Do Practices Vary by Sunday School Attendance, Part 1

In three previous blog posts, I have mentioned a Sunday School Practices survey (now closed) that I invited readers to complete through January 31. The survey focused on your understanding of what is happening in your Sunday School. To see some of my very early observations from the survey, check out this post: Very Preliminary Results from the Sunday School Practices Survey. Some findings have been surprising. I want to take another early look from another angle at the survey. (Realize that some results may change with more responses before the end of the month).

The survey had 37 quick answer, multiple choice type questions. In this series, I want to share fourteen areas of the survey by church size. I will share four areas in Part 1, five in Part 2, and five in Part 3. In Part 1, I will share responses by church size about growth, teacher training, visitation, and greeters. I will combine the results by some church sizes for simpler presentation of the data. For instance, the survey separates Sunday School attendance into groups 0-50 and 51-100, but I will combine the results for those two groups as well as some others. Consider the following early survey results:

QUESTION: I believe the total attendance of all classes in my Sunday School is . . .

ATTENDANCE THOUGHTS: This data is based on perceptions of growth, plateau, or decline rather than on statistical data. It would be interesting to compare perceptions with actual records. It is interesting that the largest percentage of the smallest and the largest churches who have responded to the survey perceive growth. The most decline is perceived among churches with 201-500 in Sunday School attendance.

QUESTION:  How often are Sunday School teacher/worker training events offered?

TRAINING THOUGHTS:Could this table reflect that the smallest Sunday Schools cannot afford to do training as often, or could it reflect the lack of a pastor or volunteer to schedule and arrange such training? Is it possible that smaller churches participate more frequently in associational and state training events rather than providing their own?

QUESTION:Does your church offer visitation (a regular time for visiting members and prospects)?

VISITATION THOUGHTS: Interesting: the larger the Sunday School, the more likely that it will offer visitation weekly. Which is it? Does more frequent visitation lead a church to become larger? Or could it be that a larger church has more people who can do (or lead) more frequent visitation? Or could more frequent visitation be required to maintain a larger church’s size?

QUESTION: My church has greeters before Sunday School to welcome and register guests and walk them to their classrooms . . . (both=welcome/register and walk; part=either welcome/register or walk)

GREETERS THOUGHTS: Could the lower number of smaller Sunday Schools which have greeters reflect the lack of expectation about guests; lack of volunteers to fill the responsibility; or the lack of leadership to enlist, train, and mobilize greeters? Could the smaller number of larger churches reporting gree ters who hav e both jobs reflect the utilization of a welcome center?

Look through the statistics above. Then, press the Comments button below to share your thoughts. What are some questions or ideas that come to mind? Would your experience in your Sunday School agree with these statistics for churches of similar size? If they are different, how are they different and why do you think that is the case? In Part 2, we will look at five more areas from the survey: high attendance day, goals, space, parking, and class projects. Pray. Evaluate your progress. Give God your best effort. Be revolutionary!