Sunday School Leadership Conference Trains 10,000 Online
Bringing in approximately 10,000 online participants, in addition to the many that attended in-house, Bruce Raley, director of leadership and evangelism at LifeWay says this year's Sunday School Leadership Conference was likely "the largest Sunday School weekend ever in our history."
The weekend of July 8 saw an unprecedented number of church affiliates participating in LifeWay Christian Resource's training program, for which the theme was "Transformational Church Goes to Sunday School."
Based on the book, "Transformational Church," co-authored by LifeWay President Thom S. Rainer and Ed Stetzer, LifeWay's vice president for research and ministry development, the conference delved into how to maximize the impact of the "transformational" church, those that continually affect and alter the lives of people and communities.
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The book was based on a study that showed that Bible study groups significantly impacted the dynamic of transformational churches. The study was also presented at the conference by director of Sunday School for LifeWay, David Francis who authored the Bible study "Transformational Class," and was supplemented by an expert panel discussion.
Among the many topics discussed, great focus was put on the rich history of Sunday School. Chaun Anderson, minister of education of First Baptist Church in Palm Coast, Fla. participated in a panel discussion during the webcast and commented on a need that led to the institution of Sunday schools.
"Most things were invented to be a solution for a problem or a need in a certain people group."
"Fire escapes were improved so that people can escape," she said. "Likewise, Sunday School was invented to meet a need of a particular people group."
That group was the mid-Western pioneers, for who Sunday School unions deployed missionaries to teach the Gospel to those living in hard places on the American frontier, Francis explained at the conference.
"We have a really romanticized view of the Midwest. The Wild West really was wild. This was not Little House on the Prairie," he said.
Francis spoke about Sunday School missionary Stephen Paxson, deeming him a "transformational" Sunday School leader for founding 13,000 Sunday schools and enrolling over 80,000 people throughout the mid-1800s.
"If you can even imagine it, maybe you are on the way to being a Sunday School missionary [like Paxson]," he said.
While the 2011 Sunday School Leadership Conference has since passed, the 2012 conference will take place from July 20-23, 2012, at LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center.
