While getting young kids to pay attention in church has often required miracles, something about this moment seems to reflect a broader current about Sunday school. Many a prayer has been said over the fate of the vaunted American institution, whose struggles cut across denominational lines. Between 1997 and 2004, churches lost tens of thousands of Sunday school programs, according to data from the Barna Group, and more recent studies show that enrollment has fallen across denominations. From 2004 to 2010, for example, Sunday school attendance dropped nearly 40 percent among Evangelical Lutheran churches in America and almost 8 percent among Southern Baptist churches, prompting speculation that the problem may be more than just a decline in American religiosity.
Parents and kids, as we all know, are just too busy on weekends, with everything from professional-level sports training to eight-hour SAT...
Dr. Joel Beeke | 1/3/2010
