In the history of Christianity, Sunday schools, youth groups, and children s church are a relatively recent phenomena. All of these programs find their origin in well-intentioned, sometimes helpful, but often pragmatic approaches to discipleship. In this message, the evolution of the Sunday School Movement (SSM) is traced from its early days as a well-intentioned Social Gospel outreach to children without Christian parents, through its nineteenth century response to the feminization of Christianity, and ultimately to its ...
Read More
In the history of Christianity, Sunday schools, youth groups, and children s church are a relatively recent phenomena. All of these programs find their origin in well-intentioned, sometimes helpful, but often pragmatic approaches to discipleship. In this message, the evolution of the Sunday School Movement (SSM) is traced from its early days as a well-intentioned Social Gospel outreach to children without Christian parents, through its nineteenth century response to the feminization of Christianity, and ultimately to its various twentieth century manifestations often as a spiritual band-aid for male abdication of responsibility within the home. Careful distinctions are drawn between age-segregated, peer-based, discipleship models, with their origins in evolutionary social theory on the one hand, and discipleship models which find their origins in biblical principles of local church-trained, family-based, parent-directed discipleship on the other hand."
Read Less
