Sunday School
Now Playing: How do we reach out to children with the gospel ?
Topic: Outreach
And now a word as to the mode of working a Sunday School.

You must remember it is an individual service to be carried on in personal responsibility to the Lord. No doubt it is most important to have full fellowship in your work with your fellow labourers, and with all your brethren; but the work of a superintendent or a teacher must be carried on in direct personal responsibility to the Lord, and according to the measure nvolved in this work than in any other individual service, such as the Sunday evening preaching, cottage meetings, lectures or Bible classes; though most assuredly the Assembly, if in a spiritual, healthy condition, will have the fullest fellowship with the Sunday School, as well as with the entire range of personal work for the Lord.

You will find, if we mistake not, that in order to work a Sunday School effectively, you must have a good superintendent -- a person of energy, order, and rule. The old proverb, 'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' is especially applicable here. We have seen several Sunday Schools come to the ground from not being properly worked.

Persons take up the work for a time, and then let it drop. This will never do. The superintendent, the teachers, and the visitors must enter upon their blessed work, not by fits and starts, but with calm determination and spiritual energy; and having entered upon it, they must carry it on with real purpose of heart.

It will not do for the superintendent to leave his school, or the teacher to leave his class, to chance, under the plea of leaving it to the Lord. We believe the Lord expects him to be at his post, or to find a proper substitute in case of illness or any other unavoidable cause of absence.

It is of the utmost importance that every branch of Sunday School work should be undertaken and carried on with freshness, heart-zeal and energy, and thorough personal devotedness. And, inasmuch as these can only be had at the Divine Treasury, all who are engaged in the service should meet together for prayer and conference. Nothing can be more deplorable than to see a Sunday School falling into decay through lack of diligence and perseverance on the part of those who have taken it up.

No doubt there are many hindrances; and the work itself is very uphill and very discouraging; but, oh! if our words have any weight, we would say, with heartfelt emphasis, to all who are engaged in this most precious service, Let nothing damp your ardour, or hinder the work. Go on! go on! and may the Lord of the harvest crown your labours with the richest and the best blessings.

We need hardly remark that we do not contemplate such a thing as unconverted persons taking any part in the work of the Sunday Schools. Indeed, we know of few things more sad than to see a person engaged in teaching others that in which the teacher has neither part nor lot himself. No doubt God is sovereign, and He can and does use His own Word, even in the lips of an unconverted person; but this in no wise alters the melancholy fact in reference to the person so used. We could not think for a single moment of admitting or inviting any one to take part in the work of the Sunday School, if we had not satisfactory evidence of his conversion to God. To do so would be to help him on in fatal delusion. --

C.H.Mackintosh