Many Sunday Schools do a great job of teaching missions. Evidence of success is seen throughout the whole church. Children are excited about a coming missions’ conference. Dozens of high-schoolers have had short-term experience serving in another culture. Almost 50% of the church budget is designated for missions. Every year three or four young people or families from the church are commissioned for service with missions. Church members remember to pray daily for missionaries.
A church with a vital interest in world missions will be a church with vitality in other ways. People with a personal interest in missionaries pray for current events in the world. It is also likely that their eyes are opened to the needs of people in their local community. Many churches seek out an international community near them. A strong interest in missions not only makes a difference in the world, it also makes a difference in the local church.
But when a Sunday school fails to teach missions, the whole church will suffer. Even a concerned pastor has little to reinforce his preaching about missions and must beg the congregation to attend the missions’ conference. Very few youth seem interested in being missionaries. Adult Sunday Schools become inward-looking and don’t want their activities to be interrupted by an unfashionable missionary. Mission giving declines each year. World missions is neglected as the church slides into lukewarmness.
Two problems will result if the Sunday School fails to stimulate world Christians and the church has no vision for the world.
First, the cause of Christ around the world will suffer. Missionaries will become less effective because of weak prayer support. Fewer missionaries will be sent, and less money will be given to build and strengthen the church around the world. What a tragedy! Over half of the world or more than two billion people have not clearly heard the good news. There are tremendous needs in discipleship and leadership development in many world communities. Jesus’ last words to his disciples was a command to be world Christians. What a crime if the Sunday School rejects Jesus’ command.
Second, the church will become self-centered and lukewarm. A church without a vision for the world will also be a church without a vision for the needs in the local community, and believers will stagnate in their own spiritual growth. Ministry opportunities revitalize and strengthen Christians. Supporting missionaries is not a burden. Missionaries supported by the church with prayer and finances are doing that church a favor! No church, no matter how small or how poor can afford to have a feeble missions’ emphasis in Sunday School.
The Challenge
It isn’t easy to cultivate a dynamic concern for world missions. Many families are so overwhelmed with their own problems that they can’t even begin to think of the needs of the rest of the world. Churches have so much debt from their own building programs that they don’t think they can afford sacrificial giving for the needs of the world.
It’s not easy to get the Sunday school concerned about the needs of the world. Many people feel uneasy watching the evening news vividly portray dozens crises around the world. The rest of the world seems to be an enemy. Foreigners smuggle drugs, take our citizens hostage, cause our banks to collapse by defaulting on loans, and produce unemployment through cheap imports. During a discussion on missions in a Sunday School class, one discouraged adult blurted out, “The world is crawling with foreigners!” Is it any wonder that missionaries on furlough are encouraged to entertain Sunday School classes with cannibal jokes and snake stories rather than challenge people to be world Christians.
Most people see their family and friends as the comfortable center with a hostile world all around them. But Jesus died for the whole world! It is sinful to be “ethnocentric”, believing that Jesus loves only me, my friends and my country. While it is difficult for people to see the world from God’s perspective one goal for teaching missions in the Sunday school must be to broaden our perspective. People who see the world from God’s perspective become world Christians.
The Next Step
Catching a vision for the Sunday School and the whole world is the first step. The next step involves prayer and planning for the Sunday School. Perhaps teachers could meet on a Saturday morning to discuss Sunday School and missions.
Begin with a time of prayer for the world and for the Sunday School. Challenge each other with the importance of having God’s perspective of the world. Some may read Scripture telling of God’s care for the nations. Others may tell of how the Lord helped them overcome ethnocentrism. Before the Sunday School can produce world Christians, the teachers themselves must have God’s heart for the world. No missions curriculum, no matter how good, will stimulate people for missions if the teacher is half-hearted.
Next, brainstorm ways to motivate an interest in missions for each age group. Here are some beginning suggestions.
Preschool
Some child psychologists claim that all children are creative geniuses until they go to school. Imagination is never more vivid than in preschoolers. The child has a profound intuitive grasp of the immediate world. While children may not be able to explain complex concepts such as evangelism, they can feel and express joy from hearing good news. It is easy for imaginative four-year-olds to picture a God who is everywhere at the same time. Literalistic ten-year-olds have more difficulty trying to explain God’s omnipresence. Preschool is a crucial time to begin missions’ education.
Missions education must be concrete. Avoid the symbolism of challenging preschoolers to be fishers of men. Delightful five-year-olds will take you literally and pretend to throw fishhooks into people’s mouths. Preschoolers have a difficulty thinking about time and numbers. To say that William Cary lived a long time ago may seem like a week ago to a five year old. To say that a billion people live in China is almost meaningless.
The heart of world missions is a loving God who wants to be our friend. Preschoolers can learn about the personal love of God. Children can draw pictures of doing loving things for others, make get-well cards for a sick child, pantomime how Jesus loved the children, or make up a story of a child who did loving things for other people. The beginning of missions’ education is the truth that “Jesus loves me” and “Jesus loves all the children of the world.”
Another crucial missions’ concept is that God is creator of everything in the world. “God made me! God made my mommy and daddy. He made the beautiful flowers and the children I play with.” As children begin to joyfully associate the God of creation with their beautiful world it will be easier to teach that God made all the people in the world, including foreigners.
Invite missionaries and missionary children to the Sunday School class. Children may learn more from the smiles, hugs and tone of voice of missionary visitors to class than they will from their stories. Informal teaching is crucial.
Elementary
I decided to be a missionary when I was in fourth grade. I saw a film about a missionary in China working with children who had leprosy. It struck me for the first time that God loves people who are not like me. Elementary school years may be the most important years for teaching missions in Sunday School.
Elementary children have experienced tremendous intellectual growth but are still not able to understand abstract concepts fully . They have potential for an empathetic understanding of people in other cultures, but may be confused with the idea that Jesus is the light of the world. The fourth grade boys in my Sunday School class had seen an object lesson about a flashlight that needed batteries before it would work and how this was a lesson of us needing Jesus in us before we can be a light to others. When I asked them to explain it, they mimicked Popeye the Sailor Man swallowing batteries before witnessing to friends.
Even though elementary children are literalistic, they are beginning to understand concepts of space and time. True stories of missionaries or heroic national Christians are powerful. Introducing children to real missionaries and missionary children is important. They are able to empathize with the needs of people outside of their home or school setting.
When one of our high-school students planned to make a missions trip to Latin America, I asked her to come into my junior boys’ class. She told about how she wanted to help the people in one village to have clean water and to hear about Jesus. She said she wanted to play soccer with the children in that village. The boys in my class got so excited about her missionary trip that they began to get extra jobs so they could have more money to put in the Sunday School offering. The guys made me write a note for the Sunday School superintendent saying that all the money was contributed by the boys and not by the teacher! They prayed for her every Sunday. When she returned, she didn’t have time to make a presentation in my class. All she could do was answer questions. At least two graduates of that Sunday School class are actively planning to be missionaries.
Elementary children are being exposed to a wide world. The Sunday School teacher can give the children assignments to more intentionally explore this wider world. Refugee families with children moved into our community. I asked the boys in my Sunday School class to become friends with a child in their school who was different from them. One of the boys came to Sunday School the next Sunday shocked to discover that a boy from Cambodia had never heard about Jesus. He became a cross-cultural missionary in the fourth grade.
Junior High and High School
Junior high and high school are the “best of times and the worst of times” to teach about missions. Youth are beginning to think realistically about specific decisions for their lives. Teenagers think more clearly about the purpose for living. This is a crucial time to emphasize missions.
Once I realized that God wanted me to be a missionary, I knew I had to make some decisions about courses I should take in high school, girls I should or should not date, and about the kind of college I should attend. I figured that I needed to learn to eat all kinds of food. The possibility of missions’ involvement motivated me to be a Boy Scout and to learn camping and boating skills. (I used these skills later as a summer missionary in the jungle of Peru.) I listened intently to anything that anyone had to say about missions. As a high school student I took a summer job working in the fields with Mexican immigrant farm workers. These were some of my first friends from another culture. I was deeply impressed with how much they helped me to learn Spanish and to hoe beans. They were my friends and teachers.
But adolescence can also be a difficult time to learn about missions. Peer pressure and self-consciousness become more intense. Temptations to be inward-looking and self-centered are greater than ever.
Sunday Schools can be a bridge between what teenagers are learning in school about the world and God’s perspective of the world. As students are required to read Time or Newsweek in a high-school course, the Sunday School class can pray through the magazines and follow the development of the church in those countries.
Much could be written about short-term missions projects for high-school students. Such experiences if rightly done can provide an earthshaking experience for youth. One high school student from our church went on a short missions trip to help with a building project in a poor country. When he returned and reported to my junior boys class he was obviously overwhelmed by his experiences. He was so emotionally moved by the poverty he had seen that he could hardly get the words out. This teenager will never be the same. He wants desperately to be a missionary.
When missionaries come to talk to a teen Sunday School class they should tell the specific steps needed in planning to be a missionary. Most of the time could be spent answering questions teens have about missions.
Adult
If adults are apathetic toward missions the rest of the church will soon become indifferent. Adults can set the tone for the rest of the church. Missions should be more than an elective in the adult Sunday School. Adults often become so overwhelmed with family and financial needs that they stop thinking about the needs of the rest of the world. They become so preoccupied with paying bills and rent or mortgage that the challenge of sacrificial giving for missions is seen as a threat.
Only a few adults in most churches are genuinely concerned about missions. Few see the world from God’s perspective. It might be good to do an informal survey of adults in the church to get their opinions about missions. What hang-ups do they have about missions and the church around the world? What responsibility do they think we have for others in the world? The missions program should then be built on these questions.
Bible studies can include the study of God’s plan for the world. Small groups can be challenged to pray for the church around the world. Many adult Sunday School classes have adopted an international student or a refugee family. One adult Sunday School class used their summer vacation to go with their families to a needy area of the United States to work and witness. Adult Sunday School classes can strategize about how to resolve tensions between evangelism and social action. They can make recommendations about the church budget and about communicating with church-supported missionaries.
What could be more exciting! If the Sunday School can become revitalized through a deeper understanding of God’s love for the world, the whole church will be renewed. If the church is renewed, the world will be different--in fact all of eternity will be different.
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