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!
