Try Sunday School after Preaching
by
Dallas M.Roark
LETS REVERSE THE AGE-OLD tradition of having Sunday school first with the preaching service after it. It may be objected that people will come for the preaching service and then leave without remaining for Sunday school. But the percentage will not be any higher for those leaving than who come for Sunday school and leave before the worship service. The loyalty will remain the same.
There will be those who will come for church at the early hour and leave for the lake with their boats, but they would have left after Sunday school or perhaps would not have come anyway. It would be better to have them attend the worship service first and then go on their way with the words of the pastor in their ear than to have a teacher-who being a close 'friend-would not preach against the neglect of the Lord's Day.
There will also be the objection that the morning worship service should be the climax of the learning experience begun in the Sunday school in the previous hour. But this is to be doubted. First, ninety per cent of the time there is little correlation between the Sunday school and the preaching service. Secondly, it is generally more true that after one hour and a half of sitting on a hard chair the people are restless when the pastor begins to speak for another thirty minutes. Time-wise the sermon' is an anticlimax. They are ready to go home and the children are squirmy, figgety and hungry. The people are ready for dinner, not a sermon.
If the worship service is first, many of these problems can be avoided. If the worship service is the first thing on order when the member comes to church he is ready to enter into worship without the exchange of greetings with friends that normally goes on in the Sunday school hour. This fellowship will take place in due time, but first we enter into worship without the clutter of. juicy stories diverting our mind as we think about them in the worship service.
If the worship service is first, the sermon can be applied in the Sunday school to follow. In the only church where I attended with the Sunday school after the morning service, generally somewhere in the Sunday school lesson the sermon of the morning found application in the lives, experience, and thought of the people. This tends to make the sermon live on as it cuts deeper into the hearts and minds of the people.
If the morning service is first, children are quieter in the service. By the time they begin to tire and get figgety and squirmy, the service is over and they are able to go to their Sunday' school class where they have more freedom and are able to move about and use some of the pent-up energy. The change from the morning service, the meeting of friends in their own classes, the opportunity to express one self-all provide for more effective Sunday schools following the church service.
When the Sunday school follows the 1 church service something new is provided for the person who comes forward in the worship service either for member-
ship, or conversion. As it stands now the person comes forward, a vote is taken on: accepting him for membership and then the church extends him the hand of fellowship. After this everybody disappears and the new member is the last one out of the building and he wonders what happened to everybody. If Sunday school follows the church service and a person comes forward, he is immediately put into friendly group of peers who make him feel at home and really show their gladness and appreciation where it counts-they are his new friends-not a passing handshake.
Having church before Sunday school e should help create a family attitude of worship. The family enters the service as a whole and there are no stragglers to hunt up before entering worship service. After the family worships together, the young people then "pal" together in the class to follow. END
(This article appeared in June , 1961, The Baptist Program.)