Who Is Most Important to Sunday School Health? Children or Parents?

Who do you focus on to promote Sunday School health? Children or parents?

This a long-standing question, much like "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Lots of factors favor the parents as having the key role.

• It is self-evident that most students rely on their parents in order to participate in Sunday School.
• Parents set a powerful example for their children when they are active in adult Bible study while the children are in Sunday School.
• Parents, at least in theory, have the power to enforce an "our family goes to Sunday School every Sunday" rule.

In practice, I observe many parents abdicating their responsibility for leadership in this area. They go to great lengths to get their children into activities that compete with Sunday School for precious weekend time. They let their children choose whether to attend Sunday School or not. They seem always ready to accept at face value their child's claim that Sunday School is boring and is not fun.

Each Sunday brings proof that "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

One possible response is to accept as status quo that children are now in the power position. Our goal then becomes one of marketing to the children, or marketing to the parents' desire to please their children. That seems to me to be a losing battle. Much effort will be expended in that which is not at the heart of the Sunday School experience.

Another possible response is to focus again on why we have Sunday School in the first place. Sunday School exists to help parents fulfill their goal of teaching the Christian faith to their children. We provide an experience in God's Word that the Sunday morning tournament game, the restaurant breakfast, or the extra hour of sleep cannot provide. The Sunday School's unique "product," the benefit that only God's Word can provide, is the Gospel, the good news of forgiveness, life, and salvation. God promises that His Word will accomplish the purpose for which He sends it (Isaiah 55:11).

God bless you are to teach His children that Word!