Modern Methods In Sunday School Work - The New Evangelism

THE NEW EVANGELISM Rev. George Whitefield Mead, Author of Modern Methods in Church Work Jehovah of hosts is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in that sort of wisdom which causes things to succeed. Isaiah New York, 4K ab anti 1909 Copyright, 1903, By DOM, MEAD AND COMPANY. Se fcatefc To THOSE LEADERS OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND WORK WHOSE KINDLY CONTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION HAS MADE POSSIBLE THIS PUBLICATION. PREFACE EXPLANATORY. The genesis of this book was my desire for the improvement of the Sunday-schools tinder my immediate care. As a pastor, I found myself pitifully inadequate to meet the requirements of Sunday-school work. It had been my privilege but a few years ago to study in a representative theological seminary, where I covered the full courses of catechetics 1 pastoral theol ogy, etc., yet the training of this representative institu tion did not train relative to the principles, problems, needs and growing demands of this foundation work of the Church, the Bible-school. In parish work, therefore I found myself in the growing years unequipped, and face to face with the awful alternative that the Sunday school must be unproved or suffer the loss as the Church at large, for the most part, has suffered for years of scores of youth. I raised the question, What can I do For suggestion I consulted every known publication on Sunday-school work and methods. These books say many excellent things and can be read with profit, but I found too much of theory, abstract reasoning, and presentation of thought from the view-point of one man for the meet ing of practical need. I, therefore, sought through per sonal visitation and correspondence to learn from the most experienced and successfulSunday-school workers who are now actually in the field and who are doing things, I sought to learn from them the full descriptions of their actual working methods A generous response gave a wealth of information. Successful workers of all de nominations placed before me the improved methods v PREFACE which are giving such large results in their own work, methods which have been reached by many of these work ers only after years of experience, experiment and conse crated toil. The purpose of this volume, therefore, is to set forth these improved methods which are giving such large and inspiring results in the more successful Sun day-schools of to-day, together with their underlying principles in the light of the new educational ideals. With such purpose in a book, the authors part is, indeed, a humble part but even so, a book must represent a hitherto uncovered field if its publication is to have justification. I present this volume, therefore, in the belief that it is the first book of its kind collecting from the current life and progressive work of modern Sunday-schools their own account of their administrative methods, carefully collating, presenting and explaining the essential details of their various successful plans giving facts and sug gestions of the best methods of the best workers of the several denominations suited to the work of the smaller, as well as of the larger, Sunday-schools and making a special feature of the work the reproduction of the printed matter used in the work of progressive schools, such as honor rolls, profile and star charts, certificates, diplomas, bulletins, tokens, cards of merit, letters to teachers and pupils, report cards, blank forms, invitationsand other valuable aids as in actual use in the parish agencies. It is the regret of both author and publishers that this latter feature of the work has added materially to the cost of the book. Of course, it is not my belief that any one school can use all the methods herein outlined, but that schools can select from these methods that have been successful with others and adapt them to, and many times improve upon them for, their own use...