What Would You Do Differently?

It has been a while since I asked for a response on this blog, but I'm doing so today. The team I lead here at Concordia Publishing House will make some significant decisions this month about what our Sunday School material will look like for the next three years.

For nearly forty consecutive years, CPH Sunday School material has been

• unified (all grades studying the same Bible account),
• dated (written to be taught on a certain Sunday and available for purchase only in the quarter for which it was intended to be used),
• closely graded (developed for groups of children who are nearly the same age), and
• offering full-color student materials.

This is not the cheapest way to produce Sunday School material, nor the least expensive for the customer to purchase and use, but it has been used because it is an excellent way to teach God's Word to His children.

We are, however, faced with a consistent decline in Sunday School students across our church body and erosion of support for Sunday School is many congregations (less priority, lower Sunday School budgets, fewer volunteers).

So, I wonder . . .

What would you do differently? What changes make sense if we are to provide Sunday School resources in a sustainable manner (that is, offering a product valued enough by the customer to be purchased in sufficient quantity at a high enough price so that it returns to the company the dollars invested in its production)?

Undated material? (The material would be less expensive to reprint for future reuse, and possibly usable at any time.)

Broadly graded? (Designed for use by students of a broad range of, or perhaps even any, age.)

Reproducible student material? (The customer pays for local printing of student material, either black and white or color.)

Fully digital? (The customer downloads reproducible material through the Web and prints it locally as needed.)

Other options?

Obviously, we are not looking only to the readers of this blog for answers to these questions, but your input would be particularly valuable at this time. I hope you will take time to share your thoughts.

God bless the preparation of material to teach His children His Word.