Sunday School Grows by 62% in Small Inner-City Church
Sunday Night NFL at Forest Avenue Assembly
Shortly after my wife and I were appointed to "revitalize" the church here at Forest Avenue in Springfield, Missouri, the Lord led us into outreach ministry at some of the government housing projects in the city. Initially we began with on-site ministry on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and transported the children and youth to the church on Wednesday evenings for Royal Rangers and Missionettes.
Eventually we started trying to integrate these children with our existing Sunday morning Sunday School ministries. From the very beginning we experienced difficulty in getting the children to the church for Sunday mornings. Part of the problem was the lifestyle they led at home; with many of the families, it was not unusual for children to stay up on Saturday nights until two or three in the morning, the adults in the home even later. We would come by to pick up the children at around eight on Sunday mornings, and when we were able to get anyone awake, we had to change diapers and find shoes and underwear and clothes, all the while stepping over adults and teens sleeping on couches or on the floor. It was a tremendous frustration for our workers involved in the transportation ministry. It was also relatively unfruitful.
Another thing we quickly learned was that for many of the children we ministered to, hunger was a constant problem. By the end of the month food stamps and other subsidies had been depleted. In response to that need, we started serving breakfast to the children we were able to bus in on Sunday mornings.
After about a year of this, a couple of our staff members (students at Central Bible College) approached me with the idea that we switch our morning Sunday School to a Sunday evening format. I had been praying about how we might be more effective in our Christian education ministries and could see the possibilities that a Sunday evening ministry time might present. At that time, we usually had 40 or 50 children on Wednesday night but only nine or ten on Sunday mornings. We were desperate to find a way to increase our Sunday School participation among the children.
However, I was concerned with the possible resistance I knew we could encounter if people thought we were saying goodbye forever to our traditional Sunday morning Sunday School ministry. After a few weeks of preparation and prayer with key members of the congregation and ministry team staff, we presented the Sunday evening Christian education time as an additional outreach ministry—not a replacement for our traditional Sunday School hour. As a result of our cautious approach to the integration of the Sunday Night NFL (Night for Learning) ministry, we encountered very little resistance. There were a few individuals who left the church because they didn’t "like having all these children from unsaved backgrounds" around, but by and large, our overall response was overwhelmingly positive from the start. In two weeks we saw a 62% increase in Sunday School attendance with no promotional events or other major changes other than picking the children and youth up at four in the afternoon rather than at eight-thirty in the morning.
The paradigm shift did present some real challenges with staffing and usage of the facility since we are a small church (at the time, our average attendance was 44), but we came up with the following Sunday service schedule that still works for us nearly three years later:
9:00 am: Prayer time and Breakfast
Breakfast is served for the children we continue to bring in for our Sunday morning ministries.
9:30 am: Sunday School/Kid’s Hour/Junior Bible Quiz
We use Radiant Life Curriculum for the adults and teens, Junior Bible Quiz materials for children in grades three through six, and Beginning Explorer’s Children’s Church curriculum from Radiant Life for the younger children.
10:30am: Morning Worship
The majority of the congregation is together in the sanctuary. Children’s Church was moved to Sunday Evening Celebration time so those staff members could be a part of the morning service.
4:00 pm: Transportation/Harvest Outreaches
Transportation with the bus and vans begins at about four in the afternoon in order to get the children here in time for a Sunday evening "Kid’s Meal," which we prepare and serve as a sit-down meal Sundays at five. We also have several "Harvest Outreaches" to the housing projects and the neighborhood around the church on Sunday afternoons throughout the year where we incorporate servant evangelism principles with our outreach.
5:30 pm: Sunday Night NFL
Initially we launched this ministry with a football theme because of the acronym and similarity to "Monday Night NFL." We use Radiant Life curriculum for all the children’s classes and electives for adults and teens on subjects such as: Understanding the Cults, Ministering to Muslims, Christian Maturity, The 16 Fundamentals of the Faith, Water Baptism, Holy Spirit Baptism, The Gifts of the Spirit, and Church Membership.
6:30 pm: Evening Celebration/Youth Services/Children’s Church
After the Sunday Night NFL hour, our children up to age eleven attend Children’s Church using Radiant Life Young Explorers curriculum. Adults and youth meet jointly in the sanctuary; youth leave after worship and prayer time for their weekly youth service.
