Due to severe shortage of teachers, they cancelled Sunday School at the 10:30 hour at my Church.
I'm glad that they did it on the one hand and bummed on the other. They also said that starting in November they would have Children's Church...which is basically the same thing only all the kids would be together with fewer teachers. Hummmm... how did this solve our problem?
So now parents who want their kids in Sunday School will be bringing them to the 9:30 hour and stuffing those classes full and burdening those poor teachers.
My Pastor said that the thing that bothered her the most was that many parents had put down on the Emergency Contact info that they would be at HOME while their kids were in Sunday School. WHY aren't they at Church helping? I could understand if they were at Church in service...but AT HOME?!?!?!? And I know one of the moms...grrr
My DH & I were thinking that perhaps instead of cancelling Sunday School they should offer it only to the classes that have teachers. Then some of the kids could go and some couldn't. Perhaps parents with kids in both classes would be more inclined to help if they could get all their kids in class at the same time.
But I'm thinkint that instead the kids will all probably get dumped into the 9:30 classes...which I agreed to help teach a second 4th grade class of.
UPDATE: The Pastor had decided that we will cancel Sunday School at 10:30 completely for now. And she agrees with me that the Children's Church is not the answer for finding more help.
You shouldn't be able to leave your kid there if you're not attending services.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Denise. It seems strange that people would be dropping off their kids for Sunday School if they are not attending service themselves. Hmmmm . . . I wish I had a solution to your problem, but it seems this is a problem for a lot of churches. When our church was relatively small, we used to have lots of parent helpers on Sundays. Now that attendance has significantly increased, it seems parent help has decreased. It doesn't make any sense.
ReplyDeletethat makes no sense. They're at home. That's a great example to be giving. geesh.
ReplyDeleteOn the up side, only 2 days til you come to Virginia! I hope the weather's nice, though it's supposed to get very fall-like. ugh.
Dropping them off and going HOME? Holy cow!
ReplyDeleteOur church is changing how they do things. Since parents were in church while the kids were in sunday school, the parents were less likely to attend bible study and the children weren't in services (it was sad when the children's message was presented--only 3 or 4 kids!) Soon, there will be an education hour where all bible classes and sunday school will be offered, but no services. Then after (and before) that hour there are services so children and adults can all attend together. I thought it was brilliant!
i think the church needs to re-think this. we have laws here, you can only look after so many kids under a certain age, i think it's 5 per adult, so if you don't have enough supervision, i don't see how you can just allow anyone and everyone to attend these classes. what happens if something happens to one of these kids due to lack of supervision, you can't have your eyes on everyone. i think it's time to speak up.
ReplyDeleteI am reading Denise's comments on the left while writing here and she says exactly what I was thinking!!!
ReplyDeleteTwo more days until your vacation! have a great time. I guess we are kind of missing each other, lol!