nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

400 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
ADULT DEPARTMENT PROMOTION
WILLIAM P. PHILLIPS. Superintendent
The Adult division of the Sunday school remains the greatest and most e
tensive source for enlarging our Sunday schools, providing workers, and financing
the kingdom. Perhaps 90 per cent of the resident church members not
enrolled in our Sunday schools are adults. If our churches could provide
the room for their adult constituency, it is believed most Sunday schools could
double their enrolment of adults in a short time. The three things most needed
now by our churches are more space, more classes, and more departments.
Our pastors, superintendents, and even our Sunday school forces must be
led to see that numbering more than half of the constituency of the Sunday
school, the Adult division must cease to be thought of as just another one of
the departments. It is more than that. The enlistment of men and women
for Bible study in the Sunday school holds the key to every worth-while objective
of the church and kingdom of God. Some progress has been made the
past year along several lines and toward several important objectives.
GRADING AND ANNUAL PROMOTION
From the beginning of the promotion of the department Sunday school
and grading of pupils, it has been evident to some of us for years, with the
pattern definitely set in departments below, that grading and annual promotion
with Adults in the Sunday school was ultimate and inevitable. Traditional attitudes
and historic ideas of the past have been forbidding, but vigorous promotion
the past several years has proved that our schools are responsive beyond
even our fondest hopes.
With such a vast constituency, and the multiplication of classes and departments
for Adults in our schools, local leaders have inaugurated grading
and annual promotion with marked success. Our two new leaflets produced
last year have accelerated progress in this direction. The erection of new
buddings will be a great influence in its accomplishment. In our judgment it is
one of the most significant steps in our present generation.
BETTER BIBLE TEACHING
n* }u h £ S b ^ 6 " gratLf ^^ t0 _ see the response to the efforts of this department
J? e *? A n P? 1 ?^ better teaching. Our contention in the field of or-
E S , r administration has been for smaller classes with reduced age
range which would make possible better teaching. The inauguration of state
and Southwide clinics is meeting a real need in promoting better teaching As
many as six hundred attended the Adult Division of our first SouthwSeBibk
Teaching Clinic last September in Birmingham. Alabama sSflaT teacWng
clinics have been held in several states the past year. oimiiai teaciung
THE RESIDENT ADULT CHURCH MEMBER
As already indicated fully 90 per cent of the resident church me
numbering nearly two million not enrolled in Sunday school are adults The
campaigns. Several of our state Sunday school leaders Ire condnctinJ K
campaigns with gratifying results. ^'M.uuctmg tnese
Two NEW LEAFLETS
During the past year we have produced two very important leaflet* The
first is a review of Sunday school progress the past twentyJfivev4rt The
second is designed to offer a new ministry for Adult men'- o HLf n