Memo
To: All Sunday School Leaders
From: Horace J. Studebacher, Sunday School Superintendent.
Dear Teachers,
Please take extra care when filling out your Sunday School attendance books for the coming months. The pastor has informed me that his review of the attendance record has turned up several discrepancies which he thankfully caught before sending the monthly numbers in to the Sword of the Lord. We need to do better. Let all things be done decently and in order, amen?
To that end, here are a few guidelines for keeping your attendance record books accurate.
– Sunday School attendance is defined as people who actually have visited your Sunday School class this week. “They were here in spirit” is not the equivalent of attendance nor is their spouse taking them home the handout enough to count them as present.
– If you are prone to filling out your attendance books on Saturday night, please do so in pencil so they can be corrected. Let’s make it as easy as possible for our pastor to spot those who are falling behind in their Sunday School visits.
– Pregnant Sunday School attendees do not count twice unless they actually give birth in your classroom on a Sunday between 9:30 and 10:15 a.m.
– While Pack the Pew week has always been a time of friendly competition between Sunday School classes for the annual Top Fishers of Men award, it is not appropriate to “trash talk” the leaders of other classes in church the parking lot. In addition the use of door prizes, and other promotional stunts such as swallowing goldfish is discouraged unless you are working in the bus ministry.
Hopefully these reminders will serve to get us back on the path to good honest record keeping. It is important to conduct ourselves in a Christlike manner as we all focus our efforts on getting our Sunday School numbers to new record-breaking levels.
I’ve NEVER understood the point of these things…even to this day.
Ours was but to do and die.
Same here, Nathan. As a school teacher…regular school with tests and homework and grades… it’s a no-brainer. But when I get my little 45 minute SS class, I want every minute to teach the little critters and do a good job of it. 45 minutes, that is, unless there is the Sunday School Closing where all are herded into the auditorium for another song and another lesson…as if what was on the docket for the day wasn’t good enough. That leaves me 30 minutes for my class…arrgh! Then, the guilt trip–you note a consistent no-show and woe be to the teacher who does not go visit. I guess the attendance books give the bean counters something to do in service for the Lord.
Did anyone else attend a church that gave out awards for perfect attendance in Sunday School? I remember the first time I went to a church like that – this kid in my SS class was wearing his pin – it was a “first year” pin with little hooks on the bottom so you could add each successive year. His pin was on to year 13 or something, so they must have counted nursery for him, too.
How about attendance for the adults? I taught in a church school where the deacons would stand at the door with a clipboard in hand, marking off the teachers as they came in to each service. I also visited a church one time that had clipboards at the end of each pew. The “regulars” were expected to write down their name on the clipboard as a way of logging their attendance for the week.
I hate hate hate opening assemblies. They do nothing but cut into your teaching time. You can have a helper take attendance but I always did it myself because there was more than the attendance. Since you were always having some kind of program at the end of which there would be a winner, you had to find out if they had memorized their verse for the week. Did they bring any visitors? Did they bring any offering? In one church they got points if they were dressed “correctly” (meaning in a skirt or dress). All of this eats away at your teaching time. Unlike the pastor who could go on and on and on and seemed to have no exact time to hit a landing strip, we teachers HAD to finish up at a certain time. 🙁
I remember those award pins from when I was a kid but it was the Church of Christ, not the IFB. I had one and yeah the next year you got something to add to it, etc. My mother made me wear it every Sunday. 🙄