1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

When to have Sunday School

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Salty, Jun 26, 2011.

  1. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2003
    Messages:
    38,982
    Likes Received:
    2,615
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Traditionally, most churches have Sunday school preceding the Morning Worship. Some reverse the order.

    Does your church have SS- MW, or is MW first followed by SS.

    Is there any particular reason you schedule SS & MW the way you do?

    What would you say are the Pros & Cons of both schedules

    I realize that many churches have multiple worship and/or SS, but I request this discussion be limited to just 1 SS & 1 MW

    Salty

    But feel free to start another thread for multiple services.
     
  2. Berean

    Berean Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2006
    Messages:
    837
    Likes Received:
    2
     
  3. Amy.G

    Amy.G New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2006
    Messages:
    13,103
    Likes Received:
    4
    On Sundays? :smilewinkgrin:


    My bad.
     
  4. Dempster

    Dempster New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2011
    Messages:
    34
    Likes Received:
    0
    Because "that's the way we've always done it." I think the Bible says that you can't change this sort of stuff, just like it says that the piano goes on one side of the sanctuary and the piano goes on the other. Like they say, "If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for our SBC church."
     
  5. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Sunday School was a time of classroom education/learning to read, ie, a "school" for illiterates in the slums of London (aka "Raikes Wild Geese" because they were so unruly).

    For some reason some churches began to think such education for already literate children was needed, teaching them (we hope) Bible truths.

    There is NO precedence or foundation for Sunday School in the NT. It is the parents' duty to teach/train the child. It is the church's duty to meet for worship.

    Answer to op - we do not have Sunday School. Period. We have a 2.5 hr unified service with all ages together the entire time. We supply study material for the fathers to teach the children at home. All of our families home-school with rich Bible curriculum; conventional SS materials would be at best a weak review.

    And we have horror stories of what has gone on in conventional Sunday Schools - well-meaning old ladies teaching heresies with parents abrogating their responsibility and letting the training of their children left up to others.
     
  6. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2002
    Messages:
    9,469
    Likes Received:
    1,228
    Faith:
    Baptist
    We have a Sunday school class before the church service (one class for any who might attend, mostly adults and teens). I teach it.

    Halfway through the church service the youth are dismissed and have their own service.

    Rob
     
  7. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2002
    Messages:
    9,469
    Likes Received:
    1,228
    Faith:
    Baptist
    When to have Sunday School?
    Last Wednesday we had a elderly preacher from China who told us they have Sunday school on Saturday.
    They even call it Sunday school.
    Even he was amused.

    Rob
     
  8. matt wade

    matt wade Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2009
    Messages:
    6,156
    Likes Received:
    78
    I'm just wondering. Is homeschooling a requirement of your church?
     
  9. menageriekeeper

    menageriekeeper Active Member

    Joined:
    Feb 20, 2004
    Messages:
    7,152
    Likes Received:
    0
    Personally, Tuesday or Wednesday evening would be best! :D

    Our church has done it both ways for various reasons over the years. SS was better attended when we held it after MW. But, sometimes the kids got to the classrooms before the teachers (especially a problem with the youth who are in another building altogether!). And that turned out to not be a good thing and was the reason my own kids quit going to SS! It did make it easy though to add a second service the few times we needed to and then folks could come to either and still make SS.

    We are back to having SS before MW, having moved everything up so that we start SS at 9 and MW at 10:15. That gets us out to the restaurants before all the other churches. :D
     
  10. Tom Bryant

    Tom Bryant Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2006
    Messages:
    4,521
    Likes Received:
    43
    Faith:
    Baptist
    From September thru May, we have worship (8:30)-SS(9:45)-worship(10:45). During the Summer we have worship (9:00) and SS (10:15)
     
  11. Oma

    Oma New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 16, 2011
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Why not ask the people of your church which they prefer?
     
  12. DiamondLady

    DiamondLady New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2011
    Messages:
    808
    Likes Received:
    0
    We are SS - MW. SS opening asembly (yes we still have that) is at 9:45, SS begins at 10, MW begins at 11ish and we get done just about the time Menagerie's church is finishing up at the local restaurant....12:45ish.
     
  13. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Doctrinal fidelity is the "requirement" for membership. Salvation testimony, obedience in immersion as a believer, faithful testimony before the world, commitment to the Body, and upholding the oldest English Baptist confession of faith.

    It is just a statement of fact that all of our families opt for parental education rather than secular education of children, not a requirement.

    Most parents do not feel that government education is in line with biblical teaching. When we had children in our home we had them in the best Christian School in America (not a joke) thru 6th grade, then home-schooled them in the teen years.
     
  14. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2003
    Messages:
    38,982
    Likes Received:
    2,615
    Faith:
    Baptist
    We are seeking the pros and cons of both sides of the issue
     
  15. Jason Garrett

    Jason Garrett New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2004
    Messages:
    158
    Likes Received:
    0
    Our church's facilities can't support having a formal Sunday School on Sunday mornings due to lack of space. Thus, we embrace the small group philosephy for teen through the elderly. elementary age on down have a traditional, on site Sunday School.
     
  16. David Lamb

    David Lamb Active Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2006
    Messages:
    2,982
    Likes Received:
    0
    Not nit-picking (honest! :) ) but Robert Raikes began his Sunday Schools for the poorer children of his home city of Gloucester, not London. See this article. I hadn't heard the term "Raikes Wild Geese" before, so I Googled it (with quotes), and got just one hit - your post.

    We don't have a Sunday School, either in the "Raikes" sense of providing basic education for children, or in the USA sense of an all-age bible school.

    We do have an outreach to children, but we hold that as an after-school club on Tuesdays.
     
  17. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2003
    Messages:
    38,982
    Likes Received:
    2,615
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Wouldn't work for us - we only rent our building on Sunday (hard to get other day of week) and only one member lives in the village, and she does shift work.
    So in a matter of speaking at the moment we are between a rock and a hard place.
     
  18. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2002
    Messages:
    15,460
    Likes Received:
    1
    I believe it was Sir Robert Peel who brought the "Sunday School" to London during his early days in parliament...it was a school for the urchins of East London. It became a Sunday School because the churches took up the responsibility of structuring and running these schools.

    In Canada, we started our Sunday Schools on Sunday afternoons and later to Sunday morning before morning worship....more convenient time for everyone. I can't imagine a church without a Sunday School!

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
  19. Dr. Bob

    Dr. Bob Administrator
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2000
    Messages:
    30,285
    Likes Received:
    507
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Robert Raikes was born in 1735 in Gloucester, England, where his father published the Gloucester Journal. When the elder Raikes died in 1757, Robert, 22, inherited the newspaper, and immediately used it to crusade for moral reform. English prisons, for example, were inhumane places of misery where prisoners, crowded into tiny compartments with no ventilation or sanitary facilities, died of “gaol fever.” Raikes visited them, raised money for them, and taught them to read. His penetrating newspaper columns repeatedly called attention to their plight.

    One Saturday afternoon in 1780, Robert discovered another cause to champion. He entered a slummy suburb of Gloucester to interview a prospective gardener. Swarms of children surrounded him, and Raikes recoiled in horror at their fighting, profanity, stench, gambling, and filth. He returned home shaken and almost immediately conceived a plan for Sunday schools. Such schools had already been tried, but without widespread backing. Raikes hired four Christian women to open schools on Sunday. Why Sunday? Children worked in the factories the other six days of the week, but on Sunday they ran wild.

    The portly Raikes, primly dressed and carrying an elegant snuffbox and tasseled cane, ambled through the ghettoes day after day recruiting pupils. The children began calling him “Bobby Wild Goose.” But in his Sunday schools, they were taught to read, then they learned the Bible, the Catechism, and other subjects.

    Three years later, after the schools were clearly working, Raikes used his newspaper to promote them. On November 3, 1783 the Gloucester Journal published an article on the success of Sunday schools. To Raikes’s surprise, London papers picked up the story and inquiries poured in from across England. The movement spread rapidly. And the rest, as they say, is history.

    The form of Sunday school changed, yet millions of all ages find their way each week to Sunday school to learn of Christ.

    [Morgan, R. J. "On this day: 365 amazing and inspiring stories about saints, martyrs & heroes" (electronic ed.). Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville 1997
     
Loading...