Reach Out and Openly Enroll Part 2: Open Enrollment

Last week we talked about reaching out and inviting people to Sunday School. This week we will discuss our Sunday School enrollment policy: open enrollment. In the past, our enrollment was not clearly defined. We sought to make attendance high by enrolling committed Sunday School members and dropping inactive of uncommitted Sunday School members. Open enrollment does not have those requirements. A person can enroll in a class even if they have never attended the church and will not be dropped unless the person moves to another church, moves away, or dies. Now that Waldrop has an open enrollment policy, any class wishing to drop names from their enrollment without meeting one of the three criteria will have the member taken from their rolls and given to another class. This will leave a bad mark on your class because it will give the appearance that numbers matter more to you than people. The fact is a church that averages between 40-60 % attendance in Sunday School enrollment are right where they should be. If the percentage is any lower then there is something wrong with the Sunday School ministry. If the percentage is any higher then the ministry is strong then there is something wrong with your Sunday School outreach.

For our Discoverer's class, I will be using new enrollment cards for visitors asking them to enroll if they want. These are for the Adult Sunday School classes to use if they want. We have also enrolled two new members for our class. We are still looking for leaders and more new members.

Please take time to visit the department bulletin board. It has the current department set up, claendar, and announcements for varoius activities. The Discverer's class is close to being ready. This class will be a model of the Sunday School TEAMS approach. We will discuss this more in the future.

Finally, remember that there will be no Leadership Meetings on December 20 and 27. That means no more postings for me until 2010. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Reach Out and Openly Enroll Part 1: Reach Out

Revelations 3:20 - "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

Now that we have devoted ourselves to God, we are ready to go out and serve him. The first thing that we must do is bring the people in and to do that we must follow our second goal: "Reach out and openly enroll." We will discuss two parts to this goal this month. They are:

Part 1 - Reach Out, December 6
Part 2 - Openly Enroll, December 13
No Meetings December 20, 27

If you were to start a brand new class, what would be the first thing you would have to do? It would not be to teach the class. You would have to go and get people to come to your class so you had a class to teach. This is why our second goal is to reach out and openly enroll. We need to be involved in any outreach projects that come our way as an oppertunity for growth. We need to find people who are not enrolled in Sunday School and invite them to be a part of our classes. Most people come to Worship services before attending Sunday School. This is a great aera to invite and involve people in Sunday School and potentially lead the lost to salvation.

Let's start inviting people to Sunday School from outside and inside the church!

The November Sunday School report is out and we averaged 66 poeple in November! That's a 12 percent increase over last November. We also enrolled one new member to the Sunday School in November:

Melinda Knowles - General Officers

The Sunday School Evangelism Training at Northside Baptist Church is Saturday January 30. Let me know if you want to attend by Sunday, January 24.
Thank you and have a great week.

Devote Ourselves to God Part 4: Prepare

The first goal of the Sunday School D.R.I.V.E., Devote Ourselves to God is wrapping up this week with an obvious, but critically important objective: preparing ourselves in service. This is obvious because the one thing anybody who serves God has a responsibility to be prepared to do whatever they have been called to do. We all know that we need to prepare, but do we fully prepare ourselves for God's service. When I was teaching a children's Sunday School class, I wanted to make sure that I was prepared to do all the things that I envisioned doing with that class. To achieve this goal, I had to plan what I was going to do a month in advance so that I would spend the week getting all my resources together. I had to set up my classroom, other classrooms, and show up early on Sunday to get ready for everything I needed to do. As the Sunday School Director, I need to be at church 30 minutes before the Sunday School Leadership Meeting to prepare for the meeting. Even if we do not have a meeting, I still need to show up 30 minutes before the teachers to make sure everything is in place for them. I also have to prepare reports of all our Sunday School activities and plans for our monthly Church Council Meetings. With this new vision for the Sunday School in place, I need to constantly be planning and putting into place these new plans. I tell you what I do so you can see that there is much preparation required if you want to do a job well, and we need to give God our best effort in the jobs he has given us to do.
Your assignment this week:

Find one thing you can do that will make you better prepared in the job God has given you.

I presented the Sunday School mission to the church Wednesday night at the monthly business meeting, and was overjoyed that the church approved the mission unanimously. Now that everyone knows and accepts the plan, we can begin the work that it will take to make this goal possible. The first changes will begin with the start of the winter quarter on December 6.
We now have the Ministry Leader for the Sunday School. Jerry Zayas as Chairman of the Deacons has accepted the position since the Deacons are focused already on ministering to the members. This now fills all of the major TEAMS positions.

Teacher Leader - Mike Knowles
Evangelism Coordinatior - Janet Zayas
Adminastrative Leader - Troy Bartlett
Ministry Leader - Jerry Zayas
Service Coordindator - Melinda Knowles

There will be no Sunday School Leadership Meeting next Sunday November 29. We will meet again on December 6 to dicuss the next goal of the Sunday School D.R.I.V.E.
November 29 will also be the first day of Literatue Week. Literature for the new Sunday School Quarter will be distributed as well as the quarterly update list for literature changes for the next quarter.
I look forward to our meeting Sunday and the Thanksgiving Fellowship after Sunday Services.

Devote Ourselves to God Part 3: Train

It's week 3. We have focused on our time with God. Now we need focus on the third part of devoting ourselves to God, train. We need to be constantly seeking to make ourselves better in all our areas of service. For me, I want to be a better director, a better Sunday School, and better deacon. There are other things that will come up as well, but whatever area it is that we work on, we need to train ourselves to be better. You show that you are seek to be better leaders by attending the Sunday morning meetings at 9:15. When you read books, attend training at church or outside church, or observe others in your position, you are training yourselves to be better at what God has lead you to do. I will be offering opportunities for different ways you can train yourself to be better teachers and leaders in the Sunday School.
Your assignment:

Look for ways you can improve yourself. Coming to these meetings is one thing you can do. Reading books, watching DVD's, or attending trainings or conferences all are good opportunities.

We now have a leader for our Service area of the Sunday School. Melinda Knowles will be added to the Sunday School enrollment as a General Officer. She will continue to visit classrooms during Sunday School, so if she visits your class, do not mark her as she will be counted as a General Officer.
We will discuss Thanksgiving baskets, Sunday Fellowship, outreach, and evangelism opportunities coming up during announcements.
I look forward to our meeting Sunday. See you there.

Here are links that I look at for training opportunities:
Georgia Baptist Convention - Sunday School/Open Group -Home

Downloads

Sunday School, Small Group Ministry - curriculum guide, downloads, articles, events

Devote Ourselves to God Part 2: Priority Time

Last week I talked to you about the most important part of Devoting yourself to God, prayer. This week I want us to look at something just as important, priority time. Priority time is also known by more common terms, such as devotional time, personal time, private time, or our daily time with God. I call it daily time because it is not just another part of your schedule, it is the most important part of your day. Prayer is also part of that priority time with God. Once we have established our prayer line with God, it is natural then for us to establish the rest of the priority time in several different ways. The best time for this is in the morning, but that is not always available. For me, I start my day with a short devotional from Your Best Life Begins Each Morning with a morning prayer. When I get back from work, church, or when I am finishing my morning routine, I then spend my time reading the Bible, or engaging in a personal Bible study I am currently working on.

Your assignment this week:

1. Find one thing that you can do to enhance your priority time

2. Talk about it in the classroom (if people will volunteer the information)

I look forward to hearing your reports on last week's prayer discussion. Remember, if you have any announcements, let me know before Sunday because of our limited time together.

Devote Ourselves to God Part 1: Pray

The first goal for our mission is to devote ourselves to God. Revelations 3:20 states: "Behold I..." It does not say him, her, us, or them. It says I. I am the one who is called to do the work for God. Before doing anything else, we must make sure that we are ready to serve by giving ourselves first to God. I have broken this goal down into four parts:

1. Pray
2. Priority Time
3. Train
4. Prepare

This week we will focus on the first and most important part of this goal: prayer. We must be strong in our prayer time to God. If we are strong in our personal prayer time, we should carry it over into our classrooms on Sunday. When I started this goal, I had trouble with consistently praying to God. Since devoting that week to strengthening my prayer time, I now consistently pray to God every day in the morning and at night.
My assignment for you this week is to:

1. Find one thing you can do to improve your personal prayer time
2. Find something you can do to make prayer a priority in the classroom.

Prayer must be a priority and we must show our classes that it is important by how important you make it in the classroom. Think about what you can do or are already doing besides just opening and closing with prayer. Be willing to report and share your ideas and plans. You can also comment below.
We will be following the class time line this Sunday. These meetings will be models for the classroom, which means I will be enlisting people for jobs to assist me with. Here are the positions so far:

Teaching Coordinator: Mike Knowles
Discipleship Coordinator: Dee Culpepper
Administrative Coordinator: Troy Bartlett
Fellowship Leader: Mike Bixler
Evangelism Coordinator: Janet Zayas

There will be more positions to come. Please pray for us as we develop these positions for the future.
I have one other report of note:

College and Career: 2 New Members
Drew Allen
Melanie Cox

This puts our Sunday School enrollment at 124.
I look forward to Sunday when we turn back the clock and discuss the results of the fall festival.

Return of the Sunday School Leadership Meeting

The Sunday School leadership meetings are back, and better than ever. The meetings will be Sundays from 9:15 until 9:30 beginning this Sunday October 25 in the library. During this meeting, many things will be discussed, such as the Sunday School D.R.I.V.E., the purpose and order of the meetings, a survey, and some announcements.
I would like to present an updated mission for the Sunday School. It is called the Sunday School D.R.I.V.E. One of the purposes of the meetings is to begin to implement and focus on our mission for the Sunday School. This mission was created to simplify our goals and mission and still cover all the major areas needed for Sunday School growth. The mission verse is Revelations 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him, and he with me." The five goals of the Sunday School Drive are:

Devote ourselves to God

Reach out and openly enroll
Instruct others to serve and create new classes through Bible-based teaching
Victory! Save souls and baptize
Enjoy Christian fellowships and minister to the members

We will discuss the first goal during the month of November.

The Sunday School meetings will have another purpose: It will be used as a model for teachers to observe how things can be done in a classroom. The order of these short 15 minute meetings will be much like a Sunday School class setup.

Fellowship 9:10
Opening Prayer/Announcements 9:15
Mission Focus/ Leadership Reports 9:20
Pastor's Words 9:25
Prayer 9:29
End 9:30

Note that the meetings will start at 9:15 and end at 9:30. This first meeting will not follow this outline, but future meetings will. Everything in the meetings can be used in the classroom, but are not required.
The need to find leaders is vital to church growth. I will give out a Sunday School survey for the leaders to fill out in order for me to find your greatest strengths which can help me establish roles for our meetings on Sunday. The surveys will not take long as there are only 35 questions.
Finally, it is important for me to give out information to you. It is best and easiest to provide the information in person in these meetings to add valuable discussion when needed. Janet Zayas wants us to start thinking about when we receive all those names from the Fall Festival
next Saturday. If you have any announcements you wish to report, please let me know before Sunday so I can announce it. It is important with our limited time that we do not go off point or get caught up in lengthy discussions. For my last announcement, please watch this video about the Georgia Baptist Convention's Annual Meeting on November 8-10. Let me know what you think.

Georgia Baptist Convention - About GBC - LoveLoud Promo Videos