Promotion Sunday

This past Sunday was our first annual Promotion Sunday. We were registering the kids during Sunday School and gave out certificates of promotion to those that were being promoted in September. Kids also found out who their teachers would be and where their classrooms would be. We had 67% of our enrolled kids register. There were seven kids promoted. Those kids are:

Erin Foster - From Pre-K to Primary

Kate Hart - From Junior to Youth

Jasper Howell - From Junior to Youth

Brittney Moore - From Pre-K to Primary

Libby Young - From Toddlers to Pre-K

Junior Zuchelli - From Toddlers to Pre-K

Cooper Zuchelli - From Toddlers to Pre-K

Congratulations to all promoted.
Leaders, don't forget to shoe up at 4:30 on Wednesday, September 1 for our Leadership Meeting during the Sunday School Kick-off. See you there.

Sunday School Equipping Tour 2010: Albany

The annual Sunday School Equipping Tour Kicked off today in three locations including our local area event in Albany. Four people attended the event: Pastor Mike, myself, Dee, and Sam. We all came back with more resources, ideas, and a renewed passion for serving God in the Sunday School. I will be posting the responses of all our leaders this week who attended.

Don't forget! Promotion Sunday is the 22nd.

Webinars: Day 2

I enjoyed the two webinars yesterday even more than the first two! Let me tell you that if you are a Sunday school leader for any age group and you did not see the webinars that were held, you need to watch the recorded webinars that are available online at the following link:

Recorded Webinars

Hope you all got something from these webinars. See you soon.

Webinars: Day 1

I just finished listening to today's first two webinars.The topics were on Preschool and Children. I especially enjoyed the Children's webinar. I hope all leaders that participated enjoyed it as well. Don't forget about the two webinars tomorrow on Youth and Adults. Hope you learn something, and enjoy!

Sunday School News

Two positions have been filled today, Sunday School Secretary and Youth Department Director. Thank you to James Lusk and Trey Barfield for accepting those responsibilities. I also have a renewed commitment in the nursery. I still need to fill 3 slots:

Kindergarten Teacher

Preschool Department Director

Children Department Director

If anyone will volunteer please let me know. Also, don't forget about the webinars Monday and Tuesday. Let me know if you plan to come to the church so someone will be there.

Only 1 more month until the Sunday School Kick-off! Make plans now to be there.

Building a New Hope for the Sunday School

A week after my last post, I now have our theme for the new Sunday School year. (Hint: Read the title)I look forward to revealing it to the church during our Annual Planning Conference on Saturday. Leaders, please attend this event. This is an important event for planning for the next church/Sunday School year. Kits for Kids is also this Saturday, but there is also a training event Friday night for leaders. I will be there and I hope you will too.
Also, I finished the Sunday School manual today. Now we can begin using it to help grow our Sunday School and implement events such as VBS for 2011.
I still need 5 positions filled, if you would like to volunteer for a position, let me know:

Sunday School Secretary

Preschool Department Director

Children Department Director

Youth Department Director

Kindergarten Sunday School Teacher

Prayer Breakfast and More

I went to Shoney's for Waldrop's monthly men's prayer breakfast. It was a good time of prayer and fellowship and a great selection of good food at the breakfast buffet.
After breakfast Jerry, Gordon, and myself went to the church and met to plan for the annual planning conference. Members, please make plans to attend the Annual Planning Conference at the church on Saturday July 24 at 1:00 after Kits for Kids at the Chester A. Arthur Recreation Center at 9:00. It will be part of a busy week for me.
I completed two more tabs on the manual since Sunday's blog. Things are really beginning to come together on the overall vision and plan for the Sunday School.
I also finished all my letters for the Sunday School leaders and will send them out Wednesday night.
Let me leave with a question: I am working on a theme for the new Sunday School year but I am not sure what to say. I would like it to emphasize the new beginning in the Sunday School since this will be the first year I will be able to organize my complete Sunday School vision since becoming director. Do you have any ideas?
Let me know.

Big Sunday!

I am so excited over the events and progress being made today! I had my first preparation meeting with my new youth teacher and I will be observing his first action next Sunday.
Soon after that, Mike Bixler agreed to become my second Administrative Assistant. The new administration is set up like so:

Sunday School Director - Troy Bartlett

Administrative Assistant of Records - Clay Bartlett

Administrative Assistant of Literature - Mike Bixler

I am also preparing to meet with other prospects for other positions later this week.
I completed three more tabs of the Sunday School manual and now have only eight of the fifteen tabs left to complete.
I have been working on preparations for Waldrop's first ever Sunday School Kick-off. We will have a meeting at 4:30 followed by our first fellowship meal since the end of school at 5:30. Finally, we will meet for our commissioning service at 6:30 with guest speaker Jimmy Blanton of the CBA.
I also made a letter for all Sunday School leaders inviting them to attend the GBA's Sunday School Training Session in Albany. I will be giving it out Wednesday.
I have to go to the prayer breakfast Tuesday. I will probably be post another blog then.

Manual Work

I've been working on the Sunday School Manual a lot lately. I have finished most of what I needed for the Introduction, calendar, and recruitment sections. I am currently working on the Prepare/Train/Evaluate section of the manual. Last night I completed the event outline for our Sunday School Kick-off on September 1st! This will help us plan and prepare for any event in the future by giving us a guideline to follow. I want to work on the Sunday School Leader Preparation Training Event Timeline next.
I still need to recruit some leaders before September:

Sunday School Secretary
Preschool/Children/Youth Department Director
Kindergarten Teacher

If you know of anyone who could serve in these positions let me know.

Enjoy Christian Fellowships and Minister to the members Part 2: Fellowships

The Discovery class had their monthly fellowship Saturday at Lakebottom Park. It was a great time had by all 19 of us that went. Yes, that's right, we had 19 people show up for our picnic at Lakebottom! We had such a great turnout despite the weather being a little more chilly than was forecast. What is the secret to our success? Here are some things we did and are doing.

1. We have fellowships every month. Classes that do not fellowship at least once a quarter are not developing relationships as well as classes that do. Fellowships can strengthen the membership and reach out to non-members at the same time. Plus it's fun!

2. We have a class Fellowship Coordinator. Find someone who is good at planning fellowships. Click SSOG-Survey for a printable survey, then click SSOG-Scoresheet for a printable scoresheet from the GBC. Have the class take this and use the results to help discover your fellowship leader.

3. We pick events early and make adjustments by discussing the fellowship every Sunday. Plan the next fellowship soon after having one. Set the date, time, and location. Meet every week to discuss any adjustments that need to be made. Gradually take care of all the details such as cost, food, etc.

4. We invite every member in our class whether they are active, inactive, or a shut-in. Use e-mail, phone, or letter and use them often to inform them of any changes to the schedule. Everyone who is enrolled in your class should be allowed to participate.

5. We invite all prospects/visitors to our fellowships. Some prospects are not willing to join the Sunday School until a relationship is developed. Fellowships can provide an opportunity to develop those relationships. Make sure they are informed of any changes.

6. We invite all members of the family to attend. If our members or prospects have children, brothers, sisters, etc. we include them in our fellowship as well. This helps develop relationships and can also be another way to bring in more prospects. One family brought a prospect who was a friend of their child.

These 6 important factors and plenty of prayer and preparation are vital to success in our class fellowships. This has also helped our class enroll 9 members in just three months.

Sunday we had 3 baptisms. All three people attended our fellowship the day before. It is such a blessing to see people you know commit themselves to the Lord!

Next week is Easter! Then it will be time for my Spring Break. I look forward to the weekly Sunday School Leadership Meetings beginning this coming Sunday.

My Week:
Wednesday Night Supper/Service @ Waldrop March 31 beginning at 5:30

Easter Sunday/Weekly SS Leadership Meeting/Sunday School/Service @ Waldrop starting at 9:15

Enjoy Christian Fellowships and Minister to the Members Part 1: Minister

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me."
Revelations 3:20

Saturday was our Spring Clean up Day at the Church and we had many members come and work Friday and Saturday. Our dumpster was overflowing with junk we needed cleaned out mostly from the attic. We had people including the youth clean and organize the Sanctuary, as well as take care of special yard projects which included painting the Church sign and parking stoppers. Jerry did a great job organizing the clean up and I was pleased to see so many people help out. All of our most active members from the Discovery Sunday School class showed up and contributed. Every Sunday School class from Preschool 3 on up had at least one member help out. Special thanks to all teachers for communicating this event to your classes.

Our Sunday School Leadership Meeting this week focused on Our fifth goal: Enjoy Christian Fellowship and Minister to the Members. We talked about Ministry in the Sunday School. I presented a contact plan for our members and prospects under the Leadership Info tab of our Sunday School books. My strategy is that every teacher make sure that every member is contacted every week primarily by phone. The teachers need to develop a care group leadership so they do not do this all by themselves. Most classes should already have a system in place. The care group leaders should make their contacts on Monday or Tuesday to everyone in their group. On Thursday, the teacher should call each leader to confirm that all contacts have been made, and if they have not then encourage them to make the contacts before Sunday. On Friday, I will call every teacher to confirm that they made their contacts to the leaders. On Sunday, the teacher should know how many members were contacted and tell the secretary to mark the number of contacts made for the week in the book. This makes everyone accountable and lets everyone everyone's prayer requests and ministry needs.

Waldrop had a good report for February. Here is the report:

Attendance Report
February - The Sunday School has now had two huge months in a row.
February 2010 vs. February 2009

• Enrollment was up 22%.

• There were 3 more visitors for the month.

• Offerings were up 2%

• Attendance was up 33%

• Three New Members were enrolled.

Next week we will talk about fellowship to wrap up our five goals of the Sunday School series.

My Week:

Wednesday Night Supper and Business Meeting @ Waldrop starting 5:30 3/24

Discovery Class Fellowship @ Lakebottom Park 11:30 3/27

Leadership meeting/Sunday School/Morning Service @ Waldrop starting 9:15 3/28

Spring Forward: Prospects, Roll Books, and Mentoring

Today I was excited to see that we had 72 people in Sunday School at Waldrop. This was not just because we were up by 7 from last week or that we are now over 20% above our Sunday School average this month from last year. No, the main reason for my excitement for our good turnout this week was that this was the week we had to tun our clocks ahead one hour the night before. When attendance surges on one of the worst days of the year for Sunday School attendance, it give me confidence that we are going in the right direction.
This past Wednesday, I finished the remainder of our new Sunday School roll books. Not only are they nice, but they are convienient for all our needs for the class secretary. Each roll contains:

1. A presentation binder with pockets
2. A pencil or pen
3. Attendance/Enrollment Roll
4. Member Info
5. New Member Info
6. Prospect Info
7. Announcements
8. Leadership Info
9. Paper
10. Visitor Cards/Envelopes/Post Cards

This week I also began watching the series "Evangelism Through the Sunday School" from Sunday School Open Groups of the GBC. It brought to my attention the need for prospects in the Sunday School. I will be organizing the master prospect list this week and the prospect lists for each class thereafter.
Pastor Mike and I will be speaking to the church about getting involved in the Sunday School mentoring program beginning later this year. It is sponsered by Sunday School Open Groups of the GBC.
Next week we will talk about our last goal in our Sunday School mission.

My week:
3/17: Wednesday Night Supper and Service - 5:30 @ Waldrop
3/20: Spring Clean Up - 9 to 12 @ Waldrop
3/21: Leadership Meeting - 9:15 @ Waldrop Library
Sunday School and Morning Service - 9:45 @ Waldrop
Deacons Meeting and Church Council - 4:30 @ Waldrop Meeting Room

2010: The Year We Made Contact

Since the last post. . .

Instruct others to serve and create new classes through Bible-based teaching.

We met two more times in January to discuss the importance of creating new classes to help church and Sunday School growth. A great example of this is our new Discovery class that started back in January. This class has been a great source of growth for our Sunday School. Since the class began, we have enrolled 7 new members to the Sunday School, and two of them made the decision to be baptised. The class is also starting to become organized with a new fellowship coordinator and class secretary. We had our first fellowship in February and are planning our next one for March.

We also discussed the importance of teaching according to the Bible. The Lifeway literature that is provided is a trusted resource that we use. The series Explore the Bible helps keep us aligned with Biblical truths. It is also important that we have our Bibles available in class to show the importance of what we are teaching from.

Victory! Save souls and baptize.

On January 30, several members went to the School of Evangelism conference at Northside Baptist Church to learn more about evangelism. I learned two important things there:

1. The Sunday School needs an effective evangelism program.

2. The Sunday School needs an effective evangelism training program.

I want this year to be the year the Sunday School has a plan and a program to reach out to the unsaved and go beyond the walls of the church. We need a goal, a way of identifying prospects, praying for them, and organizing to reach them. We also need to train our members to be effective witnesses to the lost in a way that is specific to Sunday School evangelism. For these reasons, I am calling 2010 "The year we made contact." Yes, that is the title of the sequel to 2001: A Space Oddessy, but it works for what we need to do now. We must make contact outside the walls of the church and bring people to Christ.

Next Sunday is March 14, the day we turn our clocks ahead one hour. Don't forget! We need to keep our Sunday School attendance up. So far for 2010 we are over 30% above our overall attendance from 2009.

Also, please remember to contribute to the Annie Armstrong Missions. The church goal is $2,500 and the Sunday School usally contributes 20% of that offering. You can give during worship or Sunday School. If the Sunday School raises at least $500, then we will be on pace to meet or exceed the overall goal. So far the Sunday School has raised $125.

Have a great week and let me know of any questions you have or what you are thinking by making comments on this post.

My week:

Prayer Breakfast at Shoney's @ 6:30 am Tuesday March 9

Wednesday Night Meal and Service beginning at 5:30 pm

Sunday School and Service beginning at 9:45 am

Sunday Night Sing @ Eastern Heights Baptist Church at 6 pm

Instruct Part 1: Instruct others to Serve

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..."

Revelations 3:20

So much has happened since our last meeting in December. On January 3rd, a new Sunday School class began called the Discovery Class. Through this class we hope to discover how God is leading the Sunday School to its new D.R.I.V.E. It will take time for the class to develop; however, we have already enrolled five new Sunday School members in just two weeks! We have been reaching out and openly enrolling to all prospects we can find. Now that we have been working to bring people in, we need to lead them to serve. Our third goal in the Sunday School is to "Instruct others to serve and create new classes through Bible based teaching." I want to look at service this week.

When we are bringing people into the Sunday School, it is growing. When the Sunday School grows, we need more workers to sustain that growth. Where do we get more workers? From the Sunday Schools. When people join a class, they must be taught the importance of service. God calls everyone to serve Him in some way. It is the responsibilty of the Sunday School to grow and develop those people so they can one day know and answer God's call. We must do all we can to help people find their calling and get them ready for service. We can encourage service if we have organization and many different positions to offer.

In the Discovery class, I am using an approach called the TEAMS approach. There are five major positions that need to be filled as soon as possible: Teacher, Evangelism Coordinator, Administrator, Ministry Coordinator, and Service Coordinator. A teacher teachers the class, the evangelism coordinator leads outreach, the administrator takes care of all the details like time and organization, the ministry coordinator leads ministry, and the service coordinator finds new leaders for the Sunday School. Right now Pastor Mike is the teacher and I am the Administrator.

I look forward to our meeting Sunday and thank all of you for your willingness to serve.