Is Sunday School Failing?

ChurchRelevance.com recently posted some research coming from Ken Ham’s new book Already Gone that takes a look at trends that suggest Sunday school is failing at making long term disciples.

The findings focus on 20 to 29-year-old evangelicals.  Around 95% of those surveyed regularly attended church in elementary and middle schools.  As other research has shown, those who attended church starts to dwindle in high school and plummet in college.

The research goes on to find that those who attended Sunday school (61%) are more likely to hold the following stances than those who didn’t attend Sunday school (39%):

- do not believe that all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true

- doubt the Bible because it was written by men

- defend keeping abortion legal

- accept the legalization of gay marriage

- believe in evolution

- believe that good people don’t need to go to church

Kent Shaffer at Church Relevance came to this conclusion:

On the one hand, I believe that every children’s ministry can absolutely improve what they do. There is always room for improvement, but I also think these failed children’s ministries are the byproduct of failed churches.

If you want to reach and disciple children, you must reach and disciple their parents. Church going kids spend only 1% of their time at church, 20% at school, 30% sleeping, and much of the rest watching TV and playing. Children’s ministers can determine the 1%, but it is the parents who have the power to decide what reaches their kids during the other 99%. If you disciple the parents, you disciple the kids.

What’s your take?

Login to comment

Comments (44)

I believe at least one contributing cause to this trend is the typically poor quality of Sunday School instruction. Children grow up hearing the same moralizing stories over and over through elementary, and then in youth group all they hear is ill-fated attempts to address "relevant" topics. Meanwhile, students are never grounded in solid doctrine or Christian apologetics. Thus, when the first skeptic comes along and presents them with a strong intellectual argument against Scripture, they fall for it, not realizing there are even stronger counter-arguments. Biblical narratives and contemporary applications are important, but alone they fail to provide the grounding that youth need.
I feel that Ken Ham's litmust test for who counts as acceptably christian is WAY too thin. I thought if you believed in Jesus as the son of God, you could be saved by God's grace. I think you can still believe that without defending seven-day creation and contemporary right-wing politics.

Sure, the way we teach our children about our faith could improve, but let's first examine the way we measure our success. I want adults christians who have questioned and come out with a more mature faith. Questioning things doesn't mean we failed, it means you think.
I totally agree... that's usually the problem with these kinds of surveys. I find Barna's research suspect for the same reason (though I'd trust his proven statistical methods over any of the blather masquerading as "research" from six-day creation "scientists" like Ken Ham). The church needs to completely reconsider how we define concepts like "success" - and see them not in terms of retention or numbers, but in terms of nurturing mature and critical adults who are capable of questioning their faith.
I have to say that I do not really think Sunday school is that helpful a program. Most of the time it has the effect of separating our kids from the very community that is meant to help them grow in the faith. It teaches them that there are different levels to the community. It feeds them dumbed down and sentimental versions of the stories of scripture, often with a moralistic interpretation. It, often, does not present the core truths of the faith because we think they are too hard for kids to understand.

We mistakenly assume that the incarnation, atonement, sanctification are the meat of the faith, when in fact they are the milk.

If these things are presented it is with a focus on the children making a decision, and thus they are okay. Sunday school, with its grade structure and an ending "graduation" sends the wrong message about the journey of faith.

At least, that has been my experience with the whole thing.
I agree with bethany on this one. I'm a professing Christian and am very active in my evangelical church, but I'd agree with at least 5 of the 6 stances listed above. Does that mean I'm not a disciple?

Judging the success of Sunday School based on the number of students who subscribe to a few narrow, non-Biblical, conservative doctrines doesn't make much sense. Unless, of course, the goal of Sunday School is to promote these doctrines. If it is, it shouldn't be, and it's no surprise that it is failing.
While I dissagree vehemently with Ken Ham’s pretend science and narrow agenda, before rejecting this list outright, I want to examine it closer.

1. It’s fine to wrestle with doubt from time to time, but if you have finally arrived at a position of doubting all the accounts and stories in the Bible, you put yourself outside the ability of the Holy Spirit to use the Bible to change you. Perhaps the teachings are not true as well. This is the sad position that Thomas Jefferson found himself in at the end of his life. And what criteria does one use to determine which accounts are true? The scissors becomes your friend.

2. Again, wrestling with doubt from time to time is healthy but settling on a position that the Bible can’t be trusted because it was written by men puts you outside the ability of the Bible to affect you.

3. Believing that good people don’t need to go to church betrays a misunderstanding of God’s standards for salvation and undercuts His grace. A continual pattern of thinking that I don’t have to go to church because I am good makes me wonder whether the person is truly born again or is depending on their own merits to satisfy God’s demand for righteousness.

4. Fighting to keep abortion legal is trickier. There are many nuances here that I understand. I agree with what President Obama has said (not what he has done), that abortion should be rare. However, I think it is a great tragedy that we are now so casual about death. There are many things one could fight for in this short life and fighting to keep abortion is an odd position for a Christian to be in. But I understand. Sort of.

5. The idea of homosexual marriage runs counter to the clear and explicit teachings of both the Old and New Testament and betrays a lack of respect for the authority of the Bible. Romans 1 couldn’t be clearer. Our President has taken a position against gay marriage with good reason. Blithely supporting it puts one in opposition to the clearly revealed opinion of God. Not a healthy position to be in. But not a core test of discipleship.

6. Finally, the Bible never says how God created life forms, it is concerned with who created and why. I think there is plenty of room for a Holy Spirit directed evolution. In fact, I think the Bible even pushes us in that direction. Mainstream science is constantly showing the impossibility of complex life forms arising and increasing in complexity within so short a time frame (4 billion years).

So, yes, the list mixed up and is not necessarily a test of discipleship, and Ken Ham is out to lunch, but I wouldn’t dismiss points 1, 2 and 3.
Rick, I appreciate your thoughts on these points. My thoughts go something like this:

1 and 2: There's no need to delve into the debate over Biblical inerrancy again- it's been debated for hundreds of years and is not going to be resolved any time soon. In fact, it's probably one of the single biggest points of division between churches and Christians in general. It suffices to say that this is a topic of debate. However, I don't think it's what defines a person as a Christian or a disciple.

3: Good people don't need to go to church. Neither do bad people. It might help, but salvation doesn't depend on going to a particular church (or any church at all). We're not saved by our own merits, nor are we saved by a church. Grace is beautiful in that way.

4 and 6: No argument there!

5: The issue of the morality of homosexual behaviour is a separate one from the question of the role of the state and the legal protections and privileges that are accorded to its citizens. A belief in secular government doesn't make one less of a disciple, although focusing all attention on fighting the narrow issue of same sex rights certainly calls into question a person's motivations- this goes for Christians on both sides of the debate.
Counselor, nowhere in this article does it say that these points are tests of salvation. Even Ken Ham is not that dumb. These are indicators of discipleship as Jerod says in the first sentence.

This person believes that some written accounts are not true and that some biblical stories are not true. This is not just describing one who has questions about the doctrine of innerrancy and thinks there may have been scribal glosses, scribal errors and some personal opinions. For this person, the Bible joins the league of Uncle Remus Tales of the South, ie. good stories but not true. It also puts the reader in the position of being the final arbiter of truth. You may say you believe in Jesus, but I would say, which one? It certainly makes discipleship difficult if not impossible.

Again in point 2 This person doubts the truth of the Bible because it was written by man. Paul says in Romans “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” If you don’t believe the words of the preacher because it was written by man, then you’ve effectively made yourself unavailable for salvation or discipleship.

If one is truly born again, they need to go to church. The author of Hebrews says, “do not forsake the assembling together of yourselves”. Do you need to go to church to be saved? No. Do you need to go to church to be a disciple? Yes. If you use the excuse that you are not going to church because you are “Good” and don’t need church, I would say you’ve got a definite problem. Disciples allow themselves to be discipled.

Secular government doesn’t mean amoral government. Why has President Obama, a constituitional scholar, taken a stance against gay marrriage?

In defining evangelicals, the Encyclopedia Brittanica makes this statement, which I think is accurate:
“Christian Evangelicals, who represented roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population at the start of the 21st century, do not uniformly share all the views of fundamentalists or the Christian Right. (Although all Christian fundamentalists are Evangelicals, many Evangelicals are not fundamentalists.) All Evangelicals believe that the Bible is in some sense the inerrant word of God.” You may not believe this, but perhaps the larger point is that you may not be an evangelical.
Rick, if a belief in absolute inerrancy is necessary to be considered "evangelical", there's no question that I don't fit the bill. Many churches that consider themselves to be evangelical wouldn't fit within this category either.

A person who questions the accuracy of certain portions of Scripture or the ability of fallible people to describe the sacred is left with the same faith as one who believes in a Bible dictated and protected by God- that is, one of faith in the unknown and unknowable, of prayer and trembling and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The slippery slope argument of "if it's not all true, how can we know what is?" is no more valid than the argument that any single error disproves the entire Bible.

We must also be careful to avoid equating fellowship and discipleship with church-ship. They are not the same. Church can be an excellent base for growth as a Christian, but it's not the only route. "Good" has nothing to do with it- Christians need to grow constantly. But to suggest that this can only occur within a church is to put God in a box, and that's never wise. My personal experience has been that some of my most profound growth as a Christian has come through small Bible study groups.

I have no idea what Obama thinks about gay marriage or why. I don't particularly care, either. I've got better things to worry about.

I have no desire to start a debate here- we Christians (do you mind if I use that term? ;) ) love to find those things that we disagree about and beat them to death. It's rarely productive, although I'll admit it can be entertaining! I'm comfortable with my salvation and disicpleship, and I'm sure you are with yours, even though we may not agree on many issues. God bless!
Most of the qualifications on this list are simply not issues that define someone as a Christian (or a good disciple) or not. My belief in evolution does not make me less of a disciple than someone who believes the world is 6,000 years old, and I'm absolutely furious that you (and Kent) are suggesting such.

I attended Sunday School, and you're suggesting that my Sunday School teacher failed me because she did not ensure that I would not later learn about good science? Give me a break!

Not to mention the issues of gay marriage and the legality of abortion--defending those things as legal is NOT the same thing as morally agreeing with them. Once again, believing this does not make me less of a disciple.

Perhaps you are not trying to logically draw these conclusions, but the way you've written the post seems to imply that the measure of a good disciple is the political views they hold. I know most Christians also happen to be politically conservative, but can we PLEASE, PLEASE stop lumping the two as necessarily intertwined? This is an argument that I'd love to stop having.

I apologize for the angry nature of this comment, I just felt attacked by the short-sighted conclusions of the research you presented.
I can understand the passion you have for this topic. In no way am I saying I endorse all of these measures. I'm simply presenting the research for discussion.

Fair enough. There's just something about Answers in Genesis that gets me all riled up, and I tend to blaze a wide path.
I react with similar animosity to anything Ken Ham does. I think he approaches everything with a hurtful political agenda, and don't trust anything he claims as "research" to be something I would consider rigorous. This is a good example of those problems.
Duly noted. There are plenty of ministries who do research that can be considered questionable. While some may not agree with Ham or Answers in Genesis, I'm betting there are some TC-ers who do. We have to have conversations about what's happening on both sides of the spectrum. That's why I posted this.
It doesn't matter whether TC-ers or other evangelical Christians agree with Ken Ham's positions on abortion, gay rights, or the veracity of science. What matters is whether those positions are equated with "discipleship" and thereby with orthodox/evangelical Christian belief. Ham and others routinely do this, and that's what makes "ministry" like his so profoundly dangerous.

To discuss your post, we would have to separate questions of the effectiveness of church-based discipleship from questions of how to determine whether a person has in fact been "discipled." Ken Ham, I would argue, has probably experienced very poor discipleship in his own life, since he cannot separate his debatable opinions from the essentials of a faithful walk with God. In any case, as long as those two distinct topics are intermingled, effective discussion of your post is not possible.
I would like to sit down with Ken Ham and have a nice relaxed conversation about evolution, like the one Prof. Gates just had with the police officer at the White House. Maybe Jerod could play the role of Obama. I believe that Ham, and most Christians who deny evolution, have been led to understand that if evolution is fact, then there is no God and the Bible is a liar. On that basis, of course they deny evolution. Once it is clearly understood that no such contradiction exists (despite the caterwauling of Richard Dawkins et. al.) we can put that behind us. The remaining problem is that everyone who invested money in Creation Science museums will have a hard time admitting that they were a little silly to do so.
@Ryan

My use of the word "failed" was not because of Sunday school attendees' likelihood to believe certain things. If you read my post on ChurchRelevance.com, I reference statistics showing the majority of Sunday school attendees abandoning church involvement by their high school and college years. I believe that Sunday schools are failing because their alumni are typically abandoning church completely.
Hmmm, what I read is "Sunday Schools are no longer relevant because they are not producing mind-numbed drones that can't think for themselves."

The real problem is that we fail to prepare our children for the real world; we avoid topics that we have a hard time explaining ourselves. And when kids ask questions, the usual response is "just trust me - I know what I'm saying."

I agree with Ryan; when I first read this article, I was very disappointed. This type of rhetoric is exactly what draws attention away from the real gospel message. Your list takes a whole bunch of different issues - issues that can easily be argued from both sides by God-loving Christians - and throws them all together in one big hodge podge list that says if you don't believe in all of these things, you haven't been properly discipled to. This really gets to me for the same reason that every Christian that I know assumes that all Christians would vote Republican.
Why is the majority of Sunday school attendees abandoning church involvement later in life considered a failure of Sunday school and not of the church as a whole? Is it possible that Generations X and Y (and, I suppose now, Z) consider the hatefulness of their parents' conservative evangelical churches toward their gay and lesbian friends, not to mention the conservative evangelical churches' lack of consideration for the environment or the systemic causes of poverty, as something they don't want to be involved with? Is it possible that the church is, quite simply, incredibly behind the times - and that it's the churches themselves, rather than the Sunday school programs in particular, that are becoming increasingly irrelevant in a culture that's realizing that LGBT people are no different from hetero/cisgender people and that's realizing that there are disastrous consequences if we keep killing our planet and our poor?
By lumping together evolution, abortion, Biblical inerrancy, and gay marriage in a single survey question, Ken Ham has possibly created the single most useless survey question ever. Ken Ham is the leader of Answers in Genesis, a group whose mission is to defend the Bible as inerrant fact. I have watched some of Ken Ham's AiG videos and his whole shtick is fear mongering and manipulation.

I grew up in a CRC church and had elementary sunday school classes that helped me understand the faith stories of the the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. In middle school my sunday school brought us out into the world to see and understand other faiths and denominations. In high school we were taught the catechism and learned to understand the framework for our faith and our church.

I don't hold the stances listed in Ken Ham's survey, despite having a great Sunday school experience. In fact, I believe it would require a very poor Sunday school upbringing to fall into Ken Ham's ideology.
Children's ministry has a duty to actively teach the Word. That doesn't mean plunking them down in front of videos or teaching a lesson that you prepared on the way to service. It means a real, interactive, lesson. But it's more. It's getting to KNOW your students. To care about them as if they were your own. My Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Mac., she had us over for lunch, took us to the park, called us to chat, and was an active part in our lives. When she died, all her old students were at the funeral - which was so large that people were standing outside the funeral home waiting to get in. When a woman like that, took you into her heart, would guide you, teach you, and listen to you as if you mattered, then of course what she taught on Sunday's mattered too. As a teacher in my profession, I have learned that it isn't the flash and tech that gets the children learning, it's me caring enough about them as human beings, praying for each of my students, and loving them enough to share my heart with them that makes the difference...

Having said that, the main responsibility for training up a child is upon the parents. It isn't the Church's job, the camp's the school's, the programme's, it's the parents. We need to make the most of every opportunity, teaching while we drive to soccer practice, around the table at mealtimes (and that's more than just once or twice a week, it's daily in our home). It's being actively tuned in and turned on when our children are around. It's making them a real part of the family, not just an accessory. It's living the example we want them to be, not just telling them to do it and writing a cheque.

A friend always says, "Parenting is an active verb." He's right. It's a blessing, and a privilege. We need to be imparting these truths by osmosis in our homes - it's how you live, not what you say. Parenting is the hardest job on earth to do well, but it's also the best one to help draw us as parents closer to our own heavenly, "Papa".

This has made me feel sad for the many who have not had the opportunity to know Jesus and all I want is that anyone who reads this to know the hope I have. Please read 1 Peter 3: 15, then go and tell others about your hope in Christ Jesus, doing this with kindness and gentleness. In God's Grace John
Ed Stetzer, one of SBC's top researchers, presented some research and linked to it on his blog about the reasons that young adults leave church. Most of them are social, not theological. That does not mean that we are doing a good job in Sunday School (I don't think we really are), but the way we address dropouts should be based on why they are not in church.

Also I agree with most of the others above, that list has very little to do with being a Christian.
Political agendas aside, I'm more curious about the connection between Sunday School attendance and church involvement later in life--not simply church attendance, but leadership, service, etc. That would give me a clearer picture of the correlation between Sunday School and discipleship.

See the latest in:

Promotion

promo 1 promo 2
promo 3 promo 4

Donate Now