By B. McClain Cochran

It is fall again, as we go through Indian Summer. What goals have you set for your Sunday school? Are you just moving from crisis to crisis in the classes? What are you really trying to do? The goal of every Sunday school should be to increase membership, spread the Good News and become involved in the lives of the pupils, as members of the family of God! The goal of classroom teaching should be to enable the class to experience the life changing power of the Gospel and the joy of knowing that we are members of the family of God. This means we must search in every lesson for that which offers a blessing and a help to all who participate. It is not enough to be merely "teaching a lesson." There are pains, fears and life needs to be met – away with anything that dulls sensitivity to others’ needs, impersonal lecturing, dry reading or irrelevant facts. It is time for meaningful discussion and interaction that helps to discover the exciting truth from God’s love’!

This kind of Sunday school brings life and vitality to perhaps that which has been "dry old bones." Thus, we must all read more new books, attend teacher training classes, be creative, bring out the tape recorder, the overhead, the video recorder and, by all means, use community resources!

This is based on the fact that you are willing to grow. Most people who become negative and uncooperative usually want to keep things "as they have always been" – but the Sunday school exists in a changing world. Methods of the past may not reach the people of today. We must all be finding new and better ways to communicate the Gospel. "Let him that thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall."