The decline of the Sunday school. . .

A while ago I was talking with a long lost friend who is starting a mission after spending some years in an established congregation.  As he shared the ups and downs of his new life sans congregation and parish traditions, he mentioned that there was no Sunday school.  It came up as I recounted a hassle over the annual Sunday school Christmas program (when to have it, what to do in it, who will attend, whether it is all worth it, etc...).  He said he had no such hassle because he had no Sunday school to do a children's program and did not think Sunday school would become a viable part of his mission's identity and life anytime soon.

Sunday schools are in decline all over the place.  Once robust institutions, the Sunday schools of most of Protestantism have fallen upon hard times.  That is no less true in my own Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  There are reasons for this decline... not excuses but reasons.  The excuses will follow later.

• There are fewer children.  The age of the folks in the pew is going up and the numbers of children born to Christians in churches with Sunday schools continues to fall...
• There are fewer parents of children who were brought up in Sunday school  Without their own personal history and experience, Sunday school is neither easily understood or valued for what it can and does provide children...
• The number of children of divorce has increased and many are with the other parent on weekends...
• The increased number of options for Sunday morning (children's sports activities especially) compete with Sunday school especially...
• The idea that church is primarily entertainment has left Sunday schools with a decided disadvantage when it comes to content... 
• The church plants typically target those who were not raised in Sunday school, who may not be married, and who probably do not have children so Sunday school never catches on as part of the church culture of these missions...

The Sunday School was an Anglo-American invention of Protestants in the early late 18th and early 19th centuries,  It targeted children of unchurched families, children who may have worked in place of or in addition to school (remember it would be another 50 years or so before public education and compulsory attendance laws were the norm).  No self-respecting church family would have sent their kids to Sunday school in the early days -- it would be an admission of the failure to provide this education in the home where it was thought to belong. Sunday school was more important than worship for some (and still is among churches who judge the health of the congregation more by Sunday school attendance than anything else).  Many congregations in the 1940s and 1950s learned the value of simultaneous Sunday school and worship services -- providing a means for the family to get in and out of church in the magic one hour time limit.  It did not take long for Sunday school to give birth to Vacation Bible School and Sunday school had both a replacement during the Summer when regular classes might not meet as well as a child size vehicle as a tool of individual revival.

Lutherans embraced Sunday school with joy even though it was alien to our tradition and history.  Catechism instruction was more to the point for Lutherans but fairly quickly we were Americanized enough to have both the new tool of Sunday school alongside the familiar routine of mid-week or Saturday catechetical instruction for the young.

I must say that sometimes I am ambivalent about Sunday school.  We find ourselves under the gun to make it shorter and shorter, more fun and entertaining, and we face less and less knowledge to build on in the minds and hearts of those attending.  In addition we struggle with the kids who come only every other week, the families for whom once or twice a month seems like regular attendance, and an adult culture in which teaching Sunday school seems like somebody else's responsibility - not mine.  The cost of materials has gone up as the numbers have gone down and the results have left us hard pressed to justify the energy or cost it takes to revitalize an idea which some fear has come and gone.  That said we have nothing to replace Sunday school when it comes to imparting the basic Bible knowledge intrinsic to a good catechetical program for both children and adults.  So we will likely plod along, complaining about the same old problems, and pressing the same old (and I mean that literally - old) teachers to teach the kids the stories of Jesus.