"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."
- Proverbs 22:6
Do we need Sunday School anymore? Contrary to people’s belief, it’s only existed for about 275 years. It was started for very for specific reasons which no longer exist. As far as church technologies go, is it still relevant? Or necessary? In Jewish synagogues, there was no Sunday school, instead adults were taught how to teach children. How have we gotten to the point where we consider the spiritual teaching to be the responsibility of the church instead of parents? As parents we need to consider Sunday school to be a great secondary place of spiritual teaching.
Parents ask yourself this: If your church had no Sunday school, how would this affect how you teach your kids about God (or how you would like to be teaching them)? Personally I admit that the existence of Sunday school probably makes me lazy in how I bring up my kids in the faith. I’d like to change that. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Sunday school a lot when I was a kid and I enjoy the peace in Church it gives me now. I just wonder if one of the effects of it is that it tempts parents to abdicate their positions as faith teachers as well. And if they are, do the pluses of Sunday School outweigh this glaring negative?
May Light increase!
Testing
3 weeks ago
5 comments:
Wow, no one commented on this one? I wonder if it is because Sunday School is too much of a sacred cow that it can't be touched. Or maybe it because no one cares about it anymore, so it's not even worth discussing! Hmmm . . .
Or maybe because it's only been a day since you posted it? :)
I don't really have an opinion on this one, partially because I don't have kids in Sunday School.
Jay
Hey Mark, I was with Mom all day yesterday so I didn't have time to comment until now!! Give me some time to think!
I'm sure you've heard the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child". I think that when you are trying to raise a child to believe in God you need the help of the church. Kids don't always listen to what their parents have to say. Sometimes it pays to hear from another adult. Do I think this should replace parental teachings - not at all. But it is a great supplement.
Yes, I think this is a Sacred Cow. We have people that won't come to our church because we don't have Sunday School. We "do" church all together, yah, it can get a little crazy, but it's LIFE! Jesus never shooed the children away, and we're working at keeping them engaged during the "service" so to not be too disruptive.
The time I spoke on prayer Calvin was huddled underneath the Advent wreath that had a candle lit on it. In the middle of speaking I turned to Calvin, spoke into the mic and said to get out of there before he starts a fire! Again, it's life, children are life, as distracting it can be at times, doing church with our kids, we have found that randomly they will talk about what us "grown up spiritual leaders" have been speaking about in church. It's exciting!! I once heard this lady say that children weren't given a JR. Holy Spirit...it's just something to think about that's all.
we do need Sunday school because parents nowadays (whether they are Christian or not) are to busy to properly teach their kids about Jesus Christ so they need the help of other people in their church to teach them about what Jesus and God have been doing for the past few millenia.
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