Step 6: Regular Updates

How’s it going? In the Sunday School Challenge, regular updates by the Sunday School Champions are crucial to preventing interruptions bringing the best results. If there are not regular and consistent measurements taken, how do you know how it’s going?

Dental, vision and medical check-ups are a regular part of our lives for good reason. We need to know if we are making progress or things are getting worse. If we see things moving in the wrong direction, we can act quickly to try and steer things in the right direction.

Finding and identifying problems early enough in the Sunday School Challenge can prevent major mistakes, later. Not to mention the fact that Satan will be hard at work trying to destabilize our best efforts. Satan doesn’t want to see new people reached, lives changed and more people actively involved in Kingdom ministry.

Don’t think of updates as accountability. Today, that word carries lots of baggage. Instead, focus on helping every class and every leader to avoid pitfalls that will limit their effectiveness. Simply put, ask every leader “how’s it going”? You should already know their goals and plans.  Checking in weekly to ask will help keep up-to-date on progress. Your purpose is to encourage, pray and offer to help. Each class make the choice to plan and execute their plan.

To be honest, this might be the most difficult part of the Sunday School Challenge. When people discover that we are going to follow up every week to see how things are going, it might make them feel somewhat uncomfortable. My best advice is to “just ask.” Resist the temptation to not ask every week. Frankly, if you give in before you start, you can never move forward.

Once each Sunday School Champion gets a report from each class, he or she should inform the Pastor on how it’s going and what is being done to keep things going. The Pastor is responsible for the Big Picture. He needs to know how things are going generally—it most of the classes are struggling, he can encourage, support and engage from the pulpit and/or in each classroom. If things are going great, he can challenge and push them to greater heights. The Pastor needs an accurate gage of what is happening so he can step in and guide at those opportune moments.

A “win/win” is when everyone is working together to accomplish what only God can do. If the Pastor, Sunday School Champions, Sunday School leaders and members are focused and working together in obedience to God; only God knows what could happen. Frankly, that is what all of us would love to see.

• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-leaders-to-be-accountable/
• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-leaders-to-be-prepared/
• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-spiritual-growth/
• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-lives-to-be-transformed/
• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-group-members-to-invite-friends-and-family-to-class/
• http://www.sundayschoolleader.com/expect-the-class-to-lead-people-to-christ/