Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School is a pdf book by author Elmer Towns about how to revitalize your Sunday School program.





As a warning to all, Elmer Towns is a professor at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. If you go to Towns website, there are endorsements from several famous people, one being David Yongii Cho, the South Korean pastor with supposedly “the largest evangelical church” in the world, where Cho praises his friendship with Towns. Cho is on the pentecostal bent, but even his own denomination has cast him out because of his mixture of Oriental religions into his doctrine and practices. I, David Cox, would not endorse Cho because his understanding of salvation is too far from Scripture to be valid, and his introduction of Buddist concepts into his teaching makes him a false prophet all a round. Be very careful with Towns teachings. They fall exactly in line with Hyles Anderson, Jack Hyles understanding of easy believism being acceptable. As long as they show outward success, lots of people, money, fame, etc., they believe that they are pleasing God.

Contents

Contents of PDF Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School*

CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Healthy Attitudes Lead to Success
2. Recognize the Nature of the Sunday School
3. Recognize the Role of the Sunday School Teacher
4. Recognizing Why Sunday Schools Are Not Growing
5. Return to Traditional Laws of Sunday School Growth
6. Recognizing Three Danger Levels of Growth
7. Recognizing the Differences
in Evangelism
8. F.R.A.N.GELISM
9. The Adult Bible Class
10. Practical Steps to Grow the Sunday School Class
11. How to Set an Attendance Goal
12. Administering a Growing Sunday School
Appendices
1. The Laws of Sunday School Growth
2. A Room Decoration Contest
3. Twenty Helps to Motivate Pupils
Endnotes
Bibliography
Glossary
Index


Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School*

154_Steps_to_Revitalize_Your_SSETowns.pdf (5412 downloads )

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Also see our site dedicated to Sunday School in Spanish, https://www.maestro-de-escuela-dominical.com/

Sample portions from the Work

Chapter 2
The third word in our strategy is also translated teaching, but is a different Greek word
than the previous one for teaching. The verb here is didaskontes, meaning teaching in the
sense of giving instruction. Those who become disciples of Christ must become a part of His
church and be taught His commands if they are to grow spiritually and become a part of a
growing church. And teaching is where Sunday School becomes an indispensable
foundation of church growth.
RECOGNIZE THE NATURE OF SUNDAY SCHOOL
Some people have the wrong idea about Sunday School and as a result fail to see its
importance in the revitalization and growth of their church. They think Sunday School is
only for kids, or is an out-dated method. Others think of Sunday School as a contest that
rewards losers with a pie in the face. Someone repeating this tortured view said, “When is a
school not a school? When it is a Sunday School!”
Just as the New Testament church was built on teaching and preaching, so the modern
biblical church must be built on Bible study in Sunday School and exhortation in the
preaching service. Sunday School is functionally defined as the reaching, teaching, winning,
maturing arm of the church. This fourfold nature of Sunday School is perhaps best expressed
in an Old Testament verse which has often been used in the historic Sunday School
conventions to express the nature of Sunday School. “Gather the people together, men and
women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that
they may learn to fear the Lord your God, and carefully observe all the words of this law”
(Deut. 31:12). This verse reflects the four distinct areas of Sunday School ministry.
STEP 4: Sunday School Is the Reaching Arm
First, Sunday School is the evangelistic reaching arm of the church. Reaching is defined
as making contact with a person and motivating him to give an honest hearing to the Gospel.
Since evangelism is giving out the Gospel, reaching is basically pre-evangelism; for it is
what we do to get people to listen to the Gospel. In our text, it is expressed in the word
“gather. ” Note those who are gathered, (1) fathers, (2) mothers, (3) little ones or children,
and (4) “the stranger.” Most church members have someone within their sphere of influence
who is a stranger to the church who could be gathered into the church.
STEP 5: Sunday School Is the Teaching Arm
Second, Sunday School is the teaching arm of the church. Teaching is guiding the
learning activities that meet human needs. The first step of teaching is expressed in the
words of the verse, “that they may hear. ” The ultimate step of teaching is “that they may
learn.”
STEP 6: Sunday School Is the Winning Arm
Sunday School is also the arm of the church that wins people to Christ. Winning is
defined as communicating the Gospel in an understandable manner and motivating a person
to respond. The Old Testament expression “fear the Lord” meant bringing a person to

APPENDIX 1 THE LAWS OF SUNDAY SCHOOL GROWTH

People have used many gimmicks to build Sunday School attendance such as prizes,
carnivals, and offering the world’s largest pizza, Popsicle, or banana split. But after people
have tried a promotion that usually works once, they often return to the tried and proven laws
of Sunday School growth. Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School

The laws of Sunday School growth are not new, they just seem to be new to those who
have never seen them. Just as everything seems to run in cycles, the old laws have become
new again, and Sunday School is returning to the basics.
When followed, these Sunday School laws have always brought results. When these
laws are ignored, Sunday School results are limited and partial. These laws of growth are not
man-made. They are scriptural, in that the responsibility for evangelism, growth, and
maturity of the local church is on the Christian and not just on the pastor or professional
worker. If a Sunday School depends on the pastor for its growth, the outreach of the Sunday
School will only be as large as the outreach of the pastor. If the Sunday School depends on
every member for its growth, then the outreach is unlimited.

These laws of growth reflect averages in Sunday School attendance over the years. They
are proven by experience and will work in any Sunday School regardless of size, type, or
clientele.

1. Enrollment increases in proportion to workers at a ratio of 10 to 1. Almost every Sunday
School has 10 times as many students as teachers. Therefore the law necessitates at least 1
teacher for every 10 students in the Sunday School. Generally, when there is an over ratio of
workers, it is because the workers are not adequately fulfilling their job as Sunday School
teachers to reach, teach, win, and mature their students in the Word of God. In contrast, a
church with unusual effort and hard work may lift this ratio for a while, but it is most
difficult to maintain large classes for a period of more than a few months, unless there are
extraneous circumstances or unusual pressure by the teacher.

There are a few large classes in our Sunday Schools that are doing the job. But they are
the exception rather than the rule. The large classes are usually built around a strong
personality. Total Sunday School growth usually comes from new classes, not from old large
classes. The first law of Sunday School growth would imply several principles. Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School

A. Begin new classes.

A Sunday School, by reducing its ratio of 10 to 1, will quite often grow. If the
possibilities justify this expansion and if the new units work to reach their neighborhood,
the class will soon be lifted to the 10 to 1 ratio, if the other laws of growth are applied.
We grow by creating new units and conquering new territory.

B. Teacher training.

We cannot create new classes without having trained workers to take over the new
classes. Hence, it is necessary to start teacher-training classes to provide more workers.
Most Sunday Schools think that the way to grow is to first get students and then provide
the teachers. This is backward. The way to grow is to recruit new teachers and send
them out to enlist new students. Hence, teacher training is important to the growth of a
Sunday School.

C. Class average

Towns 154 Steps to Revitalize your Sunday School

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