Finding New Sunday School Workers

If your Sunday school is like most, you probably have a yearly problem of finding enough people to serve as Sunday school teachers and workers. How can you find the people that you need for these positions? Here are a few tips:

Conduct a church-wide survey to discover the talents and interests of your members. You might include questions like: Have you ever taught Sunday school? If so, what age group? What age group do you prefer to work with? Maintain information on file cards or a computer.

Personal contacts. Make a list of people that you can see as potential teachers. Make an effort to talk to each person on your list in person (no letters or phone calls). Talk with them and get information about them. Have they ever taught Sunday school? Have they had special training? What special aptitude do they have for teaching?

Observe your Sunday school members. Talk with current teachers in the adult and youth departments. Ask them to suggest persons that they can see with ministry and participation potential.

Vacation Bible School. V.B.S. is a great place to get people involved in teaching and helping in teaching. Look at each person who helped with your V.B.S. and the potential they might have as a Sunday school teacher.

Extend an invitation. Inviting people to volunteer to teach Sunday school can have both its positive and negative sides. You might get persons to volunteer that you really don’t want to be a Sunday school teacher (for whatever reason). When a person volunteers, it can be hard to tell them that you don’t want them. But, on the other hand, asking for volunteers may help you come up with names of persons that you simply didn’t think about. When asking for volunteers, keep the invitation flexible enough so that you are free to move persons to jobs where they can be of best service.

Spiritual gifts inventory. This is a "test" that can help inventory the spiritual gifts possessed by the members of your church. Discovering spiritual gifts can help indicate ministry potential in particular areas such as teaching Sunday school.

(This article appeared in the "Fall, 1995" issue of "The Herald.")