Fun-day school

WICHITA, Kan. — A relatively new concept for conducting Sunday school has a growing number of churches overcoming historic problems: Bored children. Declining attendance.

And teacher recruitment.

The lesson plans cost less than most traditional programs. And that’s a development under close scrutiny and debate by publishers of Sunday school curricula.

Loosely called the “rotation model,” it focuses on repeating a Bible story or lesson for several weeks through hands-on, multimedia workshops.

Grouped by age, children spend one Sunday school hour at a different workshop — from computer labs, to art and music rooms, to rooms simulating Bible scenes.

This national grass-roots movement involves hundreds of churches that are using the rotation model for Sunday school.

They represent from 5 percent to 6 percent of all U.S. churches, according to Cook Communications Ministries, a Christian publisher in Colorado Springs.

“I think it’s a renaissance of Sunday school,” said Lois Keffer, Cook’s editorial director and a children’s author.

“Children see this great environment created for them. They say, ‘Wow, they did this for us?’ “

While some churches are buying curricula from established publishers, others are writing their own or downloading it free from the Web site www.rotation.org.

With help from that Web site, University Congregational Church in Wichita is setting up classrooms, with a variety of creatively designed workshops, to debut the rotation model Sept. 12.

Weekly attendance is usually about 60 children. The church’s pastor, Gary Cox, thinks that will increase over time and help children learn more of the Bible.

“It’s so hands on,” he said. “It’s not ‘Let’s go listen to the Sunday school teacher talk and make some Popsicle Jesuses.’ It’s experiential.”

The movement began with a handful of Christian educators at churches in the Chicago area in the early 1990s. They were determined to reverse the decline in their Sunday school attendance.

The Web site itself was created by Neil MacQueen, a Presbyterian minister from Ohio and a founder of the rotation model.

He and others who devised the rotation model say they think it changes a long-standing church paradigm. Instead of the traditional method of teaching a new lesson each week, the model emphasizes fewer lessons, repetition and experiential learning techniques already proven in public school settings.

“In the past we’ve said, `I’m just going to tell you what you need to know, and you need to learn it,’ which obviously doesn’t translate into a transformed life,” said Mickie O’Donnell, executive director of Children’s Ministries of America, an Illinois-based group that assists churches in alternative models for Sunday school.

Because the same teacher gives the same workshop for only a few weeks in the rotation model, fewer teachers have burnout and more church members volunteer to teach, founders said.

Teachers can improve on the workshop from week to week and choose lessons that fit their talents and schedule, whether for one month or several.

Church members who don’t enjoy teaching but are skilled in painting or building props often help out.

Many churches using the rotation model say money that used to go to publishers for curriculum now pays for designing elaborate workshops.

“We were paying $1,800 a year for curriculum, and we’ll use that to do workshop stuff,” said Karen Robu, director of youth ministries at University Congregational Church.

The rotation model Web site, in effect, creates a free cooperative program and support group. Besides the downloads, churches can read and post successful ideas.

“The Web is a godsend to the church,” MacQueen said. “It’s a way to communicate across grassroots that can bypass the publishers.”

Westwood Presbyterian Church in Wichita began the rotation model eight years ago.

Its Sunday school grew from 12 to 41 members and includes a number of adult volunteer teachers. Church leaders credit the rotation model for the increased attendance.

Several rooms were turned into permanent workshops for artwork, storytelling and watching movies. There’s also a computer lab and music room.

“The Bible should be exciting for people,” said Brenda Simmons, a Sunday school teacher at Westwood who helped set up the program.

“I want them to have this lifelong hunger for God’s word. And this is how we can do that.”

But Christian publishers differ over whether the rotation model is a breakthrough for Christian education.

Some say the new model could cut into their market because churches no longer will buy their curriculum, opting to write their own or download it for free from the rotation.org Web site.

In addition, the rotation model requires 10 to 12 lessons a year as opposed to 52 with traditional curriculum — a potential loss in revenue for publishers.

Some publishers fully support the new program and have made or are planning new rotation curriculum.

Cook Communications Ministries will publish curriculum for it in January written by O’Donnell and Vickie Bare, both among the movement’s founders.

Cook’s program will differ from material on rotation.org, Keffer said, because it incorporates early childhood education research and more comprehensive biblical content.

“Some of it (rotation.org materials) is good,” Keffer said. “Some stinks. Very little is brilliant.”

Officials with Gospel Light, a large publisher of Sunday school materials in California, do not publish specific curriculum for the rotation model. And they are careful not to denounce or endorse it.

It can foster creativity and enthusiasm among teachers and children, said Sheryl Haystead, senior managing editor of Gospel Light’s Sunday school and Vacation Bible School curricula. In some cases, it can offer a healthy “change of pace,” she said.

But some churches lack the staff to handle the administrative load with the rotation model, she said. And other churches can’t set aside Sunday school rooms exclusively for semi-permanent workshops because the rooms may be needed for other purposes.

Haystead also questions whether self-written or free materials from a Web site have the same quality standards of established publishers.

“I can see the benefits of creativity, but in the long term, I think the child’s biblical knowledge isn’t fully developed,” she said.

But MacQueen says churches have found much of the Web site material to increase attendance and meet spiritual needs.

“We’re not interested in putting publishers out of business,” he said. “Christian educators want to be creative, and when you’re creative and happy about the methods, it’s very attractive to the learner.”