Need to Revamp Our Sunday School Program, Have Any Ideas?

I only have a tiny bit of experience with Sunday School, but I can tell you what I DON'T like. Our daughter went this year (age 3-4) at our huge church and I had no idea what she was doing in class. I had to try and figure it out based on "art projects" she made and usually I had no idea. A printout each week would have been ideal for me. Something with a note to the parents to let us know what the theme of the week was, a story I could re-read to her, maybe a [simple] idea of something to do that week to keep the lesson going (like call a friend you haven't talked to in a while or look for something in nature that you are happy God created, etc.) If the parents know what the kids are doing in class they can help contribute to the learning and make the classes more worthwhile. If we knew what next week's theme would be, that would be helpful as well.

I go to a church with about 3000 members and a thriving children's and youth program. I've only been involved in the nursery so far, and I already am impressed! Every month, the children's ministry emails out a curriculum guide outlining the memory verse of the week for each age group and a short synopsis of the lesson with some questions you can ask your child. They encourage parents to introduce the verse at home before they even go to Sunday School, just to reinforce that the parents are the primary spiritual teachers, and the church is there to back them up.

I've been a Sunday School teacher and I know it can be hard to maintain order in the classroom and actually teach the kids something when you have only one hour per week. We are members of a large Lutheran church. A couple of years ago our church switched to the curriculum put out by Augsburg. It's called "Akaloo." I don't know if it's only for Lutheran churches or not. You can probably look it up on line. Good luck.

If you haven't already, check out the Workshop Rotation Model at www.rotation.org

I have been in a church that used this (1600 members - large but not as large as yours, obviously) and I found that it worked really well. It was easier to recruit teachers because they only needed to commit to one rotation period at a time - 5 weeks in our case - an learn one basic lesson with some modifications for age groups. We had fun decorating the classrooms, too, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Also, by being exposed to the same subject for several weeks in a row the kids really got to understand it in different ways, and the kids who didn't come to church every Sunday didn't miss entire concepts while they were gone.

I'm in a much smaller congregation now where this doesn't really work for us, and I miss it!

Good luck with your task - it's a big one!