The Front Door of the Church

When people talk about the “front door of the church,” they used to be talking about Sunday School. In past generations, more people attended Sunday School than participated in corporate worship. Sunday School teachers were expected to encourage people to “stay for preaching.” Staying for preaching was even part of the grading Sunday School members did of themselves each week when they turned in their offering envelopes. 
How times have changed. Today the worship service is the church’s front door and churches struggle to get worshipers to participate in Sunday School.

According to the information services office of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, the average combined Sunday morning worship attendance in Alabama Baptist churches was 390,016 for 2006. Combined Sunday School attendance for Alabama Baptist churches was 278,966. That means about 30 percent of those who participated in corporate worship on any given Sunday morning did not participate in organized Bible study through Sunday School.

There is more. Twenty-five years ago, enrollment in Discipleship Training programs in Alabama was 217,716. In 2006, that number had fallen by more than one-third to 141,092. Baptists do not track average attendance in Discipleship Training, only enrollment, so actual participation is impossible to track.
‘Pick and choose’ participation

In that same time period, Sunday School enrollment in Alabama has grown only 2.3 percent, from 556,814 in 1982 to 570,024 in 2006, so Sunday School enrollment has been plateaued for years.
Reasons for this dramatic change are uncertain. Some contend the change reflects the values of the “Me Generation.” Sitting in a congregation allows one more anonymity than being part of a Sunday School class. That means less responsibility, more freedom to pick and choose where to participate.

Others contend the change is an indictment of Sunday School, indicating a lack of appealing Bible teaching at all ages.
No matter the reasons for the change, the implications for the church and for those who participate in worship are serious.

In former days, Sunday School was considered the outreach arm of the church. The importance of personal relationships was recognized, and it was in the small-group settings provided by Sunday School that relationships were formed and people developed a sense of belonging.

Sunday School also provided a time of concentrated Bible study. Teachers normally spent more time teaching the Bible than the pastor had for preaching on Sunday morning. This ongoing Bible study provided the framework for daily Bible study participants were expected to do at home as well.

With the worship service becoming the church’s front door, Sunday School can no longer be the outreach arm. Prospects are already participating in church activities before they are ever touched by Sunday School. That means outreach has to come from somewhere else.

And where is the church’s ongoing Bible teaching program? Exegetical preaching (verse by verse explanation of Scripture) is the most used type of preaching in Baptist churches today. Yet no worship service can incorporate all the elements of praise and adoration, petition and supplication, proclamation and explanation, nurture and advocacy, instruction and caring and still do sufficient Bible teaching.

The decline in Discipleship Training participation means fewer and fewer Baptists are learning Christian doctrine, ethics and Baptist history. Accordingly fewer and fewer Baptists are able to go beyond sloganeering about moral issues or explain basic Baptist beliefs and practices.

That dilemma was illustrated by a study by The Barna Group released May 21. David Kinnaman, president of the organization, said the study showed that “most American do not have strong and clear beliefs … they lack a consistent and holistic understanding of their faith.”

“They say they are committed, but to what?” he asked. “They are spiritually active, but to what end? The spiritual profile of American Christianity is not unlike a lukewarm church that the Bible warns about.”
Kinnaman illustrated his observation by pointing out that the recent study found  “[m]illions feel personally committed to God but they are renegotiating the definition of that deity.”

Attendancewise the study found a similar pattern to that of Alabama Baptists. Forty-three percent of Americans said they attended a church service, but only 20 percent indicated attending Sunday School in the last week.

Getting the full experience
The answer to these problems is not returning to yesterday. Going to Sunday School and not participating in corporate worship will leave one as limited as participating in worship but not engaging in regular Bible study and Discipleship Training. But there is something wrong when a spike in worship attendance is not matched by an upturn in Sunday School and discipleship activities.

Worship as the “front door of the church” is not likely to change in the short-term. That makes it incumbent that church leaders make sure participants also share in the benefits of regular Bible study and Discipleship Training. It is necessary for the church as a whole, and it is necessary for the church’s members as individuals.