Last week, a group of about 20 Oklahoma Ministers of Education toured our state with Ken Marler, church consultant with LifeWay Christian Resources. We partnered with four associations (yes we do work with associations in Oklahoma, and we couldn’t have done this without them) on a tour that covered four days. Our purpose was to provide individual and personalized Sunday School coaching to the pastors of these associations. I believe that most churches underutilize their Sunday School!
And, I know that there are lots of “hotter, cooler” conferences a leader can attend. But how many of them will give a pastor a practical three hour seminar where he can ask questions; plus the pastor leaves with a personalized church evaluation; also the pastor has 3-4 action items he can begin implementing; plus about 2 hours of coaching, oh and the coach will speak to his church leadership that night; and you get the personal mobile numbers and emails of your consultant for future coaching? Did I mention that the pastors all got to eat lunch with the keynote?
That pic to the right was taken last Tuesday in the Craig-Mayes Baptist Association conference room. The Minister of Education Road Trip is a hands-on nuts and bolts conference to help pastors have a better, more evangelistic Sunday School. We have an ME at every table in the room sitting with a pastor and any leaders he brought with him. We partner with our associations to conduct the tour. Most of the pastors who participated this year lead smaller attendance churches. These churches rarely have the opportunity for this type of training… and we brought the training to them.
Our results? We had great feedback from our pastors! Each pastor left with a 50 page workbook full of notes and inspiration to reinvigorate their Sunday School groups. In addition, 40 of these pastors committed to start 131 new Sunday School groups by Septemer 1, 2012. We’ll be doing this tour again, because it is incredibly effective in helping our pastors lead the largest organization in their church – their Sunday School.
Hope to see you next year!
I had my reservations coming into this, but within the first 45 minutes to an hour I was convinced that this is a great way to “do” Sunday school, not just “have” Sunday school. We are in the process of cleaning out some rooms, making room, and preparing people to teach.
Ray Earley
Westport Baptist Church
Thanks to Ed Hale, Ken Marler and Bob Mayfield for bringing the Sunday School Roadtrip to East Central Baptist Association. Our church was blessed to host both Ken and Bob for our Sunday School Leadership banquet. Both men did a great job of communicating to our people. I have had great feedback from my leaders and many of them began implementing the ideas they gleaned from the evening immediately. We are going to start four new groups in our church. The roadtrip was an excellent idea with great execution and participation. I hope you will try this again.
John Lee
Pastor
Park Hill Baptist Church
East Central Baptist Association
This has been our second Sunday since the road trip. We are a small congregation of less than 30, however; since the road trip, the Lord has blessed us with 2 powerful messages, and the congregation has responded positively. I want to thank brother Ed Hale, Ken Marler,Bob Mayfield, and Brother Randy Procter,for taking the time to minister to our association. I especially want to thank brother Johnny Jennings, Minister of Education at Village Baptist Church for being our guest speaker at the banquet that evening. Our folks are fired up and we are beginning to plant the seeds of growth for our Sunday school. We are doing training on Sunday nights to further strengthen our resolve to reach out in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Wendall Haugh
Pastor
Rock Springs Baptist Church
East Central Baptist Association.