Christ's Awareness Raised Everyday

Flakes Formula

Criteria for developing a reaching organization have been established and the results evaluated in Southern Baptist churches for over seventy-five years.

Arthur Flake stated these in his book Building a Standard Sunday School. These have become known as Flake's Formula. His formula consisted of five points: know the possibilities, expand the organization, provide the space, train the leaders, go after the people. Harry Piland focuses on nine basics of Sunday School work: make a commitment to reach people; identify and enroll people; start new classes, departments and Sunday Schools; enlist workers; train workers; provide space, equipment and materials; teach the Bible to win the lost and develop the saved; conduct weekly workers' meetings; conduct weekly evangelistic and ministry visitation.

Know the possibilities:

Why are we here? Why do we do Sunday School? What is our potential as a church and as a Bible study ministry? These are questions every Pastor, Minister of Education, Sunday School Director, literally every Christian should ask about his/her church. To know and understand the possibilities and potential, one must first understand why we do what we do. What is our purpose for existence? Further, we need to know what we are capable of through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Expand the organization:

It is a well proven fact that a growing Sunday School is one that plans for future expansion. An intentional process for creating new units and departments is essential for a healthy, growing Sunday School. There is a lot of detail and planning involved in having such an intentional organization. Being intentional about growing your Sunday School includes knowing your current leadership, having in place a training process for new and future leaders, knowing your space allocations and forseeing future space needs. It also includes training your people to anticipate and accept growth and the factors which come along with growth. Expanding the organization is not something one person sits in a room and decides to do, making all of the plans by himself. Everyone in a Sunday School must be apprised of the “how to’s” and the reasons why expansion is necessary for a healthy, growing Sunday School.

Provide the space:

Proper planning for expansion of the Sunday School includes forethought into where will we house the classes we are looking to start. Providing the space necessary cannot be an after thought. Proper planning will ensure a class room is selected and available long before a new class is ready to be birthed. “For which age groups do we need to anticipate and leverage growth?” “What part of our facility would be most beneficial for this age group and most effective for our entire Sunday School?”

Train the Leaders:

This is another area most churches fall short in. All churches need an ongoing training process for new and current leaders. In the book, Teaching That Bears Fruit, I wrote about Woodrow and Geneva Wall. Mr. and Mrs. Wall attended almost every training event FBC hosted or encouraged them to attend (approximately 48) during my tenure at FBC. The only training missed was for severe illness and one for vacation. The significance of this couple; Woodrow was eighty-two years young when I left Ohio.

Go after the people:

Every church must have an intentional plan for outreach and it must be tied to the Sunday School. Sunday School is the church organized and it is to be the evangelistic arm of the church. God has created within each one of us a desire to have relationship with other people. Relationships are built and nurtured through small groups. The Sunday School must be tied to the outreach process of the church to give those persons reached by the church a place to belong, a place to begin to build relationships. Outreach and Inreach for the Sunday School is imperative for sustaining healthy relationships and a growing organization.

To contact us:

E-mail: glyates@soncare.net