Six Reasons to Attend Sunday School in 2018
I think it is true of most churches that the Sunday morning worship service is the service with the highest attendance every week. Yet most churches offer other services to meet a variety of needs. Our church is no exception. Although we don’t take attendance during Sunday school, I would venture to say that Sunday school attendance is about half that of the main service.
In light of these things, I thought it might be profitable for me to encourage you to consider making Sunday school attendance a new habit.
Here are six reasons to do so.
Because we love the Word and want to grow
Psalm 119:97 says, “O, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” As believers, we ought to love God’s Word! One of the reasons that we love it is that it helps us to grow. 1 Peter 1:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” If we are serious about spiritual growth (which I hope we are), and our church is investing in another teaching service (Sunday school), wouldn’t we want to make it a priority to attend as often as possible?
Because you want your kids to come to Christ and grow in Him
It’s true that we should be teaching our kids at home (Deut 6:6-7, 20-25; Eph 6:4). However, if we believe in the importance of the local church, then naturally, we will want to involve our children as much as possible in the programs of the church designed specifically to meet their needs. Children’s Sunday school is one of those programs.
Because the format of Sunday school is particularly conducive to Bible teaching
We try our best to make sure that each of our services (Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night) is a little bit different. We design Sunday school for focused Bible study. With the children, we divide them into small groups by age, and most of those groups meet around tables. The small group setting allows for lots of interaction with the teacher, and the tables allow for crafts and coloring that reinforce the lesson. In the first through sixth grades, we focus children’s church more on Bible doctrines, whereas Sunday school is about basic Bible content and stories. Teen Sunday school is the central event in the youth group schedule. Not only is it the most focused teaching time for the teens, but it’s also a strategic time for building relationships. With the adults, the interactive nature of adult Sunday school makes it an optimal setting for learning Biblical truths.
Because God has gifted us with multiple pastors and teachers
The church is a diverse body in which we all serve according to our giftedness (1 Cor 12). Adult Sunday school is a context for men (other than the main preacher) with the gift of teaching and preaching to exercise that gift. It’s not simply my service for teaching, but also a context in which other gifted men regularly speak. When we make attendance at this service a priority, we recognize the giftedness of those men and encourage them. In return, we receive the blessing of hearing the same truths presented from a different perspective, by a different personality, in a different way.
Because we don’t have anything better to do
That may sound harsh, so let me explain myself. I know that everyone is busy and that there are practical limitations to how much time one spends in the word. However, I hope we would all agree that church attendance is not optional (Heb 10:24-25). If attendance is not optional, how much harder is it to come an hour earlier for Sunday school? I dare say that the vast majority of us could make this work in our schedules.
Because the more you’re around, the more you can serve
There are fifty-nine “one another” commands in the New Testament. We are to be united, be humble, and love and serve one another. The unspoken assumption behind these commands is that we are to be together! The more we spend time together as a church family, the more opportunities we will have to love and serve one another. Simply being present and engaged for an extra hour on Sunday mornings can open the door for sanctifying relationships with other church members.
So there you go! Six reasons to attend Sunday school in 2018. If you have any concerns about the effectiveness of Sunday school or have ideas as to how it can be managed better, please let us know! We are always looking for ways to improve. Either way, we’d love to see you around more often!
Kris Schaal is the Associate Pastor at Life Point Baptist Church, Apple Valley, CA. He wrote this piece for his church blog, we adapted it for Proclaim & Defend with permission.