© Cornerstones Publishing 2008
How to Get the Workshop Rotation Model Started in Your Church
It's a team effort!
The Initial Gathering
Vision-Casting –where you are planning to go?
Moving Forward
Creating Ownership – Teamwork!
Invitation for Involvement
Every conversation becomes an invitation!
It's a team effort!
The Initial Gathering
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Invite a small group of people who are visionaries, parents, veteran Sunday School teachers, novices and other interested volunteers.
- Present the basic concept of the Workshop Rotation Model.
- Brainstorm about the people in your congregation who could assist in the transition to this model.
- Create a planning committee of those who feel compelled to make this happen. Remember it MUST be a congregational program. If there is not enough support, it will not work. Expect some resistance along the way; if the church staff is supportive, move forward.
Vision-Casting –where you are planning to go?
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In your Planning Committee, create a Mission Statement:
- Create a one-sentence statement of your purpose.
- Brainstorm what you want to accomplish with your program
- This is what guides all future decisions.
- What age groups will participate in this program?
- How many classes for each age group do you already have?
- Are they all a viable size for a workshop or should you blend some of them?
- How long will the average rotation (Bible story) run?
- How many workshops will you run for each rotation?
- If you are a small church, do you want to run a One-Room Sunday School with this model?
- Estimate work to be done
- Labor
- Finances
Based on the answers to these questions, how many workshops will you run for each Rotation?
Do you want permanent workshops or flexible workshops? For example, do you always want to have art, drama, video, storytelling and movement? If so, you begin to consider available space and possible designs for these workshops.
Do you want flexibility so that classrooms can be multi-purpose? A room that is decorated with murals can function as the storytelling workshop one month, the video workshop the next month, and the drama workshop the following month.
Are you going to create a theme for the entire program? For example, Alamo Heights. United Methodist Church is built on a quarry. They fashioned their Christian Education wing to look like stone and named it “God’s Quarry.”
Moving Forward
- Do you need to start with the Board of Trustees?
- Space Design Team
- Curriculum Team
- Workshop Coordinators
- Teachers and Shepherds
If your Board of Trustees wants firmer numbers regarding cost than you have supplied, you may have to work with the Space Design Team. (See next section of outline.)
Do you need to go to some sort of Executive Council or Session?
How can you make a presentation to the congregation?
How will you appeal for the participants and create ownership?
Creating Ownership – Teamwork!
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Space Design Team
- muralist
- scavenger of props for storytelling rooms
- donor of goods: AV equipment, computers
- sewer of Biblical costumes
- scavenger of art supplies
- Look outside of the directory
- They could be your future members
The Planning Committee communicates their vision for the entire program and for each room, recognizing that at this point, it now leaves their hands and will take on its own character from the new committee. At least the Planning Committee has fulfilled its role as a vision-caster. If anyone from that committee is highly invested in the way the rooms or hallways look, they can volunteer for this next phase. But realize that this is another phase that creates ownership in the program.
Implementation:
Who will be in charge of this process?
Workshop Coordinator: one per room or one per rotation?
Project coordinator – someone other than the DCE, who keeps in frequent communication with DCE and the implementation committee.
Who will do the actual work to transform the rooms into environments?
Identify needs:
Are there small groups, families, and couples who would adopt a room and transform it into something that would really tantalize the eyes of the students in that classroom?
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Curriculum Design Team
- Do you want to write your own curriculum?
- If you want your DCE to write the curriculum:
- What tasks do you want him/her to forego to write that curriculum?
- Or were you willing to increase his/her monthly hours/income by 20 hours?
- If you want a committee to write the curriculum on their own:
- Are there enough dedicated and qualified people to write a full year of curriculum with the lead time that is needed for the teachers?
- Will there be a consistent and viable format for the lesson?
- Will it be written by biblical scholars …
- or at least by those who will do the research to give it a biblical foundation …
- or at least with the overview of the pastor who reads it for theological integrity?
- If you say yes to any of the above, MORE POWER TO YOU and HALLELUJAH!
- If not, purchase curriculum.
- Recruit the teacher/s for the month.
- Get the supplies for the month.
- Prepare the room and keep it in order.
- Brainstorm with other team members on family events to tie into Sunday School.
- One person recruits all teachers.
- One person gets all supplies.
- One person to recruit, coordinate and nurture the Shepherds.
Coordination Team (The Running of the Program)
It is very important to have a team running your program. It cannot rely on one person to do this. There are options on how you can structure your team. You can have:
One coordinator/workshop: Responsibilities:
Task coordinators: Responsibilities:
You might consider having a liaison person to coordinate the life of the church with what is happening in Sunday School. An example would be coordinating a Heifer Project with the Mission Board when the Sunday School is learning about the Feeding of the 5000.
Invitation for Involvement
- Recruitment is an army word. We are talking about finding the talents of the members of our church and using them in a way that passes the faith onto the next generation. The most effective tool for getting teachers into the program is conversation. Find out what people’s interests and hobbies are. Ask them at Coffee Hour and other fellowship times.
Then, know your curriculum. If you know that you are going to be building the Ark of the Covenant in November, be looking for that woodworker by having conversations. Then, once found, invite him or her to be the teacher in November. If you know that you are learning about the calming of the storm in February, have conversations, discover who owns a boat, and invite that person to teach in February and relate some boat stories while teaching the faith story.
Every conversation becomes an invitation!