Focus on the relationships in our Sabbath School

Last Sabbath at Gibbons Park the Sabbath School council met briefly to plan for improving what we do during the most significant part of our Sabbath experience – the Bible Study groups.

A month ago group of our leaders attended the rally in Toronto with J.Alfred Johnson II, the director of Sabbath School & Personal Ministries for the North American Division. The highlights of his presentation were to move our teachers from lecturing to facilitating, from class-room to holistic group where caring and sharing takes place. He placed a strong emphasis on the relational importance in the Sabbath School. The Sabbath School class is not a formal unit coming for a purpose of conducting a scholarly investigation once a week for 60 minutes. The Sabbath School class is a group of friends who disciple each other and keep each other accountable for growing in Christ, through the daily study of the Word, through the prayer and ministry to others.

Analyzing our current trends of church health I made an observation that while the understanding of Group’s relevance and necessity has increased significantly in our church, the process of multiplication, process of developing disciples has not improved. Imagine if the “open chair” concept would be the part of every group in our church. “Open Chair” stands for acknowledging that we always have an open room, and an extra seat for a new person in the group. This alone would motivate us to invite people. Once nurtured and integrated the group size would naturally produce a new daughter group. The Sabbath School has always been the primary tool of evangelism. Make it your priority – first to belong to a group, then to grow the group, and finally to reproduce the group and add a new group.

Elder Johnson emphasized the 5 goals of the Sabbath School: study, fellowship, outreach, mission and nurture. A special emphasis was given the last aspect – the Nurture. While different terms may be used the concepts are the same – the 4W of group life: Welcome, Word, Worship, Work. Welcome part is where fellowship begins. Worship is where fellowship is expressed in praise, where mission is celebrated. The Word segment is where the study takes place, and challenge to a mission is given. Work – is self-explanatory – the mission and outreach itself. The nurture takes place in every one of these phases of group life.

We nurture our body as we are welcomed to eat together in fellowship, we nurture our soul as we share and give praises together in worship. Our spirit is nurtured as we meditate on the Word in study. We nurture others as we work, and we are ourselves nurtured by God as we become His co-workers in the work of Evangelism. Think of these things, and may Nurture be the intrinsic part of our Welcome, Worship, Word and Work life together.