Sunday school reform

For this post, I shall generalize about the evangelical Church.

In my experience (far from exhaustive, I admit), Sunday school classes are usually constituted according to age or some other demographic factor. Churches function as if the US Census Bureau (or the Barna Research Group, I suppose) were the final word on spiritual and intellectual needs. This is true not only for children's classes, which are generally named by grade level, but also for adult classes, which commonly have such titles as "Adult I," "Adult II," "Senior Adults," and "College and Career."

In these classes, persons of similar socioeconomic characteristics sit together to listen to a talk on some subject they've heard about many times before in exactly the same terms. The fact that they are listening again to this talk betrays the assumption underlying this form of church education: nobody is ever expected to retain information from one lesson to the next.

This assumption becomes clear when one considers that no institutional mechanism exists to accommodate educational progress. A person is expected to move from class to class as the years take their toll, but in most churches, nobody ever moves from one class to the next because they have mastered the material.

Supposedly, Sunday school and other kinds of small groups exist as the educational arm of church administration. These "classes" have "curricula," "teachers," and "classrooms"; they exist for the sake of the "study" of the Bible. Yet it often seems to me that Sunday school is simply a more personal and interactive version of the instruction provided in the Sunday morning sermon. That is, it exists as a one-size-fits-all, shotgun approach to doctrine. One person, who may or may not be exceptionally qualified for the task, launches into a discourse on a subject meant to resonate with some portion of the audience and move someone toward a new or renewed commitment to the will of Christ. The ultimate goal of this instruction is emotional refreshment or volitional revival, not intellectual progress. If the lesson is especially rigorous and propositional, a member of the audience will come away with the vague impression that their pastor or teacher endorses a particular doctrine (and must have a good reason for it).

Occasionally, a church will attempt to meet a specific educational need by forming a short-term topical study, often scheduling this study at an odd time of day or an odd day of the week. Attendance is never expected to be spectacular. This should not be a surprise. If a church does not consider genuine education an important part of its routine activities, its members will not go out of their way for it. If a church has relegated intellectual exercise to the esoteric realm shared by choir practice and bathroom maintenance, its rank and file will take the hint.

I propose, therefore, that our churches should reconsider the organization of ordinary Sunday school classes. These classes should be designed with doctrinal discussion in mind, covering different branches of learning over the medium term. Adults would choose from a menu of classes on subjects that might range from "The Book of Hebrews" to "Christianity and Culture" to "Old Testament Survey." In general, children's classes would retain their age-based structure, but youth classes would probably follow the pattern of the adult classes.

There are many other obstacles to learning, of course, in evangelical churches. Many still have an ingrained anti-intellectualism. It is difficult for many to find qualified teachers for the classes they already have.

If this change were implemented, additionally, it might be difficult to find curricula for the new courses, or teachers qualified to put together their own material. With more doctrinal specificity, furthermore, could come a heightened risk of heresy from rogue teachers on the one hand, and needless dispute from soapboxers on the other. Even if all went well, some classes would swell as less popular ones withered, which would hurt feelings.

This proposal would not make any church more competent to teach properly, at least at first; it would merely tend to change a church's priorities and expectations. Because it would eliminate the one-size-fits-all assumption, it would lessen the power of the lowest common denominator over the learning of an entire age group. I, therefore, submit this only as one of several steps in the reform of church educational ministry.