Is Sunday School still relevant in today's church?

[judson1982]

I am wondering, since "small groups" seem to be the status quo in more contemporary churches. I also find the concept of Sunday School to be more learning from a quarterly with rote activities and prayers--not challenging me to grow in the Lord. I also find such quarterlies to be full of gender-neutral language (mainline church curriculum).

 

[Swan7]

Alarm bells go up for me when I hear churches speaking in secular tones. Once, when my sister and I went to our childhood friends' funeral, a storybook was introduced and seemed very out of place. It had everything to do with the gender neutralism agenda. I'll never forget the look my sister and I made at each other and spoke as one: "Deception".

Sunday school, in my opinion, is very much important as it teaches children about God and His ways in living. As should this be taught by the parents as well.
Proverbs 22:6

 

[Hank77]

Alarm bells go up for me when I hear churches speaking in secular tones. Once, when my sister and I went to our childhood friends' funeral, a storybook was introduced and seemed very out of place. It had everything to do with the gender neutralism agenda. I'll never forget the look my sister and I made at each other and spoke as one: "Deception".

Sunday school, in my opinion, is very much important as it teaches children about God and His ways in living. As should this be taught by the parents as well.
Proverbs 22:6

I think adult Sunday school is important to. That is when one gets the chance to ask questions and really dig into the scriptures as a group.

 

[Doug Melven]

Sunday school is very relevant.
Any time you can get together with others to learn about the Word, that time is not irrelevant.
If you are ina church where it looks like Sunday school is becoming secular or like the world.
Gender neutral language would definitely set off alarm bells

 

[Thedictator]

I am wondering, since "small groups" seem to be the status quo in more contemporary churches. I also find the concept of Sunday School to be more learning from a quarterly with rote activities and prayers--not challenging me to grow in the Lord. I also find such quarterlies to be full of gender-neutral language (mainline church curriculum).

If you truly want to know God's Word then you will have to go where the Bible is studied and not a workbook or a denominational reader. Most mainline Churches are so worried about pleasing worldly sinful members they leave behind the true believers in Christ with the worldly water down garbage they teach. Go to a Church that teaches the Bible.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Welcome to CF!

Sunday School is very important in our setting. The children are taken out after they receive Holy Communion first, and we teach them while the rest of the adults receive (one at a time for us) and as they begin fellowship during coffee hour.

We have the children there so it's the perfect time to teach them. Of course the parents should be teaching as well.

We happen to have an extremely old curriculum which I wasn't thrilled with so I have permission to develop my own.

As for adults, we typically meet on a different day for Bible Study.

Both are quite important.

I focus on teaching the children various essentials they need to understand as Christians. Adults should already know all of this, so we typically go through the Scriptures one book at a time and study them in depth.

 

[sunshineforJesus]

My church quit having Sunday School a couple yrs ago for grownups since
not many showed up,but they do have sunday school for toddlers,and preschoolers who are too
young to be in Children's Church.

 

[aog17]

I am wondering, since "small groups" seem to be the status quo in more contemporary churches. I also find the concept of Sunday School to be more learning from a quarterly with rote activities and prayers--not challenging me to grow in the Lord. I also find such quarterlies to be full of gender-neutral language (mainline church curriculum).

Contemporary churches no longer have Sunday School because they don’t expect anyone to come to church very early except for actual staff. Some people arrive to the Worship Center when praise and worship has begun.

We don’t even have Wednesday night bible study that is open to the congregation. They do small group(scheduled) bible study where you have to sign up, or know someone in the group, and evening Bible class with a fee.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Contemporary churches no longer have Sunday School because they don’t expect anyone to come to church very early except for actual staff. Some people arrive to the Worship Center when praise and worship has begun.

We don’t even have Wednesday night bible study that is open to the congregation. They do small group(scheduled) bible study where you have to sign up, or know someone in the group, and evening Bible class with a fee.

They charge a FEE for Bible study!?!?!

 

[Albion]

IMHO, Sunday School is needed more today than ever, but of course there are many different ways of operating a Sunday School.

 

[~Anastasia~]

IMHO, Sunday School is needed more today than ever, but of course there are many different ways of operating a Sunday School.

Agree. This is why ours happens toward the later part of the main service.

 

[Swan7]

I think adult Sunday school is important to. That is when one gets the chance to ask questions and really dig into the scriptures as a group.

I don't know anything about this "adult Sunday School" thing, never heard of it. Bible studies, yes.

 

[Hank77]

I don't know anything about this "adult Sunday School" thing, never heard of it. Bible studies, yes.

It's a Bible study on Sunday before church.

 

[Swan7]

It's a Bible study on Sunday before church.

No one seems to do that where I live, at least not to my knowledge.

 

[PloverWing]

Improving Christian education is one of the emphasis of the new bishop in my diocese and the new priest in my parish. We've had Sunday school for children all along, but we've revived the adult Sunday school program this past year. Our adult Sunday school program is currently led by our priest, and its topics have varied by liturgical season. We're currently looking at the Resurrection stories in the gospels, since this is Easter. During Lent, we looked at the passion narratives in the gospels. Before that, we had a couple of studies of church history. We aren't currently using a quarterly; instead, we read a couple of chapters from the Bible and talk about what we see there.

For what it's worth, we're mainline, and we're gender-inclusive, but we still care about the Bible.

 

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

I think whatever you call it whether Sunday School, small groups, etc. are still important as long as it has an emphasis on discipleship in terms of engaging life together rather than religious education or simply curriculum.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I think adult Sunday school is important to. That is when one gets the chance to ask questions and really dig into the scriptures as a group.

I completely agree. I learn more in a classroom environment than in most sermons because we are able to ask questions and discuss ideas about the topic which often results in a much more in depth understanding and broader perspective.