Sunday School: A Vital Link between Church and Our Family
Baseball mitt in hand, a boy rushed into his dad’s study and begged him to come out and play. The father, facing a mound of paperwork, tried to compromise. Thumbing through a magazine, he tore out a page, tore the page to small pieces, and handed the pieces to his son, saying, “Here, son, after you put together this picture of the world, I’ll go out and play ball with you.” Expecting to get some work done before the boy finished the task, the father was astonished with the boy reappeared 10 minutes later with the completed picture taped together. “Son, how did you do the picture so quickly?” “It was easy, Daddy. On the back was a picture of a boy. When I go the boy together right, the world was right too.”
We live in a confused and mixed up world. People strive to do the right thing or to live the right way, but their lives will never be right and the world will never be a better place until they come to know the Lord through the saving power of Jesus Christ. Think of how many people in your city have not heard of or know that Jesus is “The way, the truth, and the life.” Without a doubt the church has a responsibility to let them know. Jesus commanded: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Sunday School provides one of the most effective ways of reaching people who need God; nearly 85% of the people in our churches today are products of Sunday School. Some came through bus ministries, with a friend, or through the efforts of a dedicated Sunday School teacher. For the most part, people will visit Sunday School before attending any other service; thus, Sunday School growth should be an important goal for a growing church.
With today’s busy lifestyles and fast-pace living most people do not “have time” for the most important works of the church. But “where there is no vision the people perish.” Continued growth comes through: (1) a vision of altars filled with people crying out to God in repentance, and (2) prayer for the vision and for the Sunday School as a powerful and active evangelistic thrust to a needy world, especially among children.
Often said is “the adults are the Church of today and the children are the Church of tomorrow,” but unless we save our children TODAY there will be no Church tomorrow. Dr. James Dobson posed an important question: “if we really believed the eternal souls of our children hang in the balance today, that only by winning them for Christ can we spend eternity together in heaven, would we change the way this day is lived? Would we ignore and neglect so great an opportunity if our eyes were fully opened to this awesome responsibility? I pray that we do not.”
Allow Sunday School to be a refuge receiving the spiritually hungry and the lonely sinners who wander homelessly and hopeless in a wayward world. Let the buses run, let the nursing homes and elderly feel our love, let doors hear our knocking and most of all let children be drawn by our love and concern. May we touch our cities with the love of Christ. Let us have a new burden and a renewed desire to reach the lost before the day is great. Let us remember the real meaning of salvation is JESUS CHRIST.
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED IN THE JANUARY, 1995 ISSUE OF THE MISSISSIPPI TORCH, AND WAS WRITTEN BY REV. MIKE ALLEN. THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN COPYRIGHTED, AND MAY BE USED FOR RESEARCH OR STUDY PURPOSES ONLY.
