The Dropouts' Class
When Randy and Susan Lanford arrived in Marietta, Georgia, three years ago to lead youth ministry at First Baptist Church, they couldn't help noticing that a number of teenagers had already given up on church before they arrived. The Sunday school rolls revealed the names of 40 juniors and seniors who had attended no more than three times in the previous five years. "I suggested to the staff that I might form an eight-week 'pastor's class' just for these inactives," says Randy. "you should have heard the sighs of relief. People were more than happy to let me tackle the challenge and also to fill me in on why so-and-so had quit coming." The Lanfords did three things to let the dropouts know things would be different this time: • They chose a small, carpeted room away from the other youth classes, in order to prevent the regulars from asking blunt questions ("Where have you been all this time?"). The room would feel comfortable with as few as three or four but could accommodate a dozen or more. • Randy phoned each prospect, introduced himself, and told about the class. Over the next weeks he followed up in person, through the mail, and again by phone. (Parents, of course, were often grateful for this special effort.) • The Lanfords ditched visual reminders of the past—quarterlies and attendance record books—and created their own curriculum. "At the beginning, we used handout sheets with multiple-choice questions to get the responses flowing," they say, "letting these youth talk about themselves, their past church experiences, and how it felt to come to church again after a long absence. Then we moved into our Bible study on the nature of the church—that Christ made it to include young and old, 'good' and otherwise. We talked about ...
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