Adult Sunday School Needs to Grow Up

Consider Sunday school: a representative sampling of ordinary humanity—smart and dumb, rich and poor, good and bad, lazy and energetic, sincere and phony, ignorant and learned—gets together for an hour or so each week. These assorted human beings meet to exchange innocuous pleasantries and inimical gossip or perhaps to pile up credits in God’s great ledger.

The latter sometimes still calls for enduring a dull opening exercise followed by either an ill-prepared and poorly delivered lecture or by some sort of pooling of communal ignorance called “experience sharing.”

The purpose of all of this: to affect behavior through the application of Bible knowledge. The knowledge itself is acquired through a glance at two to four pages of “easy reading” material. And all this is to be accomplished at an amazingly low cost of about a quarter a person.

When looked at this way, Sunday school really should not be expected to offer very much to adults. Yet the feeling persists that people ought both to expect a lot and to get a lot from Sunday school—and that they would if we just changed something. Maybe if we spent more time or money … or got better people involved … or used different teaching materials … or reorganized … or, well, did something different.

Changes often do, in fact, create renewed expectations for a period. But sooner or later, when these expectations are not realized, interest begins to lag. And the round of “improvements” begins … again, and again, and again.

Doubtless, this pattern will continue as long as the “we-they/us-them” attitude on which Sunday school is based continues. This kind of thinking is implied in the goal or purpose of Sunday school: “To teach.…” No matter what is filled in to complete the statement, “to teach” gives the game away. The intent is for some all-competent “we” to impose instruction on incompetent “them”—whether or not they want to be instructed in what we have to teach.

A first step in getting away from the we-they/us-them syndrome might be to replace “to teach” with “to learn.” Learning is not something we do for or to them. Neither is it something they can do for us. Learning—in contrast to being taught—implies self-direction, -motivation, and -initiation. It epitomizes the proper exercise of the spiritual freedom with which the redeemed person is endowed. It is one way to fulfill Paul’s injunctions to “grow in grace.”

The material used in this sort of Sunday school would reflect learners’ needs rather than catering to the egos of teachers and organization leaders.

Learning, unfortunately, is not first on the list of what we have come to expect from Sunday school. Yet there is abundant evidence that a desire to learn is very strong among many adults. For instance, a 1972 Educational Testing Service study for the Commission on Non-Traditional Study found that three-quarters of those between eighteen and sixty, representing nearly 80 million adults, said that they wanted to learn more about something or how to do something better. (Full-time students were excluded from the survey.)

A 1975 survey of adults over fifty-five often found religion the area most selected as a preferred topic of study. It is not that adults don’t want to learn. It’s just that Sunday School hasn’t proven to be the place in which to do it. Perpetuation of the we-they/us-them syndrome seems to be the chief reason.

Enlightened adult Sunday-school classes now lean heavily toward student-centered discussions. But, according to a recent study of students over thirty, many adult learners dislike student-centered classes. These people, who were presumed by the study to have specific learning goals, showed little interest in the views of their uninformed peers. They preferred to learn from an articulate authority. In Sunday school this preference is confirmed by the tendency of adults, when given a choice between the two class types, to opt for a class taught by an authority—say, the pastor’s class.

Student-centered classes are likely to be unappealing to those who really want to learn. Many of the students share a mixture of ignorance, dogmatism, and misunderstanding. The better informed student who elects to endure this situation is shortly skimmed off to become a half-able teacher/leader of some other group. He or she leaves behind a yakking emptiness.

A self-motivated, self-directed learning environment stands in sharp contrast to this. It requires a different organizational structure for the Sunday school. It should be able to accommodate individual differences in learning styles, learning ability, and learning goals.

Each person has a unique learning style, a combination of ways in which he or she searches for and acquires information and meaning. Family background, talent, life experiences, spiritual understanding, and personal goals all contribute to—and form—this learning style.

People of the same age may be at different levels of learning ability. One important factor in the ability to learn is the level of educational attainment, and this level for the population as a whole is rising. For instance, in 1910 only 13.5 per cent of those over twenty-five had completed at least four years of high school; by 1973 this figure had risen to 60 per cent. In this same period, the percentage of those with four or more years of college rose from 2.7 to 12.6.

Ten years ago slightly more than one young person in six went on to earn a four-year degree; in 1976, approximately 23 per cent of those who entered first grade in 1960 are expected to graduate with a bachelor’s degree. And a larger percentage of college graduates continue for advanced degrees. Of all degrees conferred in 1945, 87 per cent were four-year degrees, 12 per cent were master’s, and 1 per cent were doctorates. But by 1972, bachelor’s degrees were only 77 per cent of all degrees conferred; master’s had increased 20 per cent, and doctorates to nearly 3 per cent.

Educational research consistently indicates that the more education a person has, the more he or she values it. The rise in educational level can be expected to continue.

The adult Sunday School class has not kept pace with this rise in educational attainment. The Sunday-school materials publishers are not to be faulted for this; they have produced what local church leaders seem to have wanted. Again, the we-they syndrome at work.

Despite tinkering with graphics and format, the approach to most adult Sunday-school curriculum materials has not changed materially in decades. They still are aimed at the lowest common denominator. The goal has been to bring abstract concepts down to earth and make it possible for every person to grasp at least an edge of them and to be elevated somewhat by doing that.

Whatever their formal educational experience, many mature persons—especially those raised in Sunday school and church—are capable of moving beyond these easy-to-grasp presentations to somewhat meatier material. And more expressive and mature language can be used to present these concepts. Those capable of greater comprehension need to have their potential realized, too.

Self-selection of learning methods and materials could be offered. For example, a popular encyclopedia divides entries into three stages of difficulty, beginning with an easy-to-read summary and proceeding to more complex details. A reader can stop when his informational needs are satisfied or when the going gets too tough. If publishers of adult Sunday-school materials adopted this method, everyone would not be required to conform to the lowest common denominator.

Another possibility is cooperation between churches and Christian colleges to provide college-level courses for credit through the Sunday school. (Some people might object to this idea on the grounds that some Christian colleges aren’t doing a very good job with the students they already have. However, part of the reason may be that their students are too young to appreciate what they are getting.) Although this may be a novel idea for Sunday school, it isn’t novel for colleges. Other social institutions already are cooperating with colleges to structure their educational programs so that members can obtain college credit for particular learning experiences.

A suggestion of Christian-college/Sunday-school partnership would be met in a we-they/us-them environment with complaints of “elitism.” But when we assume control of our own goals and aims in the Sunday school, we can be free to sample a variety of levels and systems of learning and to find those that suit us best. Undoubtedly, some of us will opt for a college-level course because we feel that it confers greater status upon those who participate in it; the desire to feel important is very strong among some adults. But for that matter, to say that it is bad for another person to strive for status through the Sunday school is to revert to the we-they/us-them syndrome.

Unfortunately, “to learn” is not at the top of everybody’s list of expectations about the Sunday school. Many adults are primarily interested in fellowship and acceptance in this environment.

Fellowship seems to develop naturally among people with common interests. The success of home Bible-study groups—even among those who have severed connections with church and Sunday school—is a singular example of this phenomenon. College-level Sunday school seems to hold promise for similar genuine fellowship.

Persona] acceptance found in a Sunday-school setting is often of a contrived variety. For instance, think of the community leader who “accepts” the garage mechanic and his family in the church milieu but not in his social life outside the church. And if the mechanic mistakes this church-related “acceptance” for something broader and more genuine, and tries for “fellowship” away from the church environment, he may discover that he has been extended a very limited and compartmentalized acceptance. That is, he will realize he is accepted only as a fellow Christian, not as a whole person.

Such contrived, compartmentalized, ad hoc acceptance springs from an effort on “our” part to do something to or for “them.” And it is this attitude—what we have called here the we-they/us-them syndrome—that we want to discourage.

Moving away from that syndrome could affect every aspect of Sunday school: time, financing, materials, content, participants, and outcomes. However, T. S. Eliot reminds us that:

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the shadow.

And here is the shadow. The concept of Sunday school is overlaid with many associations of the familiar and expected. If it changes to such an extent that it no longer evokes these associations, it may not be recognized as Sunday school. If we fail to recognize it and consider it to be some other creature, we will no doubt insist on having familiar “Sunday school” in addition!

That shadow can be lightened by self-discovery. We can examine our individual goals and aspirations, learning styles and educational development level, and Sunday-school expectations. Sunday-school members can do this themselves or call on professional advisors for help. Outside advisors provide an objective viewpoint and can develop valid and reliable instruments to help individuals assess themselves. They can interpret data gathered through these instruments and recommend ways to realize individual preferences.

Self-directed, self-aware, and self-motivated adults can create a Sunday school of new opportunities for Christian growth.

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