Why the Great Commission Resurgence Should Also Mean a Sunday School/Small Group Resurgence

I just returned from what I believe will prove to be an important turning point for the Southern Baptist Convention. With an estimated 95% approval, the convention voted to adopted the appointment of a task force to examine the effectiveness of the convention (at both the local, state, and national level) in our Great Commission efforts. While it was no surprise that some attempted to paint this move as political, I firmly believe that it is truly the heart of the task force and the messengers to evaluate whether we as Southern Baptist's are leveraging all our resources (financial, structural, and personnel) to most effectively carry out the Great Commission in the 21st Century. The approval of messengers on this matter set the tone for the rest of the convention. As a young Southern Baptist Pastor I left the convention with a renewed hope that we are moving as a convention to a place of significant Kingdom impact. For the first time in a longtime I felt we made a statement about what we are for and not just all the things we are against. The messengers set the tone for better accountability and missional vision as we continue to move toward a Great Commission Resurgence. I felt both inspired and encouraged as a result of my time in Louisville. A personal highlight was the passage of a resolution on Adoption and orphan care. Please take a moment and read the resolution presented by Dr. Russell Moore (http://www.russellmoore.com/2009/05/19/on-adoption-and-orphan-care-a-proposed-resolution/)

So if we are now prayerfully moving as a convention toward a Great Commission Resurgence. How does this effect the local church and in particularly Educational Ministry? To be honest I am not sure yet. We will not hear from the Task Force until next June, but here is what I hope happens in local churches across the denomination.

1) I hope each church will reevaluate how they are spending the tithes and offerings within their church. Is the thinking "Kingdom minded" or "build my church."

2) I hope churches will evaluate how much the are giving to the Cooperative Program and to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which goes to fund missionaries on the international field. In the report from the IMB (given at the convention) we were notified that God has called numerous Southern Baptist's to the mission field and yet there is not enough money to send them. Let me remind us that there is plenty of money. The problem is that the money is still in the pockets of Southern Baptists. We have a couple in our church that this has directly effected by this "lack of sending funds."

3) I hope churches will take the whole Great Commission seriously. We tend to put the focus of the efforts on verse 19 and sometime miss the power and weight of Matthew 28 verse 20. We get the part of "Go and make disciples" and "baptise them." My fear is that sometimes we may forget verse 20 which begins with "teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you." Where does this teaching happen? And what exactly are we supposed to teach? Certainly this teaching can and should happen in the pulpit. Pastors ought to have gospel centered preaching and should take the task of preaching very seriously. I would argue that while this is vital (and must happen in churches who take the GC seriously) it should not be the only place that this type of "teaching" should be done. I would like to argue that a large part of this teaching can effectively be done in small groups or Sunday School (Without getting into the technicalities of either I will use the terms interchangeably from this point on). We know that people have different learning styles and that people sometimes need to hear something taught both repetitiously as well as interactionally. Methodologically small groups can be effective at both. I am not the one to argue only for a traditional Sunday School model nor for a in home small group only model (our church has both and they are both hybrids of each other) I will argue that breaking the masses down into small groups enhance both the teaching and learning experience. It is clear that Jesus taught both to the crowds and to the disciples. In fact one could make a case that the most specific instruction was made primarily to only the small group of twelve.
The second aspect of the question is what are we to teach? It is my belief from the passage that we are to teach more than knowledge. We were instructed to teach people how to obey. The Scripture says "teaching them to observe everything." So did Jesus teach the crowds how to observe or obey more effectively in crowds or in small groups? I believe the small group. See John 6:52 and following for an example of which group was able to observe his teaching and which group bailed out on Him.

I write all this to say that I am a firm believer that if we see a resurgence to the priority of Great Commission verse 19 then we need to see equal attention and effort being placed on verse 20. While no methodology is perfect I believe that Jesus modeled teaching in a small group for a reason. He must have believed that it was an effective method. It is my prayer that we will see a renewed effort to see the gospel taken to all tribes tongues and nations while not forgetting the importance of considering how and why we are going to teach people to be obedient to Christ and his gospel.
May we see a Great Commission Resurgence in our churches that produces authentic, spirit-filled men and women, boys and girls, who are learning to take the gospel to the nations while developing a heart of obedience toward the things of Christ. I still believe that Small Groups/SS is a powerful method for seeing that happen.