CHRISTIAN
EDUCATION
f 1BUSINESS
Looking Ahead In Christian Ed
Here's a Complete Plan For a
Workable Mother's Day Program
by Margaret Jacobsen Special days can always be used to bring special blessing to the Sunday school. This will be true of Mother’s Day if, on this appropriate occasion, we make a definite attempt to tie the home and the church together. How many children in your Sun day school come to church with the neighbors? How many come on the church bus? How many are left at the church by their own parents? How many.parents who are church members have ever actually visited your department? Some of the mothers and fathers of your boys and girls would really feel queer in vis iting a church. Parents can be shy, too, more shy than children, and very hesitant in going to a place where most people know each other and where they themselves are strangers, and do not know just what is ex pected of them. How would you feel about visiting a synagogue, a lodge, a Roman Catholic mass, or a Chris tian Science testimony meeting with no special invitation? On the West Coast, the percentage of Sunday school students whose par ents do not belong to, nor attend church runs as high as 66%. With these things in mind, we will plan for a Mother’s Day slanted both toward reaching the parent and to ward helping the child honor his mother in the Lord. It is not neces sary to plan elaborately nor to upset our regular teaching schedule in order to make it count in reaching the home for Christ. In many of the departments, an open house for mothers in the Sunday school hour is the most effective thing we can do. The regular program of worship and teaching are followed. After all, mothers are interested in what actually goes on in the train ing of the children, and what we do week after week should have enough spiritual content to b,e a real blessing to the parent. The only real special feature will be the presence and hon oring of the mothers. For several Sundays before the open house, the superintendent, teach
Many teachers will be happy to have the mothers visit the children’s class if physical facilities are ade quate, and this is certainly to be en couraged, for the home and church must work together for the spiritual welfare of the child. What about the conflict that will occur in families where there are several members in various depart ments of the Sunday school? Maybe this can be alleviated by having some departments emphasize Mother’s Day, but inviting both parents. Others em phasize Father’s Day and invite both parents. With t h e older departments, mother and daughter banquets on a week night may provide satisfactory home contacts. Individual classes of girls can plan mother and daughter teas which will bring the parents to gether for a program which grows out of the Sunday morning Bible study of the class. This program will use the students as much as possible and give a spiritual message, ac quainting the parents with the teach er, superintendent, pastor and other church parents. Whatever the celebration of Moth er’s Day on the part of the Sunday school, it should be remembered that the purpose is to make the parents feel welcome, at home and hungry for help in their own spiritual growth. The parents should be courteously en couraged to stay to the morning wor ship service and sit with their fam ilies. The home and the church are work ing together in the life of the child. Over the years we have found that the pupil who drops out of Sunday school in junior high is the one whose parents do not really care whether he attends Sunday school or not. Where we reach a child for the Lord we reach a life, but where we reach a mother, a father and a child, we have had a part with the Lord in the establishment of a solid Chris tian home. Let us do our best to see that Mother comes to worship on Mother’s Day.
ers and the children plan together for the Sunday when their mothers will be there. The children know just what will happen, when to bring their mothers, where to seat them and any part the child will need to play. He and his teacher together plan how he will introduce his mother to her if they have not met before, and how he will give his mother a flower when the time comes. Perhaps he helps to make an invitation for the open house. Certainly he takes a special one home (pinned on him, if he is very young.) While it is important for the child to take home an invitation (the mother will come if he really wants her to), it is also important that the teacher contact each mother with a special invitation by phone. The mother who does not attend Sunday school needs a special invitation,' and the mothers from adult classes should be asked to act as co-hostesses with the teacher, and be especially friend ly to the unchurched parents, greet ing each with some expression of love and appreciation of her child. The worship program will continue as usual, but the story can well be about a godly mother of Scripture, Lois and Eunice (for some grand mothers will be there instead of mothers), or Hannah, or Mary, the mother of our Lord. “ God honored each of these mothers and their chil dren loved and honored them too. Today we want to show our mothers that we love them, and so each one of you is going to pin a flower on his own mother.” Carnations or bouquets of sweet peas can be used % for departmental decorations; then each child whose mother is present can be provided with a flower and a pin, so that he can give the flower to his mother, and return quietly to his seat. A Scripture verse may be attached to the flower (Prov. 31:28). P ra y e r, thanking God for mothers and asking Him to bless them every day, will be a fitting climax to the worship serv ice.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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