Sunday School Teachers Planning Meeting

Download as PDFIn June, contact your Sunday school teachers and offer them this suggested outline for a basic planning meeting. Ideally everyone should receive the agenda at least one week in advance. And of course, any meeting goes better with food. Fruit has the special ability of being easy to bring and of helping make thoughts lively!

The planning meeting will require about 2 hours—important information for parents who may need to arrange childcare in order to participate. You could also decide to make the meeting “family friendly” and have an engaging activity for the children to do while you meet. Slot in a break at an agreed-upon time.

1. Welcome and thanks to each person present.  1 min
2. Find out how long each person can be at the meeting. Set a firm closing time based on what you hear.  2 mins
3. Say a prayer.  3 mins
4. Read Luke 18:15–17  3 mins
5. Ask each person why they are here. What is the one thing they really want to see get done?   10 mins
6. Add any hopes and wishes to the end of this list. 3 mins
7. Present the Key Calendar, the total plan for the year. Consider the plan for each month.  5 mins
8.  Present the volunteer needs and decide how they can be shared. 10 mins

If you have more than one teacher, consider:

a. Does each teacher want to take on more than one month? If you are lucky enough to have four teachers, then each teacher need only take on 2-1/2 months. If you have two teachers, each would take on five months.

b. Does each teacher want to take on one day a month? This can be a great alternative, especially if any teachers are particularly interested in one of the monthly activities (for instance, Music Sunday) and want to focus on that.c. Remember, Children’s Gift Sunday once a month means that all Sunday school teachers can monitor the children together and hear the sermon!

9. Write who will be taking which Sunday on the Key Calendar.  5 mins
10. Discuss what needs to happen in the event a teacher is sick.  5 mins
11. Discuss how you can best offer “spiritual support” to each other, especially for months when one is teaching.  10 mins
    1. Would the group like to have monthly dinners together?
    2. What if the dinners were prepared during one afternoon at the church and then everyone took home the dinners? St. Stephen’s Saskatoon has found this to be an excellent way of getting parents together.
12. Look through the What You Need section. Agree on a method of gathering each item. Agree on a place to store items.   10 mins
    1. Consider putting out a call in the church bulletin for gathering the What You Need items. Know that you may have to announce a cut-off date.
13. If you are going to take on Children’s Gift Sunday, extra organizationwill be required. It’s worth it!  15 mins
    1. a. If you want to do this but aren’t sure how welcomed the children will be, talk to clergy if you haven’t already. Make sure that the children can see the blessing of the bread up close!
    2. b. Consider a good team for the children to start working with—often this is the Welcoming Team. Perhaps starting off a Children’s Gift Sunday means that you start with one task, with the help of the Welcoming Team. Decide how you are going to let families know what their tasks are. Refer to Children’s Gift Sunday planning documents. Set a date for approaching other team leaders to expand the children’s involvement when the time is right.
    3. Consider what you will do if there are any complaints about children’s noise in church. Sometimes simply having a place for written feedback is enough.  Know that it will take a few Sundays for children to get used to being quiet in church. Inclusion is a journey.
    4. Many groups of healthy children include one toddler who, despite their parents’ best efforts, runs around. Suggest that very little children wear slippers. You would be surprised how much hassle this simple step can prevent! Know that this “running about” usually lasts only about a month.
14. Talk about the possibility of each teacher getting First Aid certification. Review the disaster evacuation plan for your church and decide how it will affect the  Sunday school when it is in session. 15 mins
15. Summarize any main points or agreements that you have made. A review of the above steps will help you. 3 mins
16. Agree on a time for the next meeting. 2 mins
17. Pray 5 mins

Remember to review your disaster evacuation plan at each meeting.