This post is about some changes we are making in the fall with our Sunday morning ministries, particularly with Sunday School and with the start time of our Sunday service. But before I describe exactly what these changes are going to look like, I want to tell you a bit about how and why we made this decision.
For the last two years or so, a group of ministry leaders at Emmanuel has been having a series of discussions about how we do things as a church. These discussions have often used a model, familiar to some, of a trellis and a vine. Trellises, as we know, are structures that help a vine grow. In a church, the “vine” is the vital ministry of the body of Christ building itself up in love. “Trellises” are structures, like programs, that help facilitate that person-to-person ministry.
Here in North America, churches tend to put too much of a focus on their trellises (their structures and programs), treating them like they are the real goal. As a result, they don’t focus near as much energy on the central work of equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:11-16).
Within this framework, we’ve been thinking long and hard about the fact that we run two separate children’s ministry programs—Sunday School and Awana. When we started both of these ministries, I believe they were the right choice, and we’ve had many good years doing both of them the way we have. We’ve done Awana close to 40 years, and it has a rich legacy in our community. I loved seeing how hard we worked to make Awana happen during the Covid years. I’ve loved watching my oldest son go through the program from start to finish.
But our church has changed. We have way more young families than we did when we started Sunday School. We have way more homeschooling families than we used to, meaning that inviting friends from school to Awana is harder than it used to be. Both programs have ended up largely serving the exact same group of people. Both programs take significant resources in terms of people’s time and our finances. We’ve often found ourselves scrambling to find the time and people to do all aspects of both programs with excellence. It’s no surprise that we’ve been wondering if doing both of these programs is really the best use of our efforts as a church.
This is especially true when we consider the biblical priority for parents—dads in particular—to train and disciple their children (Ephesians 6:4). According to the Bible, whose job is children’s ministry? Dads. What we do here is just a supplement. Our main priority should be to equip parents for the ministry of discipling their children. But does running two separate programs, exclusively for children, really fit with that model?
Alongside of this, we’ve been recognizing that Sundays can be hard on our many young families. It’s a long morning for anybody, especially for those caring for little people. We’d love to see more people showing hospitality and less people going home alone—but we recognize that many of us are completely wiped out after a full morning.
So this fall, we’re making a shift. We are going to combine our two children’s programs into one single program that brings together the best of each. It will happen at 6:30pm on Tuesdays, and will start with an open session that includes some of the games we’ve played at Awana and a time of singing. Then we’ll break out into age-specific groups where we’ll continue using the excellent Truth78 curriculum we’ve enjoyed so much in Sunday school. We love how this material focuses on discipling children by teaching them the big truths of our faith from Scripture.
We will continue to advertise and promote these nights like we did Awana, and they’ll be open to our community just like they’ve been all along. We plan to still run a Grand Prix once a year, and may incorporate other fun elements from Awana like theme nights.
In addition to these elements from our existing ministries, we’re adding a focus on families. Families will be invited to experience these nights together. We’ll welcome moms and dads to participate in everything along with their kids as they are able. We’re planning to end the nights with a time where one or two families can sit down together—all age groups present—to talk about what they learned that night and pray for one another. As we do that, we hope to encourage families to do that kind of thing more and more themselves.
To begin with, we plan to end these nights a little sooner than Awana did—hopefully by 7:40 or 7:45. In time we’ve got some other great ideas to incorporate, but will take things one step at a time.
With this change, there will be no Sunday school on Sunday mornings. Alongside of this change, effective Sunday, September 7, our Sunday morning services will begin at 10:00 am.
We still invite you to come at 9:30 or anytime thereafter! If we can, we’ll still serve coffee and muffins and enjoy an unhurried time to connect and converse with one another. When our service finishes at 11:30 or 11:45, we’ll have that much more margin to enjoy being together, connect with people for lunch, or run home to grab something before a potluck.
We’re also thinking of ways within our existing Sunday morning service to make sure that our kids feel valued and included in our time together.
What about Adult Sunday school? Many of you know in the last couple of years we’ve done workshops one Sunday evening a month focused on marriage and parenting. That workshop time-slot will become our main focused time, outside of Sunday mornings, for adult education. Once again, it means doing a little less than we’ve been doing, but with more focus, excellence, and (hopefully) effectiveness. We’re already preparing for some vital teaching this year that you won’t want to miss.
This is a decision that we’ve discussed in principle for probably two years. In recent weeks our Christian Education Committee, Worship Committee, and Elders had some serious discussions and came to this decision unanimously. We know it’s a big change, but one we hope will better serve our church for where our church is at today, helping us more effectively disciple our children, equip the saints for the work of ministry, and give us some more margin to actively love one another.
With a large group of people, no change works out equally well for every single person. We know that some of you will be disappointed by this change, and we wish that we could perfectly suit the varying schedules and circumstances for everybody in our church. For those who struggle with this decision, we welcome your feedback, while communicating that we really did our best to make a decision that brought the best possible outcome to the greatest amount of people.
Now, there’s some details still to figure out. We still don’t know exactly what we’ll call these nights (though we have some early ideas). If you’ve taught Sunday school or served with Awana, you might wonder what your role will be or how we’ll do this or that. We will have more information for you in the next few weeks as details are nailed down.
In the meantime, thanks to everyone who helped make this decision. As we enjoy the rest of the summer, let’s look forward to—and pray for!—a strong season of ministry together in 2025/26.
