College-age Sunday School
By Chuck on Sep 2, 2008 in Featured
There are churches on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Sunday school - those that couldn’t imagine life in their church without it, and those that couldn’t live if they had it. But, the question I’m interested in is does college-age Sunday School work?
I was recently teaching a seminar where people were asking me how they could go about getting more college-age people to attend. They had been struggling with this for a long time and could never seem to get people to come. Most of them knew of many college-age people in their church but were frustrated because they couldn’t get them to come to their Sunday school class.
I asked, “Why are you trying to get them to the Sunday School class?” There were no direct answers. It was as if they hadn’t thought about why it was that part was so important to them, beyond the fact that they had just always had it and Sunday School was one of the MAJOR elements to a Sunday morning in their church.
I was fairly bold with them and said, “If you have a hard time getting them to come, maybe that tells you something about them, or possibly you and/or the way you’re going about that time.” My heart wasn’t to bash them or this idea of Sunday School in ANY WAY! What I was trying to get at is the heart behind it. I had no doubt these people loved college-age people and desperately wanted to reach out to them. I had no doubt that they were seriously praying and thinking through how they could engage their minds. And, I could tell they really wanted to help.
But, if something’s not working…maybe there’s valid reasons. Maybe Sunday School class isn’t the best way to engage them. Maybe, just maybe, a Sunday morning breakfast at someone’s house at 11am is better. Or, maybe the things they were discussing in the class just wasn’t pertinent to the lives of these people…?
If you have trouble getting college-age people to come to your Sunday School - jump out of the box. Drop it, and try something else.
If you are engaging people during these times…let us have it! Clue us in to what’s working in our context! Let all of us learn from what you’re doing.
If you’re the type of person that couldn’t imagine even having a Sunday School class for college-age people, why is that?
This should be a fun discussion…
I’m the new College Minister at my church. My predecessor dropped sunday school in December, with the intent to start small groups, which he didn’t really get launched. I am a HUGE believer and participant in small group life (I love the Northpoint idea) and am launching groups for our College-Age-Stage right now.
We were supposed to start this week. I had about 26 of the 35-40 who came to our worship event during the Summer say they want to be in a Community Group…but Gustav put a week’s delay in our plans, and may even prevent me from coming to Drink tomorrow. (I’m part-time at church, and my businesses need to be restarted after the Hurricane, and that’s hard to pull off remotely. I’m torn…)
I’m not planning to start Sunday School back for College. Group Life is where it’s at!
paul pettefer
Paul Pettefer | Sep 2, 2008 | Reply
My husband is the college minister for our medium-sized, non-denominational church.
S.S. is a huge part of the adult population in our church, but it never has quite worked for college/young adults. So, we meet about 45 minutes prior to the service to eat bagels, drink coffee and fellowship. We end by spending a few minutes in prayer and quiet to help prepare our hearts for the worship service.
Also, we encouurage our students to be a part of the the bigger body and serve during the S.S. hour: worship team, media team, nursery, little kids church, etc.
Ann Marie Leveille | Sep 3, 2008 | Reply
I’m trying to lead College & Young adults at our church, but we’ve had trouble with the Sunday School model as well. Over the summer, we had great response in changing it up. Instead of Sunday School before service, we head to Barnes & Noble afterward for a discussion group. Grab coffee, sit in some couches they have set up for us and just dig in. As a bonus, we’re getting the church off the campus and have gotten to visit with patrons of the store, some of whom have joined in the conversation! It’s just a thought…
Josh Allard | Sep 4, 2008 | Reply
Our church (South Hills, Las Vegas) doesn’t have a Sunday school thing. We hold our college group (Jacob’s Well) on Thursday nights, and it seems to be convenient for the age group, except for late workers. I couldn’t imagine that group of people going to an early Sunday school! With late studying, and working, Jacob’s Well is a place to chill, discuss, and worship. Most of the Jacob’s Well-ers go the the latest service (11:30 am) service at our church. The Sunday school would be sleepy, and unmotivated. Early morning young adults join all age groups at the 8am service on Sundays. Growth Groups deepen the teachings on Sundays in evenings at homes. I think that works.
Marlene | Sep 7, 2008 | Reply
I live in the South (Memphis, TN) and Sunday school is part of the culture of the south and part of the culture of the church. When I took this job it was a non-negotiable. In fact a previous college guy was let go because he moved off campus, and off Sunday morning, and basically ran a para-church ministry with no real connection to the church.
All of that to say, We do a college Sunday school class. It meets at 11 after the church services (as do most of the other classes in the church) and we average 50-75 per week. We try to create a welcoming atmosphere with different lighting and couches (think starbucks). We serve coffee, OJ, donuts, and sausage rolls every week, and sometimes pancakes… This helps to create at atmosphere that they will feel comfortable in. We have a couple of college folks (1 guy and 1 girl) lead worship acoustically. And then we teach exegetically through books of the Bible. It seems to work for us, plus it keeps our students in the culture of the church, which helps them assimilate into the church body after college.
If this is your church culture and you abandon it, you will have a hard time assimilating them back into the body life of the church. And you shouldn’t be surprised that don’t engage your church after college. (Of course, if your not in a Sunday School cultured church, then this is a non-issue.) I am not advocating for the model, I am just working in the context of where God has called me.
I think our numbers might be better if we did it at a different time, but I kind of like the fact that it takes some more commitment from to them to be here Sunday morning.
These are my thoughts, it works for us, but every context is really different….
Ben | Sep 8, 2008 | Reply
Now that I’m on the church side of college-age ministry I see things in a different way sometimes. Our church has a congregation with the average age being 27 and we draw students from several campuses in the Nashville area. In my mind, I’ve gone back and forth on having a Sunday morning Bible study for college students…whether it was necessary or effective. Especially since our church meets in a movie theater and space is limited and not very flexible. Also, our church has an effective small group/community group ministry.
My conclusion is this…students come from all walks and backgrounds. Some come from churches that have Sunday school and some come from churches that are small group focused. So…we have both a Sunday morning Bible study that tackles varying topics. It’s a great time where we hang out, relax, share some breakfast, and study God’s word. It happens at 9:15am and then the students head to our 10:30am service. For some this is the perfect fit because their week is so busy with studying and other activities that it’s hard form them to go to a Community Group. But, we also offer Community Groups for college-age close to the different campuses for students who have that time in their schedule and who want to bond and build connections with other people over a period of time. They both work so why not do both. Some students choose one…some choose both.
Matt | Sep 9, 2008 | Reply
I am just re-starting a college-age ministry at our church, and have already found (through the first attempt) that Sunday School doesn’t work for our demographic, recent high school grads in east central FL. As I taught verse-by-verse through the little book of Jude I had to restart at least three times, and repeat studies the same number of times because one week I would get one set of students, and the next week I would get a different group. The time, and format just doesn’t lend itself to these students committing to it. We are exploring what else will work with our students.
Jeremey Byers | Sep 9, 2008 | Reply
This article and the comments have been really helpful to me because I’ve been trying to brainstorm ways for the college ministry I’m a part of to tap into all those who fall in our age range that attend the church but don’t come to college ministry. We actually meet every other Tuesday night and have a consistent 10-12 people that come. I prepare a light snack and then one of us shares a topic and then the floor is open for discussion. The atmosphere is really informal and we try to stay away from being too rigid with the flow of things. We originally met every Tuesday but the numbers were even smaller and there was even talk of pulling the plug completely. However, meeting twice a month has allowed us to establish a core group and we’re slowly but surely bringing in new people. One thing that has been a good way of bringing in a bigger crowd is having special events. We had a cook-out this summer and a Thanksgiving in July dinner – both on a Saturday. This allowed those who can’t make it during the week to still be a part of the group. We also have a blog page where someone posts a summary of the week’s discussion and we can continue to ‘chew on’ what was said and share other things that come to mind.
Amber French | Sep 10, 2008 | Reply
Hello,
I’m a professional engineer who’s suddenly found himself in charge of growing and strengthening our church’s teaching ministries. Recently, I concocted this idea to do a college-age sunday school class. Our church has a parsonage on it’s property that is currently unoccupied (our current pastor chose to buy a house in town). So, I’m planning on using it for this class on Sunday am. It lends itself well to a conversational environment (plus it has a kitchen for food / drink) and I hope to use it successfully. I know the free flow of conversation is probably a preferred way of doing things. It seems to me that you can’t understand your identity in Christ until you understand what you believe and how it applies to reality - hence the need for free conversation to wrestle with real issues. At this point, I hope to facilitate discussions on things like current events, but I don’t have much of a plan beyond that.
Still it seems to me that a Sunday School for college age people should be feasible.
The comments on here have been encouraging.
Joel Graff | Nov 16, 2008 | Reply