Church Administration

Ben Stroup tweeted a question yesterday about what one church admin responsibility would you drop.

My response was Sunday School attendance taking.

Since he works for Lifeway, he was rightly dismayed by my answer.

Now, I'm not against taking attendance for Sunday School. What I'd do away with is the multiple redundancy system that we use here. However, I'll roll with the wider question:

What good does taking attendance in Sunday School do?

Really. If you don't know that someone isn't there only if they aren't on the roll sheet, then you have failed the relationship purpose of Sunday School. Either your class is too big or your eyes are too small.

What about visitors? What about them? You can't get a person to go one-on-one and get their name and information?

What about recording the attendance? What about it? Any SBC church going to cancel Sunday School because attendance is down? Or do we use the numbers either to create an artificial target or perpetuate criticism?

So, we'll keep counting around here, taking attendance, turning in attendance, counting it, re-adding it, re-checking it Monday morning, then calling in a panic when the Monday add-up doesn't match the Sunday add-up, all over either latecomers or bad math. Meanwhile, we'll keep 2 people out of Bible study on Sunday morning to facilitate the numbers, interrupt classes to get attendance sheets, and use resources to print, reprint, and store years of Sunday School records.

Seriously, folks, are we sure we need this?

Doug

Thanks for taking the time to read! Doug Hibbard