Sunday School on Holidays

Does going to Sunday school or missing one day of Sunday School reflect a commitment to Christ or to Sunday School?

 

I believe that families deserve a good vacation every now and then. Even preachers deserve vacation (though this preacher will attend a Church on Sunday regardless of where he is). The issue on this thread is whether or not a Church should just close their SS doors because of the flux of people leaving that day and I believe that while missing class every so often does not show a flaw in your faith I believe that a Church closing their doors when even if just two show does. (I make no apologies on that statement). The Bible says where two or more gather in my name...

The only logical argument I have heard of a Church closing their doors is that of the small church with a small budget that cannot afford to keep the doors open in SS with no one there that sunday to tithe. I am split on that though because one they should trust God to provide their needs, which I fully believe he will AND if they cannot meet there they they should meet in a home just prior to Church.

 

Since "Sunday Schools" aren't a Biblical mandate, and in fact are a fairly recent (last two centuries) addition to churches, in principle I don't have a problem with a church that would cancel Sunday School on/around holidays.

Now, if the church's worship service(s) were cancelled, that would be another story. That I would have a major problem with.

 

Pastor Bob - hey, often you have to work with your group a little different than others do. The Lord's Day is for us to enjoy Him and to minister to others. Yes, it can mean alot of hard work (Bus Ministry guy for over 17 years) and sweat (used to be just soaked as I would race from the bus to my Sunday School class to teach 3rd grade). But its all worth it. (song It Will Be Worth it All comes to mind).

I am glad that I have adopted a more historical viewpoint of Sunday, the FIRST day of the week. Its the Lord's day, a day of resting in HIM and a day of worshipping HIM. There are those that for the sake of the community must work but the rest shouldnt. I also try not to eat out on Sunday so as to not encourage businesses to be open on Sunday. If more Christians did this the businesses would close because it was us that started the Sunday lunch thing. One note on this: a bus rider that I was trying to keep coming faithful, teenager actually, had to go to work to help support his family. And the one day that he had to work was on Sunday. Guess what restaraunt he worked at? The one that my church (some 15 miles from his house in the large San Fernando Valley area) went to on a regular basis for lunch. Thus my prospetive rider worked to cater to the food desires of our congregation! Not that the restaraunt wasnt open anyway but you get the idea. If we didnt go out to eat on Sundays business would drop and would be less prone to be open.

Its the Lord's day. Its for us to enjoy Him and who He is. Football and all of the sports should be put aside for His day. Missing church for the Super Bowl used to be an option for me. Its almost a blessing that the games got so bad to watch since its just another reason for me to be in church instead of watching a rout.

But if the games were closer I would still be in church .... (wanted to add in some humor so you knew where I was coming from)

Its not Sundae. Its Sunday! Its a shame that Baptists seem to have this creed that says that they are historically big eaters when in fact their forefathers in the faith perished in the wilderness from lack of hunger! Food for thought (oh, bad pun I know)

 

This is the reason my church organizes vacations for it's members (no they are not mandatory, we are not quite that cultlike).
If you have much of your sundayschoolclass vacationing in one spot, lessons can continue.
Ofcourse we have to use an adapted lesson plan, but that is part of the fun.

 

If your family came for dinner but some of them didn't show up, would you feed the ones that did?

 

"If you have 200 and only 20 or vastly mixed ages would come and no teachers, what would you do?"
''
I do the happy dance!
In cases such as these, I'm the girl that get's to do the teaching, because I seem to be the only one of us that can.
And I get to choose the subject. That usually means lurid churchhistory tales. Scrambled versions of those tales get retold to parents, grandparents and other relatives.
That usually leads to some rather pointed questions by some of the churchelders later on.
And that gives me the golden opportunity to say to them: "All the FAITHFUL that were here attending Sunday School . . . "
Makes them sick.

ps. To quote (in translation) the head pastor of our church:"In a few short years young lady I will be retiring and than you will have nobody to defend you, when you do something silly. Then they will probably fire you and hire somebody else to scrub the floors, clean the toilets, make the coffee and maintain the library. Nobody will be around to do the other usefull things you do that you don't get payed for."

[ August 10, 2004, 04:41 AM: Message edited by: mioque ]

 

If there is a legitimate reason to cancel any service then there is nothing wrong with doing that. However, we must consider several factors, some of which have been mentioned.

What testimony are we presenting to the community when we cancel for insignificant reasons? Are we saying a public or secular holiday is more important that Sunday School?

Another factor we need to consider is that of canceling at the last minute, in which some people don't know about it and come anyway. Also what about visitors from out of town who might stop and find our church windows dark during publically announced services.

I do remember canceling Sunday school in 1979 in the Chicago area when we had 21 inches of snow on Saturday night. I finally made it to the church by SS time and no one was there. We normally ran about 65-70 and had 21 for the morning service. My song leader led songs in his pac-boot liners.

Another time we had a snow storm in Wisconsin in Thanksgiving weekend with 17 inches and the interstate closed. We had church at our house across the street from the church building for Sunday evening service and a couple from Mpls stranded for the night came and worshipped with us.

My philosophy is make sure the reason to cancel is is good and then do it if need be. In fact the unified SS when teachers are gone may give a nice change of pace for classes