Bob Mayfield

Top 10 Posts of 2009

I started blogging one year ago. I remember the week between Christmas and New Year's Day and how bored I was, so I thought that I might as well give this blogging thing a try. Well, here we are almost 150 posts later (that's about one post every other day). As I've gone through the blog the past week or so, several posts stand out in my mind, some for content and some just because of the number of hits they received. So here is the 2009 "Top 10" list from my blog:

1. The Aquarium Sunday School  
2. Missional Living
3. Who Are These People on My Roll?
4. Ed Stetzer Says That One Day Is A Model For the Future
5. Impacting Lostness Through Prayer
6. Disciples or Fans
7. Is It Time to Bury Arthur Flake?
8. One Day FAQ's
9. Enhancing Sunday School Through Facebook
10. Class Mission Project Suggestions

So there's the list! Feel free to scroll through them and see what you like...

Merry Christmas, From Our House to Yours

We are experiencing a white Christmas in Oklahoma City this year. We have watched the snowfall all day here and it is such a beautiful site.

Our family has a tradition that I think has been passed down from my great-grandfather. On Christmas day, you had better be ready, because if you meet a Mayfield on this day, before you say hello you better say "Christmas Gift!". There is some kind of importance in being the person who is the first to say these magic two words, although I'm not sure what it is! In the past, this included personal greetings since there were no telephones back in the day. Then it was expanded to telephone greetings. I can remember answering the phone to hear my grandmother say "Christmas Gift!" Today, it has even extended to the internet. My dad got up at 5:00 am today and emailed us all our "Christmas Gift" greeting.

Now obviously , this is our way of reminding everyone we meet that the Christmas Gift is none other than Christ Jesus, the Son of God who was born, lived among us as both human and divine, and was crucifed for our sins. 2 Corinthians 5:21 even says that "For our sake, He made Him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." God resurrected Christ from the dead and He reigns in heaven at this very moment.

From our house to yours, I hope you have a great day remembering the earthly birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the "Christmas Gift" of God to man.

Merry Christmas, oh and by the way... "Christmas Gift" Ha ha... gotcha!

Are Education Ministers an Endangered Species?

I read the following excerpt from an article written by Nathan Finn of Southeastern Seminary about the fifteen factors affecting the SBC since 1979. As a person with deep roots in education ministry, I found this article insightful. I also found it interesting that of all the points he makes, this point had zero comments. (The pic to the right is of our Minister of Education Learning Community in Oklahoma City)

To view this entire article by Nathan Finn, go here

6. Changing Paradigms in Education Ministry

Whatever happened to the old-fashioned education minister? There was a time when virtually every SBC church with at least 300 regular Sunday School attenders employed an education minister, even if that staff member also (often!) led the youth or music ministry as well.

Now some of you may be thinking, "We still have an education minister, and Bro. Joe does a great job on our staff." Frankly, a couple of the strongest churches in my home association back in Southeast Georgia have education ministers who do a fine job. So I'm with you on that. But once I went off to college and then two different seminaries, I was struck with how many churches are dispensing with the education minister model-and much of what that paradigm entails. Fewer and fewer churches (especially those outside the Deep South) are following the "evangelism through the Sunday School" strategy dominated SBC life for three quarters of the 20th century. Fewer and fewer churches are using a strictly graded Sunday School model, at least at the adult level. And when was the last time you attended a Sunday School assembly? How many of you don't even have a clue what I'm even talking about? (And I'm just focusing on Sunday School-we could discuss the myriad of other programs that education ministers help administer in medium-sized and large churches.)

The paradigm shift happening in education ministry is fascinating to me for a number of reasons. First, Southern Baptists pioneered "Christian education" in the local church. Southwestern and Southern seminaries in particular developed very specialized programs that were cutting edge for the better part of the last century. Second, the Christian education paradigm was at the heart of most of our churches' evangelism and enlistment, and some of our most prominent denominational programs (particularly "A Million More in '54") were directly tied to this approach. Third, a great deal of "Southern Baptist ethnicity" I discussed in my first article was cultivated through the church's cradle-to-grave education program. Finally, most churches of which I am aware continue to prioritize Christian education, but they often call it something different (like "discipleship" or "spiritual formation") and many have "tweaked" (and sometimes rejected) the earlier paradigm.

I could spend all my time on this one, but I have to move on.

I sort of wished Dr. Finn had gone on! From my position as the state director of Sunday School (Oklahoma), I can share that we have a remarkable group of education ministers here. They are great workers and have a strong desire to reach their communities for Christ and develop disciples. However, I am concerned that we do not see many young ministers who are hearing the call to this field of service. I believe there are six factors behind this phenomenon:

1. The "behind the scenes" role of the education ministry prevents church members from understanding what their ministy is about. As a result, education ministry often is devalued;
2. Education ministry when applied is often unpopular. It is very difficult to get classes to plant new classes, develop new leaders, etc. For example, when is the last time your church "promoted" its adults? Yet this simple practice is essential to the prevention of ingrown groups.
3. Education ministers, as a general rule, have done a rather poor job developing their networks. Education ministers generally lead from isolation. Leading people to make correct but unpopular actions is emotionally draining. Most educators do not have a strong support network.
4. Education ministers and churches have not updated and adapted their ministry model to the changes of the culture. Many Sunday School (and churches) still use the 50's model of attractional evangelism rather than the 21st century model of incarnational evangelism.
5. Economic or budget issues that affect education ministry positions in the church structure.
6. The move from "education ministers" to "adult ministers". Many people serving as ministers to adults do not lead the entire education ministry of the church. Coordinating the different age-groups is difficult and affects the overall direction of the education ministry.

It is critical for the church and for education ministers to develop a viable ministry model that reflects the critical role of small communities within the church. We have all heard this quote, "Life change happens best in small groups". We need to figure out how this value can be tangibly developed so that our people can have a greater opportunity for spiritual transformation.

The Church Can Change a Country - Drastically

I was doing some surfing on the net today.. nothing serious, just some casual looking here and there when I ran across this story posted on Trevin Wax's blog. It is the story of how a church in Romania brought down communism and the incredible courage and conviction they had to disciple their people and reach out to those around them. As I read it, I remembered a man our church in Lubbock adopted, a Romanian architect who became the lay pastor of his church in Romania when the communists arrested his pastor. I remember several stories this lay pastor shared with us, like his wife "knitting" in the window of their apartment to keep a watchful eye for secret service agents while they had Bible study. We helped him get a seminary education in the states so that he would be "qualified" to teach in the communist controlled seminaries in his country (In an effort to weed out dissent, the government required anyone teaching in the seminary to have a degree. They forgot to mention what kind of seminary.) One of our members owned a semi-truck, and we bought furniture for this brave pastor and his family and shipped it to Southeastern Seminary for him to pursue his education.

Read this story on Trevin's blog. It is inspiring and will deepen your commitment to the cause of Christ.

31 Days to a Better Sunday School Preview

January 1, we begin a one month challenge for Sunday School teachers, directors, and Ministers of Education (plus any pastors that want to tag along too). 31 Days to a Better Sunday School is an experiment to improve every class in the church. We are encouraging churches to ask all of their Bible study leadership to join us for what I hope will be a great adventure together.

31 Days to a Better Sunday School is focused around three things:

1. Life change happens best in small communities of people;
2. Little things done right add up over time;
3. Most of us learn better by "doing".

During these 31 days together, we are going to complete some simple actions that will make your class a place where people will want to be on Sunday mornings. Most of these activities are things you already know to do, but they may not be on your radar every day. For the most part, the actions we are going to do together will be short and can probably be done in about 15-20 minutes.

So, are you willing to invest a few minutes each day for a month to have a better group? Of course you are! Consider that the average American watches 37 hours of television a week! You've got time and you can do this!

The Vector Principle
little things + time = Big Things

The Vector Principle simply means that small changes have long term outcomes. Many churches today seem to operate off of "The Big Bang Theory of Church Growth". This theory simply means that you find some big, smashing program that some church has done somewhere else, use it in your church, and BANG! Everything is fixed. However, you and I both know that as a general rule in life, when we do the little things and do them faithfully, over time a massive amount of change can occur. A retirement plan is an example. If you want to retire as a millionaire, then save a little money each month when you are young and over time you will reach your goal. Wait until you are 60, and...

We learn better by doing! Have you ever learned to snow ski by reading Ski Magazine? You can pick up some good ideas, but let's face it. You learn to snow ski by going up the mountain and pointing those skis downhill and falling down the slope for a day. You learn it by doing it! Christianity is the same way. James said, "Faith without works is dead", James 2:17. Leading a transformational Sunday School class is not something you really learn from a book. You can get some ideas, but you learn how to be a good Sunday School leader by doing the things necessary to have a great class.

During the 31 days of January, I am going to post a simple exercise for you to do that will make your class the kind of group that people will want to belong to. These 31 days together will be enjoyable, but more than that... I hope that they will be transformational for you and your class.

Feel free to leave comments on the blog each day so that we can learn from each other.

I'm looking forward to our journey together!

By the way... go up to the top right corner and enter your email address. You will automatically receive a reminder email each time a new article is posted.

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

Take 4 1/2 minutes and watch this video. Red Skelton was one of our nation's finest comedians, but this video is not funny... it is inspiring.

As I heard him recite this pledge, I was saying it with him and at one point thought.. "He left out two words, oh no!".

I stand corrected.

Community vs Content

My friend Darryl Wilson has an interesting topic on his blog, The Sunday School Revolutionary. I would encourage you to go there and read the post "Sunday School/Small Group Community and Content".

Be sure to read the comments!

Is It Time to Bury Arthur Flake?

At a recent meeting of State Sunday School directors in Nashville, I asked our group this question and threw it open for discussion: "Is it time to bury Arthur Flake?" For those of you who do not about Flake and what is now called "Flake's Formula", you might want to do some noodling on this guy. Arthur Flake is the patriarch of the modern Sunday School movement. Almost 100 years ago, Flake became the Sunday School director for the Baptist Sunday School Board, now known as LifeWay Christian Resources. Flake pioneered several different aspects of Sunday School. For example, Flake recognized that Sunday School teachers teach theology in their classes, so Flake began the Doctrine Clinic, an effort to provide doctrine resources to pastors to teach their Sunday School leadership. But Flake is best known for what has come to be known as Flake's Formula or Flake's Five.

1. Know your possibilities;
2. Enlist and equip your leaders;
3. Enlarge your Sunday School organization;
4. Provide space;
5. Go after the people

Although there is no book containing this formula in bullet-type format, you can find this formula scattered throughout the many books he wrote. In addition, Flake probably used this formula for his "talking points" as he drove all over the southern USA promoting evangelistic Sunday Schools.

Arthur Flake has impacted Southern Baptist life and culture for over 100 years. Perhaps only Herschel Hobbs and WA Criswell have had as much impact on Southern Baptist life as Mr. Flake. So the question remains, is it time to bury Arthur Flake and his formula?

I know that right now there are Sunday School leaders all over America who are downing entire bottles of blood pressure medication. Flake's Formula still works today for church leaders who understand and practice the five principles. But the question must be asked, is it time for Sunday School in general and Southern Baptists in particular to move on to a 21st century philosophy of Sunday School and thank Mr. Flake for his work?

First, a short critique of Flake's Formula. You may notice that God, prayer, Jesus, etc are not mentioned in the five principles. Spirituality is an assumption we put into the formula. This model would work in non-Christian church too. I have business friends who tell me that this is essentially the same formula they use to grow their business (by the way, Mr. Flake was a lay salesman). Also, let's remember that Flake's Formula was written to help build the church when society was more focused on institutions. Our culture today is less concerned (okay... maybe even skeptical) about institutional church growth and more concerned with personal growth.

I believe the time has come, not necessarily to bury Mr. Flake, but for leaders of small communities (Sunday School, small groups, etc) to begin a more earnest dialogue about how to transform lives in our culture. In other words, were Mr. Flake alive today, what principles would he be encouraging pastors and church leaders to use to reach our communities today as effectively as his generation reached his culture?

As a further note, I am writing a new book right to be released in March of 2010. The title: Flake's Hammer: From Methods to Missional Small Communities. I am going to address Mr. Flake and propose a different paradigm for reaching our culture today that I think would find Arthur Flake's approval.

Your comments are welcome!

Sometimes It is the Simple Things

Okay, you know sometimes we think we know what we're doing, but...

Sometimes, we think everyone knows how a small group of people devoted to Bible study, prayer, each other, and their community is supposed to work.

But do they...?

State Conventions Summit-Day 3

I got back from Nashville last night, well it was really this morning (Friday). We were delayed getting out of Atlanta because our plane's weather radar was functioning. Here was my weather forecast for the flight - COLD!

Dr. Thom Rainer started the day for everyone with an address in Van Ness Chapel (yes, the spotlessly clean chapel that still feels like you're meeting in an old southern church building). His message was Zechariah's message to Zerubbabel. Here are the three key words from Dr. Rainer's message. "Messengers of hope." Folks, we are the church, and we are messengers of hope to this world. Let's not relegate the message of hope to the government or NGO's.

We started our affinity group with some great information and a super challenge from Dr. Ed Stetzer. You know, I appreciate Ed because he can tell you what you don't want to know and help you feel good about it. Here are the four points from his presentation:

1. Maturity best takes place in small communities. Yeah, we know this, but our church growth models apparently do not. Most of our churches are still designed around "come and watch" rather than "participate and grow" models.
2. Sunday School is in numeric decline and small groups have not filled the void. Ed went on to say several things on this point. a) SS has moved from being the churches front door to the side door; b) the small group movement has yet to really become a movement; c) research indicates that 25% of Americans are involved in some type of small group; d) Churches with SS have more people in small community, churches with small groups have better relational connectedness.
3. There needs to be a shift in what Sunday School looks like. Classes with 30, 40, 50 or more people present are not small communities. "Mini-worship is not small group".
4. Every expression of the church should own the mission of the church. The day before, our group had a discussion about the purpose of Sunday School. Back in the day, Sunday School was described this way, "Sunday School exists to do the work of the church". Nowadays, I just say that "whatever the mission of the church is, that is the mission of the Sunday School". One thing that is sorely lacking among most of our SS classes is a sense of purpose, a calling to being the church in the community.

Two great quotes from Ed: "The greatest sin of the church is that we have hundreds of people in sitting pews and doing nothing, and we call them Christians." "Sunday School is a goal for most churches, rather than a tool we have for transformation."

Following Ed's presentation, our SS affinity group tackled a key question, which you can see in the image to the right. Yep, that's right... it says, "Is it time to bury Arthur Flake?" I know that is like anathema to any Baptist who has grown up in Sunday School. Let's just say it got mixed reviews! I'll have a post on the blog next week under this title and share some of our discussion and also my opinion about Flake's resting place.

For the rest of the day, we had Brett Robbe, who I think has the toughest job at LifeWay - adult publishing. This guy manages our curriculum and wow, you talk about a thankless job. However, I like LIfeWay's emphasis in adult curriculum, going with the "Connect-Grow-Serve-Go" direction they have instilled into Bible study curriculum. We also had Sergio Arce share with us about Hispanic Sunday School. Our convention is making great strides in reaching ethnics and especially Hispanics. LifeWay is developing more resources for these churches.

My input on this year's Summit: excellent theme and I appreciate how the Summit Steering team kept us focused on the theme of transformation. In a joint session between the discipleship and Sunday School affinity groups, I was really encouraged with the heart and attitude of the participants. One comment really stood out for me in this joint session, "We must move from producing results (numbers) to changing culture". I sensed a yearning for more depth in our purpose than program or resources.

As state convention leaders and a key SBC agency, it is essential for us to tackle our issues openly and transparently. That was one of the reasons I decided to blog the Summit. I think that it is vital for Southern Baptists to know what their leaders are discussing and also get a feel for the heart of the discussion. Our Sunday School affinity group created a Twitter hashtag for our meeting, and you can see some of the tweets there (#ssag).

Any questions or comments? Feel free to leave a comment below and I'll do my best to respond.