I hate clip art. With all of the awesome images that are available to use these days, I think clip art should be a thing of our not so proud past. However, it was necessary to use this picture to illustrate what pops into the minds of some people when they think of Sunday School. This picture along with visions of macaroni art, lifesavers for perfect attendance, and hour long prayer request sessions all add together to compile the most incredible definition of Sunday School for several people who have grown up like I did in traditional churches in the south. None of those are bad things…I love macaroni and lifesavers…and the prayer request time was the only time I really picked up on the gossip, I mean prayer concerns, of our church. To this day, some of my deepest and loyal friends are from my Sunday School classes growing up, especially that rowdy crew from the girl’s 11/12th grade Sunday School at Kirby Woods Baptist Church in Memphis.
Many churches these days don’t do Sunday School anymore, opting instead for Community Groups/Small Groups that seem to better meet the needs of this generation. We have been in a small group before and really enjoyed the time that we spent with the people involved. Unfortunately, with my school schedule, we never seem to have the same evenings available each week. That makes it pretty hard to commit to a small group that meets just one night a week. In our old small group, we found that it would sometimes be 3 or 4 weeks in between times that we could participate. It made it hard to hold each other accountable and really encourage each other in that format…for our family.
When we joined Cedarcrest Church, we knew that we wanted to get plugged in and serve above and beyond just coming to church on Sunday mornings. A few months ago, we heard that Cedarcrest was going to start Sunday School classes. We were very eager to get plugged in to a Sunday School class because Sunday morning ALWAYS works for us! Once we talked to the Connections Pastor at our church, he invited us to help lead a class. Our class spent the first 10 weeks going through Crazy Love by Francis Chan. We really enjoyed meeting some new people and challenging each other to live the gospel like the book described.
Once we concluded the book study, we decided to combine with another Sunday School class to make one larger class. This class has started a verse by verse study of 1 Corinthians. This is our third week and yesterday we hit the halfway point of Chapter 1. We have really had some great conversations and I have enjoyed getting to meet some new people. Yesterday in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, we talked specifically about the Biblical Model for Confrontation and our Connections Pastor, Derek Ray, taught the lesson. He is one of three guys that rotate the teaching in our class…and we are really digging deep! Here are the main points from yesterday…
1 Corinthians 1:10-17 Biblical Model for Confrontation
- State the problem
- Identify the source
- Give the facts
We closed out our study together by asking the question, “Why do we avoid confrontation when it comes to relationships with other believers?” This is definitely something that we all struggle with…and we shouldn’t! I enjoyed hearing everyone discuss these passages as well as share their own struggles with this topic. Sometimes the best thing about being in Sunday School is the realization that we aren’t the only ones making mistakes!
I am glad to see that Sunday School is truly a great opportunity to dig in and study God’s word to help us be equipped to battle the things that this world will throw at us. We can come to Sunday School each week to be held accountable and to refill our tank before heading back out into the week ahead of us. If your church offers Sunday School or small groups, I’d really encourage you to find one to be a part of that will help you grow in your discipleship.
If they still use clip art…please introduce them to Google images…really, it’s for their own good and will take Sunday School to a whole new level!