We already have SS after service. Do you have many kids? Are they included in the lunch?

We are struggling with the same problem.

[Mike Schutz]

We have been doing this for several years, and it has been a real blessing for us. We find that worship is a great intro to conversation, much more so than vice versa. Our adult attendance has increased by approx. 50%.

[Rich Schmidt]

We already have SS after service. Do you have many kids? Are they included in the lunch?

Ditto these questions.

Also, who brings/prepares the lunch? How does that fit with them worshiping, etc? We've bumped into that whenever we've done lunches/picnics/parties right after morning services.

(We don't do Sunday School at all. We have 2 morning services, with kids ministry (children's church?) going on concurrently, with different leaders doing different programs in each service. So we probably wouldn't start doing a third hour of kids ministry, even if we were to have a lunch-and-learn Bible study hour, or whatever.)

[Pete Vecchi]

We already have SS after service. Do you have many kids? Are they included in the lunch?

We are struggling with the same problem.

Well, we have our meal in the same basement/fellowship area where there are a few small game tables. We have the children age 11 and under go to children's church during the time of the regular sermon, and this in essence serves as their "Sunday School." Then, they eat while the adults are eating and discussing, and then sometimes they play as the discussion time is winding down. Generally we have between 2-6 children in Sunday School.

[Pete Vecchi]

Also, who brings/prepares the lunch? How does that fit with them worshiping, etc? We've bumped into that whenever we've done lunches/picnics/parties right after morning services.

We start our worship service at 11:00am. The service generally runs between 45-60 minutes. We then go right down to the lunch area.

The point is that it's a "lite lunch" as opposed to a full-blown dinner. Generally, we know that we'll have between 15-20 people, and one person/family will volunteer to bring the food that day. Prep time after service is no more than 10 minutes, and the person/people doing the prep go downstairs to the kitchen right after the service ends. The "discussion" normally goes about 30 minutes, which (when we are honest about it) is probably equivalent of how long we actually discussed things in the traditional Sunday School, after not getting started on time to taking prayer requests, discussing the situations, then praying before actually starting the discussion. When we get downstairs, as the final people in line are sitting down with their food, we start the discussion. We have what we call a "hard stop" time at 12:45pm, which I think helps people stay, since they know they won't feel obligated to stay a long time if the conversation drags on (however, there's nothing stopping people from staying around after 12:45 and talking informally).

[Larry Parsons]

We were having struggles with our Sunday School. We had the traditional Sunday School time (before the morning worship service) for years. We tried several different things over time to try to get people interested in attending. But more often than not by the beginning of 2012, the entire Sunday School attendance normally consisted of the 2 pastors and their families (total of 5 people), and sometimes one or two other people each week.

We were at the same time beginning to see several people ages upper 20's to low 30's attend our services more and more--and we even had several people join the congregation. When we talked to one of the young adults about what would help make him want to attend Sunday School, he mentioned not having to get up as early on Sundays, since it was usually his only opportunity to sleep in. We also noticed that after the services, a number of people often hung around visiting for 30 minutes or more, after which time many of them went out to eat lunch.

The suggestion was made to change "Sunday School" from before the service to a "Bible Study" discussion after the service, with the discussion being based on the message that was preached during the service. Along with the Bible Study, we also have a lite lunch.

We started this format on the final Sunday of February. Since that time, generally at least 75% of the people who have attended the worship service have stayed for the lite lunch/Bible Study.

This may not work for everyone, but it is something that appears to be working for our congregation, and I just thought I would share the info here in case something such as this might be an attractive option for other congregations.

If you have people in your church who like to party on Saturday night and can't get up untill 12 you may want to have SS around 2 or in evening. I have heard of pastors that has done this. Rich mention that he doesn't have SS there is Large pentecostl about 100 miles from here just have 2 hour service.

Thanks
Larry