You Killed Sunday School [Part 2]

In Part 1 of "You Killed Sunday School"  I shared how I was was once accused of "killing Sunday school" by implementing our team's decision to host small groups instead of Sunday school as our primary environment for discipleship and Christian education.

Our team's decision  was based on our response to this two part question;  What do we want people to know, understand, embrace and experience....and...what is the best way for us to provide these things?

Another way to phrase it might be... What content are we hoping to deliver?  What context should we create for people to learn or experience it?

Our team was determined to do our best to let content determine context and not force fit all of our content into Sunday morning;  before church at 9 AM, in rooms with whitewalls, fluorescent lights, school-like tables and chairs, and a teacher standing upfront.  For us, keeping Sunday school as the primary way to educate and disciple Christians was an exercise in allowing context to override content.

We determined that some of the content we had been attempting to offer through Sunday school would be better learned or experienced on a retreat.  Other content would be best learned or experienced through serving opportunities.  Much of the content would be best explored and understood through teaching followed by discussion.

The inflexibility of Sunday school was a second reason for our decision to change.  Sunday school, of course, is tied to Sundays and is dependent on the church having adequate building / classroom space.  Beyond this, the idea of Sunday school assumes that everyone can make it to the church on Sunday at the prescribed time.  A second assumption is that everyone will learn well in a classroom setting.

In the end, our team decided to deliver our Christian education content through occasional class and retreats and weekly relational small group settings, that could be hosted almost anywhere, at almost any time.  We also decided that discussion (which was not as much of a value in a school setting) was a essential element to include for learners to process thoughts, ideas, information and perspectives.