By Anna Keller
Correspondent, The Alabama Baptist
It’s almost time. Sunday School leaders (both within Alabama and from other states) are only days away from access to a new online training resource.
An Aug. 13 event will mark the launch of this new leader training approach spearheaded by the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) — One Great Sunday.
“For several years, we have experimented with churches on the best approach to train leadership,” said Daniel Edmonds, director of the office of Sunday School and discipleship for SBOM. “We know that churches with trained leaders are healthy and growing. The problem is that so much is vying for the time of our leaders, so finding the one best time to train is exceedingly difficult.”
Enter the virtual training approach, allowing groups or individuals to access the training in real-time or view the recorded sessions at a later time online. This digital platform means churches are able to create different environments for their training sessions as well.
“Some churches have indicated they will do an event on Aug. 13, other churches will do their event later and others will hold leaders accountable to watch at home,” Edmonds said. “Several church leaders have indicated they will not do the training at their church but will go to a leader’s home, have a cookout and then they will put the videos on a big screen for all leaders to watch.”
The Aug. 13 event from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. will mark One Great Sunday’s launch but Edmonds said it will be an ongoing resource.
“The main thing we’re trying to establish is that each year on the second Sunday of August, One Great Sunday will provide fresh training material to our churches,” he said. “Hopefully, in coming years, it will expand to other areas of ministry, such as discipleship, evangelism, deacon ministry and more.”
For this initial event, One Great Sunday is best suited for age group Sunday School leaders (preschool, children, youth, young adults, adults and senior adults) as well as small group leaders. Each of the seven groups will have one speaker present four 15-minute training segments on topics specific to their age group. Training sessions will feature leaders from several states.
“We hope to be very responsive to requests from our Alabama churches and leaders’ requests for topics to be covered,” Edmonds said. “The hope is that we will learn during this launch year and be able to better serve our churches in coming years.”
For more information about One Great Sunday or to view a sample of what the training will look like, visit www.alsbom.org/onegreatsunday.
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