Category Archives: Shepherding

Shepherding, Teaching

Sunday School in the 21st century

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This month, our church is taking a new direction in our Sunday School. For the last two years, we’ve tried an “elective” format with limited success. We had some great teachers and offered some outstanding classes, but the idea just never really took off with many of our members, and the quarterly elective model did not lend itself to building a deeper sense of community.

In some ways, we’re moving back to a more traditional Sunday School model, but with a twist. Our focus will shift from strictly teaching toward fellowship (sharing in common). About 2/3 of our time will be spent in interactive, verse-by-verse Bible Study, while the other 1/3 will be spent in prayer. Time for socializing and evangelism will also be encouraged as the small groups develop.

Thom Rainer, Director of Lifeway, admits that Sunday School has lost the “coolness factor” and fallen out of fashion in many churches across the country. But statistics show it still has value:

Do you realize that a person in a Sunday School class is five times more likely to be assimilated and discipled in a church than a person who attends worship only? Did you know that Sunday School increases biblical literacy and encourages personal Bible study? Are you aware that churches with the healthiest Sunday School organizations are likely the healthiest churches evangelistically?

And what makes a healthy Sunday School? Rainer explains,

For one, it is the priority of the leadership of the church, particularly the senior pastor. And the plan of study or curriculum is not haphazard where all are doing their own thing. What takes place in Sunday School is no less planned than what is preached in the pulpit.

A healthy Sunday School is an open group, where anyone can attend at any point. A healthy Sunday School has the best teachers who are trained and capable. And a healthy Sunday School is well organized and given a prominent place in the life of the church.

We at First Southern are not ready to give up on Sunday School yet. Times have changed, and our tactics for discipleship must change. But we believe Sunday School still has big potential. People are already traveling to our church campus for Morning Worship, so why not seize this opportunity to build deeper relationships, small group Bible study, and prayer? There’s the added bonus of having a good program available for the kids.

Since the focus of our new Sunday School program will be on fellowship and relationships, we will be phasing out the name adult “Sunday School” and replacing it with “Life Groups,” which we hope will better capture our purpose.

I join Rainer in the conclusion of his article,

I pray that the small group Bible study called Sunday School will begin to be embraced with similar fervor. I’m not hung up on the name assigned to it. I just pray that men, women, boys and girls will return to the experience of regular group Bible study. It’s the trend of some of the healthiest churches in America. And that’s really cool.

Shepherding

Loving the cantankerous people

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Jim Eliff shares some good thoughts on why love is the proper way to handle the “cantankerous” people in our church:

  • Love is the highest mark of maturity.
  • Love is the perfect bond of unity (Col. 3:14)
  • Love is the way of blessing because it is grounded in humility (Phil. 2:3-4)
  • Love is the reasonable return for what God has given you (Col. 3:13)

How should we love this kind of person practically? Eliff offers four ways:

  1. Invite him to your home.
  2. Try to find out what drives him.
  3. Within reason, give him some servant responsibility.
  4. Confront him if he continues to cause problems.

You can read the whole article here.

(As a side note, Eliff’s ministry, Christian Communicators Worldwide, is currently offering a free book to seminary students and first-time pastors. See below.)

We occasionally like to give away resources to seminary students and first time pastors. Students or first time pastors may currently ask for one of the following: Divorce and Remarriage: A Permanence View, OR Wasted Faith, OR Dangers of the Invitation System. We only ask that you commit to read the book. Please write Steve Burchett at ccwblog@gmail.com for ordering details.

Shepherding

A note to those who reject organized religion

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“I believe in God, but not in organized religion.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that statement. And in a way, I can’t blame the people who say it.

If, by “religion,” you mean a cold list of duties and ceremonies, I completely agree. This kind of religion is despicable. In fact, Jesus reserved His strongest words for the outwardly “religious” people of His day: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). These religious leaders knew how to act and talk and worship a certain way, but their hearts were proud and self-righteous. They didn’t love God. And needless to say, their good works didn’t impress Him either.

However, if by “religion,” you mean a system of beliefs, then the fact is, everyone has a religion. Everyone believes something about God; why we are here; how we determine right from wrong; what happens when we die, etc. In this sense, organized religion is simply gathering together with others who hold certain beliefs in common.

Has church left a bad taste in your mouth? Perhaps you’ve seen all the conflict and scandal over the years and concluded, “organized religion is a sham.” As a pastor, I’ll be the first to admit that churches are full of sinful people (starting with me!). But the surprising thing is, God still wants us to gather and worship Him. In fact, He sent His only Son to die for our sin and to scrub us clean.

Ephesians 5:26-27 says “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” This is still a work in progress, but Christ is slowly transforming us more and more into His perfect image (Eph. 4:12-13).

Organized religion gets a lot of well-deserved criticism today, but don’t let that cause you to write the church off. The church is still the Bride of Christ (Eph. 5:25), The Family of God (Eph. 1:5), and the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16). Despite her flaws, she is precious to God. And what is precious to God should become more precious to us.

Shepherding

Where are all the men?

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Look around you on an average Sunday morning. You’ll probably notice a disproportionate number of women. Who is singing in the choir? Who is helping in the children’s ministry? Who is stepping onto the mission field? More often than not, it’s the women. To be sure, I praise the Lord for these women, but men, where are you?? Even as I think of counseling issues and spiritual lethargy in homes, most problems stem from a lack of male leadership.

Gender Blog reports today on the urgent need for male leadership in our homes and churches…

While the influence of evangelical feminism is harmful, John Piper helpfully points out that there is an even greater danger lurking in most evangelical churches and homes – men abdicating their responsibility to lead.

If I were to put my finger on one devastating sin today, it would not be the so-called women’s movement, but the lack of spiritual leadership by men at home and in the church. Satan has achieved an amazing tactical victory by disseminating the notion that the summons for male leadership is born of pride and fallenness, when in fact pride is precisely what prevents spiritual leadership. The spiritual aimlessness and weakness and lethargy and loss of nerve among men is the major issue, not the upsurge of interest in women’s ministries.

Pride and self-pity and fear and laziness and confusion are luring many men into self-protecting, self-exalting cocoons of silence. And to the degree that this makes room for women to take more leadership it is sometimes even endorsed as a virtue. But I believe that deep down the men – and the women – know better.

Where are the men with a moral vision for their families, a zeal for the house of the Lord, a magnificent commitment to the advancement of the kingdom, an articulate dream for the mission of the church and a tenderhearted tenacity to make it real?

When the Lord visits us from on high and creates a mighty army of deeply spiritual men committed to the Word of God and global mission, the vast majority of women will rejoice over the leadership of these men and enter into a joyful partnership that upholds and honors the beautiful Biblical pattern of mature manhood and mature womanhood.

[Excerpted from What’s the Difference?: Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the Bible, 68-69]

Men, will you, by God’s grace, step up with this kind of vision, zeal, and commitment for the kingdom of God? Will you start tonight in your own home?

Men, will you rise to the challenge? A good place to begin is to come broken before the Lord in prayer, and to lead your family to church this Sunday.

Shepherding, Teaching

I hope this new “fad” catches on!

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David Platt is the 30 year old pastor of the Church at Brook Hills, a growing congregation in Birmingham, Alabama. He was recently interviewed by Collin Hansen in Christianity Today, and his remarks are very encouraging. It’s obvious from his sermons and from this interview that Platt loves the Word of God, and that many young people are hungry for it.

Hansen: All good evangelicals affirm the centrality of the Word. Still, we have a severe problem of biblical illiteracy. How do we go from knowing the Word is important to knowing what the Word actually says?

Platt: [Churches] have severely dumbed down the Word, and shown a lack of trust in the sufficiency of the Word in the way we preach. We find it necessary to supplement it with entertaining stories and quips or good practical advice for living the Christian life that are not based in the Word. This deficiency transfers into people content with a little “Word for the Day,” in a devotional book at best, as opposed to deep knowledge of Scripture.

We’re trying to hit at the problem from a variety of angles at Brook Hills. First of all, in worship we’re quoting the Word, singing the Word, and engaging in intensive study. We’ll study 55 minutes to an hour. We try to really saturate the community of faith with the Word when we gather together.

I go to other places, such as house churches in Asia, and they study for 11 or 12 hours, knowing they risk their lives. They’ll dive in deep. We came back and tried to do something similar here. We call it secret church and do it a couple times a year. We gather together for intensive study with no frills, nothing flashy, no entertainment value. The first time, about 1,000 showed up. We studied Old Testament overview from 6 p.m. to midnight, but usually it goes longer, supplemented by times in prayer for the persecuted church. It’s all ages, but the predominant demographic is college students and young singles. It’s grown to the point where we need to offer tickets at $5 for reservations and the cost of a study guide. We’ll do it again in October with 2,500 folks. It’s theological in nature. We’ve done a night on the Atonement, another on the doctrine of God. This time we’re doing spiritual warfare. It’s one of my favorite sights as a pastor to look out at 12:30 a.m. and see a room full of 2,500 people, their Bibles open, soaking it in.

Could this return to Scripture and doctrine, accompanied by prayer, be the beginning of a new revival in our day? How encouraging to see this young pastor of a growing church emphasize deep Bible study and exposition. As far as mega-church fads go, I hope this one catches on in more American churches!