Ken Hemphill: everyone we baptized came through the Sunday School

I am a preacher’s kid. In fact, I am the son of a Southern Baptist preacher. You might surmise that my earliest memories are of Sunday School. I was enrolled on the cradle roll before I was born. Sunday School was formative in my thinking and an ingrained part of my religious tradition. Yet in truth, it was not until relatively recent years that I began to think of the Sunday School as a tool for evangelism and church growth. I had simply never seen Sunday School used to grow the church.

My dad once told me that Sunday Schools in the past were more aggressive in evangelism than those I had experienced as a child. When I was nine years old our family moved from Morganton, North Carolina, to the not-too-distant town of Thomasville. It was hard to leave my church friends in Morganton and that beautiful brick church building in the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains for a decrepit building overlooking a lumber yard.

Soon, however, our new church experienced growth, and plans were made to relocate the church to a new site on a major road. Often Dad would pick me up from school and take me with him to inspect the progress of the building. These trips began even before the lot was cleared. Once the building was designed, it was as if it already existed in my dad’s mind. One day when he picked me up he was flush with excitement. He could hardly wait for me to see the church. What I saw was hardly spine tingling—ditches with freshly poured concrete outlined by a few stakes with strings drawn down the entire length of the ditch. Workers had laid the foundation, but Dad could visualize the finished project.

He proudly led me on a tour of the sanctuary, pointing out the vestibule, the aisles, the pulpit area, and finally the baptistry. As we stood on a small knoll by the soon-to-be baptistry, he motioned to the strings outlining a much larger rectangle and pointed out to me the future sight of the educational building. He paused momentarily, as if reflecting back over his ministry, and said, “I can remember when virtually everyone we baptized into the church came through our Sunday School ministry. That’s no longer the case. Truth is, I lead most of the new converts to Christ myself. For that reason they are more faithful to come to worship than Sunday School. The Sunday School is changing and I don’t think it bodes well for the future.” That conversation must have taken place about 1960.

Hemphill, K. (1996). Revitalizing the Sunday Morning Dinosaur: A Sunday school growth Strategy for the 21st Century (p. 5). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Dr. Ken Hemphill is a frequent speaker at All Star Sunday School Training events. As former pastor of one of the largest and fastest growing Sunday Schools in the nation, he effectively communicates -- especially to pastors -- about how to use Sunday School effectively. He is also the general editor of a non-disposable Sunday School literature. See http://www.auxanopress.com/

To schedule an All Star Sunday School Training event, see http://allstarsundayschool.com/ or contact Josh Hunt at josh@joshhunt.com 575.650.4564