As the new year begins, one habit I would challenge you to start — either as an individual or as an entire family — is participating in Sunday School.

 

The name “Sunday School” might sound a bit hokey to you (to be honest, it does to me!). The name might make you think of catholic schools and disciplinarian nuns or drab Church basements with sad decorations. School is for kids, and we’re not kids anymore!

 

Yet, it's hard to underestimate what God can do with that hour if you commit it to Him, to his Word, and to his people. Sunday School is a chance for you to primarily do two things: to learn and to connect. 

 

We all have so many questions about our faith and about how to live it out: questions about the Bible, questions about theology, questions about evangelism, questions about prayer, questions about the controversial and heated issues of our day. It’s easy in our hyper individualistic world to think that these questions will best be answered on our own: by personal study, by online articles, by podcasts and social media influencers. The guy on youtube with 20,000 subscribers staring deep into the camera does indeed sound convincing!

 

And yet, we know from both our personal experience and from the generations that came before us that the best learning happens face to face. The best learning, the lasting kind of learning, happens in real relationships. Sunday School is a chance to learn face to face. It’s a chance to ask questions face to face. And it’s a chance to wrestle with difficult topics and apply them to our lives together. 

 

This Winter, between Greg Phelan’s class on apologetics and Patrick Bandy’s family group you have two incredible options for adult Sunday School. 

 

Greg’s class will challenge you to think deeply about why you believe what you believe about God and how you might communicate those beliefs with those around you. The class is modeled off of much of the late Tim Keller’s teaching which is highly applicable to our context in the Northeast. In Greg’s class you won’t just get to hear about how to defend your faith, but you’ll have the chance to talk through the particular conversations you have about faith with non-believers. The class will be a chance not just to learn from Greg and from the class notes, but from others as they share their experiences with evangelism and apologetics. 

 

Patrick’s class will connect you deeply to the body of Christ. For some of us, weekday evening small groups are just hard to manage with kids’ bedtimes or late work evenings. Others of us just need more community and connection than one weeknight can provide. Patrick’s class is a chance to experience a small group on a Sunday morning, to listen to wise teaching from Scripture from Patrick, but also to share life, to pray for one another, and to carry one another’s burdens. Patrick’s class is an opportunity to, as Paul said in 1st Thessalonians, “share our lives with each other.”