What Is Your Sunday School Strategy?
1. Resolve to value Sunday School.
God speaks to your children through his Word at Sunday School, and things happen when God speaks. There is power in his word. At creation, God spoke and his word brought all kinds of things into existence. (Genesis 1) Jesus’ words give life; in fact, eternal life! (John 6:63,68) Paul compares God’s Word to dynamite (Romans 1:16), and says it has transforming power (Romans 12:2). Every time your child hears and learns God’s Word God’s Spirit goes to work building faith and character and providing strength to do God’s will.
The people who serve your kids are another reason to value Sunday School. The SundaySchool coordinators, craft and music leaders, and teachers devote some of their time, lives, and talents each week to strengthening your children in their faith in Jesus. They do that because they love your children and want them to be faithful to Jesus now and live forever with him in heaven. What a blessing for your kids to have people like that in their lives!
2. Resolve to give your children the blessings of Sunday School every week.
I have a son who is thinking about studying engineering in college. A current college student in an engineering program told me, “Make sure he takes as much math as possible.” As a parent who wants your child to be well-prepared for life and eternal life through faith in Jesus, isn’t your goal to give your child as much of God’s word as possible? You probably have never consciously thought, “My strategy is to expose my child to God’s Word at Sunday School only now and then- those rare Sundays when we can everyone out of bed, motivated, and ready to go, and when sports practices or games don’t preempt this time with God.” But sometimes that happens.
This past Sunday I left the worship service thinking, “Wow. What an inspiring, uplifting message! How we would have robbed ourselves today if we had let something get in the way of hearing God’s Word.” It reminded me of how every opportunity to hear and learn God’s Word is so important. Jesus called hearing and learning his Word, “The one thing needed.” (Luke 10:42) Make it part of your Sunday School strategy to give your children as often as possible the one thing in life with eternal value- the Word of God and all the blessings for life and salvation in the message of Christ.
3. Resolve to reinforce what your children learn.
You are the primary spiritual influencer of your children. Bringing your children to Sunday School every week is great. But they need to see that the Word is important to you too. Dropping your kids off at Sunday School and skipping adult Bible study to go out for coffee or just hang out and chat with other parents doesn’t send that message. Neither does leaving the take home papers from Sunday School on the kitchen counter unread and undiscussed with your kids. Make it your strategy to show your children how important the word of God is to you too. Talk about what they learned in Sunday School on the way home. Review the lessons with them. Make sure they commit to memory the weekly assigned Bible verse and learn it with them. Discuss that verse and the lesson and the real-life implications of both often during the week, as God urges us to do in Deuteronomy 6:7, “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
God’s blessings to you and your children as the Spirit works through the word to assure them that they are loved and forgiven in Jesus and as he strengthens them for a life of love and service that gives Jesus glory!