The Role of Sunday School in Nation’s Transformation

(A reflective writing as a response to a seminar on “Pendidikan, Guru dan Transformasi Bangsa” by “Dr. James Riyadi”)

The advance of technology is like a coin with two sides. In one side, it seems to help the world in many ways such as the quick information people can browse from internet to know what’s going on in the other side of the world or  some learning materials a student may gain to enrich his/her knowledge. It is ,however, in the other side, have brought many negative things or we can even say ‘big problems’ to the world. This advance is not simply problematic but ruinous. A good example of this is the bad uneducated programs of television that seem to mislead our kids and try to corrupt them slowly. It shows that the advance of technology in the world, in fact, has become a great disaster for human being, especially for the young generation.

 The big problems from this advanced technology can be found all around the world. What we have seen lately on the news about wikileaks website has become a good example of how this advance can ruin this world. Let us imagine how a chaos may possibly occur just because a very secret message from one nation is exposed to other nation that is not supposed to get that message. Imagine how nations are against each other! Doesn’t it mean that the third world war may happen? But the worst effect probably doesn’t come from what is previously mentioned. Many people might think that United Nations will handle that chaos. So, what is the worst? The answer is that it ruins the foundation of the nation, that is family. If we want to be honest we can find the reality from our society that there are many broken families due to divorce all around the world in a day. Can you imagine how can a building keep standing steadfastly if its foundation has broken? It can never stand.

What ,then could be the solution for all these problems? Education is the key of preventing such disaster. However, education itself, nowadays, has turned to be more practical and in some ways has neglected the most important thing of all, that is the truth. Most Christian schools merely focus on students’ cognitive whereas forgetting the growth of spirit. They seem to provide the students for working in factories rather than establishing the foundation of their eternity. Holly bible is found boring and very old-fashioned by many young students. Just think about it, how can we survive in this wicked world with its destructive advanced technology if we do not have a strong root as the main substance to stand in that is the truth from the bible? It’s all in vain. Meaning that education system is weak and powerless to change anything.

Another further question follows regarding where we start the transformation. There are three foundations of education namely family, school and church. These three foundations are the only solution. However, time has made the two foundations; family and school fail to play their roles. so, here the church remains available to undertake the missing roles. Church is hoped to keep its main role that is to make sure that all members grow spiritually in order to prepare them facing the worst  thing in reality. Dealing with education, church is expected to provide a good basic education for spriritual growth of the young generation. Sunday school is the place or even i can say the key where this transformation begins. Believe or not, it starts from this 60 minute class every Sunday.

What should the Sunday school do to make this transformation? Here is the other intriguing question. Many people are questioning about the effectiveness of Sunday school in supporting the nation’s transformation. Does it really work? To answer all these questions of course we need to examine all things being taught by the church, especially in Sunday school. What surprising me is that knowing that many teachings in churches nowadays have also turned to be more prosperous or even likely to be liberalism. The willing to grow up in good understanding of the truth seems to fade away because the church wants only to please the people not God Himself. The focus has switched that the faith of church becomes so weak. God is seeked only because of His blessings not because of Who He is. As God says to Moses “I AM WHO I AM”. In this sense God wants Moses to know that God is God, we can never refer Him to blessings or prosperity.

What being taught in church is very influential. The teaching has a great influence to either grow the spirit or make the church lost. That is why the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians regarding this issue. Paul stressed in Philippians 1:9-11 that “And this i pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of rightousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” Paul realized that the knowledge based on the good understanding of the truth will affect the growth of spirit. Here, the knowledge, meaning that we should learn from the bible or back to the bible not merely perceiving all teachings randomly. As the consequence, when the teaching in church or in Sunday school has changed the focus, not from the bible, it will be destructive.  

Particularly, the kids or we can say the early learners needs a clean, right and pure teaching about the truth because it will influence their further growth. A good example is the teaching about love and its effect on kids perspective. If a teacher teaches them that God will be angry with them if they dont go to church or Sunday school, what might be planted in kids’ mind is the image of the bad-tempered God. We have directly failed to teach them who God is. The bible says “God is love” and what has been planted in kids mind is  “God is anger”.  They will unfortunately grow up with this perspective and will live a life full of legalism. They seek God not because they love God but because of their fear of punishment. They would lose an intimate and enjoyable relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Thus, a great teaching should touch the hearts and it can only be done by God’s love. Only God’s love can touch the rocky hearts.

The right teaching should be planted early when kids are in the process of perceiving what they see and listen. By planting a good teaching early we are preparing a generation that lives in the fear of God not because of their fear about punishment, yet fear God because of love. The young generation that grows mature in spirit will bring a change to this world. Eventually the transformation will happen. It starts today from our church, that is in Sunday school by letting Holy Spirit work freely and lead us in our 60 minute learning.

God bless us!

Haniva Leo (honey-jedidiah.blogspot.com)