As an institution, Sunday school is almost as old as the United States. And with old age have come some questions about the movement’s health.
Close to 96 percent of all local churches have some form of Sunday school. But according to the 1988 issue of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, enrollment over the last decade and a half has plunged 34 percent, from 40.5 million in 1970 to 26.6 million in 1986. And Gallup polls reveal that the number of adults reporting no Sunday school training during their childhood rose from 10 percent in 1970 to 27 percent in 1986.
Figures from denominations yield more of a mixed picture. Some, such as the Nazarenes, Free Methodists, and the Mennonites, have experienced lapsed enrollment during the 1980s. But others, including the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, Southern Baptists, the Evangelical Free Church, and the Assemblies of God, report increases.
Statistics compiled by David C. Cook Publishing Company, a leading publisher of Sunday school materials, put the current enrollment at 41 million, representing an increase of over 7 percent since 1980. Bruce Adair, vice-president of church marketing at Cook, said the statistics that are cited in the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches do not take into account major pockets of Christianity in America, most notably a host of independent churches.
Making It Work
Even in church groups where Sunday school is apparently in decline, W. Charles Arn, vice-president of the California-based Church Growth, Inc., says it need not be “written off as a lost cause.” Arn said, however, that denominations may need to reconsider priorities in Sunday school training, and perhaps ought to consider a name change. “Just the phrase ‘Sunday school’ in some circles has a lot of [negative] baggage connected with it,” Arn said.
Arn added that the “form of Sunday school may need to be changed” if it is to remain “vital and viable.” In this regard, Chicago Sun-Times religion writer Daniel Lehmann cites a new emphasis in some churches on “encounter” and “fellowship” groups and a plethora of other adult activities throughout the week that cater to needs once addressed on Sunday mornings.
Lehmann observed that the down side of all this attention to the “me generation” of adults is that people once counted on to run Sunday morning programs for youth are falling by the way-side. Lehmann believes this is “hindering the growth of the next generation of adult Christians: the children.”
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