Discover the purpose of Sabbath School, why it may be weak in some churches, and learn some principles to bring it back to its original goal.

GYC 2019: By Many Or By Few

<p>Discover the purpose of Sabbath School, why it may be weak in some churches, and learn some principles to bring it back to its original goal.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Sabbath School

Sikhu Daco

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

The Life of Sabbath School

This message was presented at the GYC conference by many or by few in Louisville, Kentucky.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

All right, so This is a seminar on Sabbath school.

It's entitled Life, Death and Resurrection of Sabbath School.

There are 4 sessions today and you're welcome to join us for all 4.

For it to make sense, you'll have to be here for all 4.

But we realize we're in a competitive society and there's some other cool people out there you'd rather be with.

But if you want to stay, you're welcome to stay.

And then the fourth seminar, that's at 2.30, 2 o'clock.

We were going to open this for Q&A because we realized there are a lot of questions that people have regarding Sabbath school.

The classic question is, my Sabbath school is horrible, what do I do?

And we don't know the answer to that question.

But we're gonna give you principles, hopefully in our dialogue, and that will give you some ideas regarding that.

The large answer to all the questions is that God will bless you.

Amen, I know that sounds cliche and super unsatisfying, but that's really the answer.

But how God will bless you is what we're gonna talk about.

So today on the panelist, I have my friends here.

We have kind of, we had a debriefing, but this is going to be a really raw, live conversation because we realize this is what Sabbath School is about.

So this is, we have some, we have a PowerPoint here, but just for minimal spirit of prophecy quotes to help us with some parts of the discussion but really we're here to have an open dialogue to see what we can do about the future of Sabbath school.

So we will have a prayer, we'll have introductions but I just want to make sure that this is the flight that you're on and if you're on the wrong flight you're welcome to leave this room at this time because once we get going if you leave in the middle of it you are rude to leave in the middle of it because you think we're boring and we're trying not to be.

You were looking like an administrator and you scared me so I didn't know what was going on.

Okay, we'll have a word of prayer and Sikhu's gonna take a picture for social media world.

Gracious Father, we thank you so much for the medium of GYC, this room, and what you have for ordained in our schedule for these brothers and sisters to be with us today.

Father, it is not about knowledge or personality or experience, it is about your spirit And this we earnestly pray for.

We pray for our panelists today and not for a good formal presentation or conversation, but we pray that your will and the principles of Scripture come across in the presentations for today.

We ask that you bless each of our listeners, whether they be through streaming or recording or live or whatnot.

And Lord, our burden is to see Sabbath School revived, not to revive some institution or some program, but getting back to the basics of what you would have us to do.

This can only be done by your grace, and we ask for that power and for the pardon of the past of when we've made mistakes in Sabbath school, but we ask for a brighter future for Sabbath school as well.

So my name is Pastor Justin Kim, I work at the General Conference Sabbath School Department.

I have the privilege to host a TV show on Hope Channel, and we are, been going on for 3 years now, and we are covering the Sabbath School topics.

I'll mention a little bit about that later.

I have the privilege to join this TV show with my friends, and they are who are here with us today.

1 is Sebastian Braxton, and he's in another seminar, so don't go there, stay here.

But if you can listen to his recordings afterwards.

But he's part of the panel as well and there's another 1 named Callie Williams, Boruchara, who just got married and is currently living in Kenya.

So if she's listening to the recording, hello Callie.

But there's an intentionality, I represent all of Asia.

And to my left is, even though we all have American backgrounds except for Jonathan, he's kind of an Austrian-Canadian hybrid.

Okay, but your background, yeah, we'll talk about that.

Use your microphone if you're gonna make fun of her.

Israel, introduce yourself so I can hear your voice and they can hear your Mexican accent.

Hello everyone, I'm Israel Ramos, originally from California.

All right Kevin, we've got California in the house.

Both my parents come from Mexico, Mexican American, and hopefully you heard my Mexican accent.

So he represents the Latin Spanish world.

We have next to him is our European Caucasian brother.

I'm from Austria, but I've been living in the US now for 5 years, going on 6.

And it's a blessing to be part of Inverse, be part of this, and GYC, and many other things.

As a day job, I'm a pastor slash communications manager for the General Conference Ministerial Association.

That's the department that helps pastors, elders, deacons and deacons around the world.

And so that's a blessing to work there as well.

And to his left, to your right, is the sister who preached for us this morning, Siku Daco.

And Siku, introduce yourself if you can, if you don't mind.

And I changed my last name when I got married to help the world.

We're in the Sabbath School Department for the GC for young adults.

So the cool thing is our friendships go very a while back.

Some of us are stuck with each other kind of dynamic.

We have Sebastian Braxton, whose background is from Jamaica, so he represents Inter-America, and then we have Callie, who's just a normal, boring, American, Caucasian girl.

So we have these different friends represented, and It's representative of the world church.

And I want to ask you guys on this, this plays a dynamic in Sabbath school, is missiologists break the world up into 2 groups.

They call it the global north and the global south.

Now it has nothing to do with directionality, north and south, they just do it, and I don't know why they do it.

It used to be called the First World and the Third World, and that's no longer considered to be politically correct.

The Global North is what was formerly called the First World.

This is North America, Europe, Australia, and some people, South Africa in there, some people, I don't know, whatever you want to do.

Does anyone know who's bigger, Global North or Global South?

And I know I said that really fast, some of you are totally lost already.

The Death of Sabbath School

Welcome to our second installment for this track on Sabbath School.

It is entitled Death of Sabbath School, Death of Sabbath School.

And I don't know if you're following the trend.

It's life, death, and resurrection, not of Jesus, but of Sabbath school and it's kind of a play on words there.

And if you're not wanting to be part in the Sabbath school, you are welcome to leave at this time, but otherwise, please put on your seatbelts and your seat backs, and your table trays, whatever they say.

All right, we'll have a word of prayer and we'll get started here for our second session.

Father in heaven, we thank you for having blessed us in our first session.

Now as we get into the second part of why Sabbath schools are dying, we ask for your blessing.

Bless our words, bless our conversation, bless our thoughts, and Lord, bring out those things that need to be brought up.

I like to do this just to get your participation.

For those of you who are here for the first session, please raise your hands.

This is your first time here in this room.

So you're here for the death of Sabbath school, but you didn't come for the life of Sabbath school.

I'll post-analyze that in my mind afterwards.

We are in a time where Sabbath school is on the decline.

I don't know if you noticed, but Sabbath school, we jacked it, we stole it from the Sunday people.

It was originally called Sunday school, and we got it from the Sunday people, and we call that Sabbath school because it's on Sabbath.

We actually got it from different denominations.

The first, according to my research here, was started in England by a guy named Robert Rakes, but it was in the 1700s.

But later I found out it was actually started by a woman named Hannah Ball, where she wanted to train her kids after the way of Wesley and Luther.

So she got all these kids together in that time in the 1700s in England.

And they were all, you know, preteens and whatnot.

And what happened is these group of Methodists, and they called them Armenians at that time, got all the kids together, and they taught them how to take baths, how to look clean, how to comb their hair, how to read, how to walk a single file, walk on, this became the precursor to the English British school system.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Sabbath school was at its apex.

Sabbath school and Sunday school, both were at its apex.

Something happened in the 70s and 80s, as we talked about in a previous seminar.

In 2004 to 2010, Lutheran churches were down in their Sabbath school involvement 40%.

In the United Kingdom, it went down to 5% of the population was involved in Sunday school.

In New Zealand, it went down from 50% in 1950 to 11% in 1985.

In Canada, it went down from 65% in 1931 to 27% in 2001.

From a poll here, how many of you go to a Sabbath school where your Sabbath school is larger than your Divine Service attendance?

How many of you go to a Sabbath school that's about half the attendance of Divine Service?

How many of you go to a Sabbath school that's about half the attendance of divine service?

How many of you go to a Sabbath school that's about a quarter of attendance of your divine service?

That is the national average in North America, is about 25% of Divine Service participation.

How many of you do not go to Sabbath school?

You are part of the 75% that's not coming.

And I want to ask you the question to all of you is this, why is Sabbath School dying?

So let me ask, and then we'll start easy and we'll get into it.

Not your churches, but in churches in general.

We can share some stories, but not too long, but just, you know, and I'm sure you all have your own stories and yeah.

I mean, the stereotypical boring Sabbath school is let's read Monday, right?

He's always late for church, so you skip over Sunday.

They start with Sabbath afternoon, right?

And you read like the quote on Sabbath afternoon.

And so the teacher who did not memorize the memory verse either reads it from the quarterly.

And then they keep on reading and then it's like, okay, Sunday.

It's not the memory, that's called the reading verse, right?

So it just defeats the purpose altogether.

So it's kind of like, hey, sometimes I can read better than the person who is reading up front.

So I'm not going to go to a Sabbath school to hear somebody read and they don't even read in an engaging way.

The Resurrection of the Sabbath School

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our third installment on the Sabbath School seminar.

This seminar is entitled The Resurrection of Sabbath School.

In our first installment, we looked at the principles of what makes Sabbath School Sabbath School and the life of Sabbath school.

In the second installment, we looked at, we kind of made fun of Sabbath school a little bit and why it's dying.

We're looking at ways to revive Sabbath school in the local context.

Here, we're just giving suggestions and different principles from the spirit of prophecy, but obviously, we know that every context is a little different.

To start off, I want to ask you, how many of you have been with us since the first seminar?

How many of you were here, not for number 1, but for number 2?

And how many of you, is this your first time here?

I only ask that question because the seminars kind of build up on each other and there's kind of a flow, but you're totally welcome.

And some things you may not know the context of what we're saying it.

And some of you may have questions of which we've already addressed in the past.

We want to invite you to come out to our fourth session at 2...

And the Q&A will come from you, and if you guys have wonderful questions, you'll have wonderful answers.

If you don't have any questions, then we're just gonna end it up and you guys can go to another seminar.

But no need to squeeze out something when there's no juice in the lemon.

That's a weird idiom that I don't know what it really means.

So we'll have a word of prayer and we'll get started for this session.

Father in heaven, Lord, you are in the business of resurrections.

Lord, we ask that the example, the motif of the resurrection of Jesus, in the motif of creation of breathing life into something that which was not alive, the principle of ex nihilo, to bring about something out of nothing.

First, Lord, we ask that for our own lives.

We ask that Jesus may be recreated in our hearts.

We ask that now, even in the midst of this formal, introductory prayer, we just ask for conversion right now.

And Lord, we ask, as we've been pleading all morning for the resurrection of our Sabbath schools.

Father, we don't want to create Sabbath school in our image.

We want to hear from your principles and the insights from the Holy Spirit.

Oh, Isiku, welcome back from the rapture.

Jonathan, Isiku has other extra, extra business.

Jonathan, just give us a, for our floaters who are joining us for the first time here, just give us a recap of where we are in seminar number 1 and number 2, and we'll get into number 3.

All right, welcome those of you who are here for the first time.

In our first section, we talked about the ideals of Savile School, and we saw that prayer and Bible study, mission, and fellowship are the core principles of what makes Savile School alive.

And this is something that we all agreed on that is something we want and want to see more of.

And it is when we engage in those elements of Sabbath school that Sabbath school will be powerful.

We talked about how Sabbath school can be very missional.

We can reach out to people that are missing in church.

There's so many wonderful things that you can do.

And of course, the power of Bible study, actual Bible study that takes place in Savva School.

In our second section, we talked about the death of Savva School and how The reality is for many of us that Savaschool is not really engaging and no 1 is showing up and there's all these issues.

We realized that it has to a great degree in the northern hemisphere to do with the fact that we are Lazy and we want entertainment and so the in selfishness is plays a big role And we we kind of talked about that and how that how that affects savvy school now for generations and why it's going downwards And we realized that we need to take initiative ourselves and to make a difference here.

And now in our third section, we're gonna talk about the resurrection of Sabbath School.

I would say that we have forgotten the purpose of Sabbath school, especially in North America.

And Sabbath school has reverted into this experience.

Sabbath school starts at 9.30, no one's showing up at 9.30, it's about 9.45, you have a little bit of awkward of like hymn music going on, no one's there, so you stretch it out to 10 o'clock, still no one's there.

Then the 10.10, people start trickling in, 1 person at a time.

Then you have this long introductory boring thing no 1 wants to talk about.

You kind of get into the lesson study around 10.30, 10.45, and by that time, the bell rings, and then no 1 knows why we're studying it, and then you just, okay, we're done now, and you have an awkward prayer.

The prayer has really no purpose, it's just a conclusionary prayer, and everyone goes upstairs or downstairs to wherever you gotta go.

Does that sound like Sabbath school to you?

I know I sound pretty, that sounded more serious than I meant it to sound, but that is not what a Sabbath school should be.

We've established this morning that Sabbath school should be a vibrant time.

We're talking about world missions, how that local, your local Sabbath school group is making impact locally and globally.

It's been looking at Bible study and not looking at the quarterly and reading through it.

By the way, I did this 1 time and 1 man came up to me and he says, how dare you say don't read through your quarterly?

And I appreciated so much, he called me a young whippersnapper, that he said that the quarterly is near Inspired and I'm like really I have never heard of that term anywhere in the Bible or anywhere in the spirit of prophecy Something called near quasi in spirito I don't know what that I've never heard of that and and I'll tell you I work in the general conference office, I know Cliff Goldstein, he's in the corner office down, he would be the last person who would have said that his own writings are quasi-inspired.

They're supposed to guide us and reading through it punishes the person who studied it and rewards the person who did it.

So let me ask you, and I'm just kind of waxing eloquently here, what are some ways, and this is going to be a random discussion, We can cover a lot of stuff.

What are ways we can resurrect Sabbath school, especially in the young adult context, but this applies for children's and also adult and the whole superintendents, the whole ecosystem of Sabbath school especially?

I'd say probably the first thing is that we need to individually have an experience with the Bible.

And specifically, as we talked about in the previous sections, that what the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide is it guides the entire world church in a specific topic.

So it's awesome that we all have our individual Bible studies and you know we're studying different things at different times.

But it would be great if as part of our Bible study life personally we're studying the topic that the World Church is studying as well.

So having a personal experience with the topic that we are studying in Bible study throughout the week, not just on Friday nights just so that I have something to say during class, but throughout the week we're engrossed and engaged in the study of scripture and having an experience with it, that is going to mean that when we're discussing it on Sabbath or when the topic is brought up on Sabbath, I have a living experience with what it is that is being discussed.

So I'd say probably the first place is in my own life, having an experience with the word of God in the topic that we'll be discussing in Sabbath school.

Wonderful, a segue to the spirit of prophecy quote here, education page 251, this is not planned, but this is really cool, nice timing, Ziku.

She says, as a means of intellectual training, the opportunities of the Sabbath are invaluable.

Let the Sabbath school lesson be learned not by a hasty glance at the lesson scripture on Sabbath morning.