Bob Mayfield

New eBooks Available

We have taken the two series I put together called "31 Days of Sunday School" and also "31 Days to a Better Sunday School" and put them in ebook format for you to download free. Combined, this series of practical suggestions about having a quality Bible study ministry gathered over 10,000 hits. I had several people ask if we would put them on the web, so we did. My assistant Tiffany did a great job reformatting everything.

Just click here on our Missional Resources page and these new eBooks are available now for download.

We also included an e-version of last year's book, Missional Pivot Points as well. Pivot Points is also available on the Missional Resources webpage.

While you are there, you will also find podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, and some inspiring videos for you to use as well.

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!

Enhancing Sunday School through Facebook

Years ago, Bible study leaders discovered a new way to connect with the people in their class... the telephone! Yes, Bible study leaders discovered that they could call every single person in their class in about one evening if they wanted to. They might receive a prayer request from a group member, and then call the rest of their group to share the request. A teacher could contact absentees to see how they were doing. The telephone became a vital part of Sunday School ministry.

Today, another powerful method of communication exists. The tool is the internet and one of the fastest growing ways to contact others and stay in contact is through a social network, specifically Facebook. I am going to take few moments and encourage you to seriously consider using this tool to connect the people in your class. We will also look at some practical ways to use Facebook in your group's ministry.

How can Facebook help your class or small group? First, it provides a central point where people can go for information. Have a fellowship this Friday and a class member has forgotten what time it starts? Go to your group's Facebook page and look it up. A Facebook page can be a great place just to put information about your group.

Use Facebook to help you teach the Bible. Do you want your group to do some study or some work before this week's lesson? Put your questions or requests on your group's Facebook profile. Perhaps you want the group to follow-up on this week's study. You can post follow-up assignments on Facebook. You can post some preview information about the week's study so that your group will be better prepared. Bible memory verses can be shared with your group too.

Post discussion questions on Facebook. You might want to generate some discussion about a particular topic. Post the question and then let your class members interact with it during the week. The people in your group will not only interact with your question, they will also interact with each other's responses.

Post prayer requests. Using some reasonable restraints, you can post some prayer requests and also answered requests on Facebook. A class member who has been unemployed has found a job. He can put that answered prayer on the group's profile himself! A parent of another member that the class has been praying for made a profession of faith in Christ! That member can share this great news and answered prayer with the entire group with just one post.

Email everyone in the class at once. A feature of Facebook is the ability to email all of your members with one simple email. Reminders about the upcoming class breakfast before Sunday School can be sent, as well as other needs or reminders. The emails you send are not part of your group's public profile, so non-group members cannot see them.

Write on your wall or in your group's discussion box some encouraging notes, meaningful Bible verses, etc.

You can choose if you want your group to be open, public, or closed. Which you choose is determined by how you want to use Facebook. An open group let's anyone post on the discussion board. A public group lets others view the group's posts, but only members can write a post. A closed or private group means that only group members can view or write on the group's profile. If you want to use Facebook as an evangelism tool, obviously the private option is not the best.

Facebook is not perfect, but neither is the telephone. Facebook can be a powerful tool to help you quickly communicate with your group and also provide a way for them to network with each other. By the way, although Facebook is heavily used by young adults, research is showing that the largest growing segment of users on Facebook is women, ages 55-65!

An essential thing for you to remember: if you really want to use Facebook to help network your group, then you must make posts on it frequently and often. The more you use it and refer your group members to Facebook, the more valuable it will become.

A great e-book that you can download for free is: Facebook for Pastors. Yes, it is written to pastors but you can peruse this e-book and learn how Facebook works and also some practical ideas about how to use it.

While you're at it, add me as a Facebook friend at www.facebook.com/thebobmayfield.

Class Mission Project Suggestions

Do you like the idea of a mission project for your group, but you don't know where to start. Here are some suggestions for you to get your group involved: 

• Have a class dialogue about a mission project. A big help here would be if your church's entire Sunday School is being challenged to do class mission projects, which is what we encourage through PowerUP Your World or the One Day Initiative. But regardless, your group needs to have a discussion about the whole concept of a class mission project.
• Decide what type of project you want to do together as a class. This will obviously be determined by the abilities of your group. The "He-Man Ex-High School Athletes" class could bring chainsaws to a neighborhood and do some tree clearing for some elderly people. The senior adult ladies class might want to consider something else however.
• Choose a project that will involve the whole group if possible. A hint here: If your group is a coed group, choose a project that will involve the men. If you get the men involved, the project is more likely to involve everyone. It's not that the men are better; it is that the women are more mature and will do something they may not enjoy if it makes the men happy. Sorry guys, it's a shame but that is how it is. For an idea of projects for your group, the BGCO has put together a pamphlet with mission project ideas and also contact information at various agencies, including NAMB and IMB.
• A note to pastors: I strongly discourage assigning projects to your classes or groups. It is very important to the group that their project is their choice and not an assignment from the pastor. Ownership is valuable.
• Select a foreman to direct the project. Many classes have people who are not gifted teachers, but they are excellent point people. This person needs to be able to organize the people, and also oversee any supplies that need to be obtained. Our class has a man who is a great guy, generally quiet during our Bible study time (although when he shares something it is almost always deep). He became our foreman and when we got together for our project, he was in his element! Later, we realized we could not have completed the project without him.
• Select a date. It is likely that you will not have the perfect date that everyone in the group can make. Select one that seems to be most workable and go with it.
• Take pictures. Your group will love looking at these photos for a long time.
• Do the project. In all likelihood, it will not only be a great project - it will probably be the best fellowship your class has ever had.
• Remember to have food. The old saying is, "An army marches on its stomach." So does your class!
• Strive for relationship with the people you are helping. Refuse to let this be a project your class did on a particular day. Instead, realize that you have the opportunity for an ongoing relationship with the people you are serving in Christ's name. For most people, it takes time and a relationship for them to come to Christ.

Realize the potential. Your class is representing Jesus Christ to a person, a family, and maybe even a neighborhood. Also, your group is going to change. The more your group sees how you are bringing the gospel to the world, the more impact the project will have on your group.

Class Mission Projects... Essential for Missional Small Community

It was a beautiful spring day last April, and the members of the small community my wife and I belong to were gathering at a trailer home in Logan County for our class mission project. As we pulled my truck to side of the dirt road, people from our group were already assembling. We were about to have an experience that would change the fabric of our group.

Rather than share all the laborious details of that day (the pics the next couple of days are from that project), I'm going to give some highlights and then share some reasons why I believe every small community should do a mission project at least once a year. But before I proceed, I want to make sure we understand that doing a class mission project does not make your group missional. But... missional groups do mission projects. The involvement of a group in a mission project helps the group look outward at its community rather than inward at itself.

So why should your group do a mission project together?  First, it will help your group get over yourselves! Read Isaiah 58. The Israelites are complaining to God because they fast and pray and God did not seem real interested in what they are doing. The fact of the matter is... He wasn't! Read further down the chapter and you will see that the people were ignoring the needy, the hungry, the homeless, basically anyone having a tough time. God actually tells the "pious" people of Israel that they are oppressing these people and that no amount of prayer and fasting will soften Him up.

If your church is like mine, there are certain things that are expected each week. You read your Bible, pray, attend your Bible study small group, attend worship, and tithe, for example. No matter the size of your church, you have many people that participate faithfully each week in the activities that make us "good Christians". In spite of these faithful people (and I'm not criticizing these people or their activity-may their tribe increase!), the statisticians tell us that my denomination is slowly declining in size. Obviously, the church in many places is losing its impact in the culture. My belief is that the aforementioned spiritual activities are not wrong, but they are incomplete. At some point, our spiritual disciplines have to put us in a position that we can be salt and light in the culture, not just in the church building.

A class mission project that is focused on the community around the church will help the people attending your group see its community through a new lens, the lens of the gospel. I have seen these projects get some good people involved in meeting community needs, and it changes perspective. The gospel suddenly becomes something we can touch and grasp, because we are seeing Christ at work through our own hands and feet. In essence, we are becoming incarnational. The church is no longer trapped inside a building but is spreading good news in its neighborhood.

This post has gotten rather long, so tomorrow I will post some benefits of doing a mission project and also provide some ideas to help your group get involved in your community.

A Biblical Small Community... Denies the Separatist Movement

A visit to just about any small group or class seems to indicate that they are a little schizophrenic. Group conversation often swings back and forth between two extreme topics. One topic is the role of the class in fulfilling the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. The other topic centers around the phrase "not being in the world". The first topic addresses the need to take the gospel of Jesus to the remotest parts of the world. The second topic is about keeping one's heart unstained by the world.

Both of these views are biblical and both are right and are actually compatible. As the teacher or leader of your group however, you must understand that the latter view will become the dominant view of your group - if you do not intervene.

There is a separatist movement in the American church today. It is promoted by well-meaning followers of Christ and it is based in fear, fear of that big bad world out there beyond the walls of the church and the confines of the home. For a follower of Christ to live in fear of the world is to live as if the gospel has been stripped of its power to free the souls of men from captivity to sin. Fear of the world is an outright denial of the power of cross.

I believe that this fear of the world is expressed in our churches and groups by the word "come". "Come to our church" and "come to our class" are two examples. I often hear people in our groups talk of evangelizing their neighborhood with this phrase, "If we could just get them to come to our church..." The word "come" is the antithesis of being a missional small community. Missional terminology uses the phrase "attractional evangelism" to describe this attitude. It is kryptonite to our message. The world is not going to come to your class! Instead, your group is going to have to adopt a new word... "sent".

This is why we send missionaries to other cultures, because it is not likely that other cultures are going to come to us. Your small group must begin to think in terms of "sent". Every believer in your group is a missionary and their mission field is that big bad world out there. In fact, your group should look at itself as a gathering of missionaries who are sent into the neighborhoods in which they live.

Here are some suggestions to help you lead your group out of the separatist movement: 

• Each week, ask your group what they did to be "salt and light" in their work or neighborhood.
• Share as often as possible from your personal experiences of being a missionary at work, school, etc.
• Be a student of your community. The BGCO has recently done a study called Oklahoma Life, which is available at:  http://www.bgco.org/5034
• Lovingly address moments when your class is functioning more like a separatist group than a missional group.
• God's Word is full of missional verses. Focus your group on these passages as you study the Bible.
• At least annually, lead your class to do a class mission project, which is tomorrow's topic.

The Small Group Identity Crisis

The Sunday School Director has just left a classroom after sharing his vision of a new group that this class could start. As the door shuts behind him, the class which sat quietly through his presentation and request, erupts in opposition. In so many words, they let their teacher know that they are NOT going to let "that man" split them up!

The following scene occurs so often that it has now become the common experience for just about any leader who has asked a large group to begin a new class. Speak to most Sunday School classes or small groups about reproducing themselves and "resistance" will be the word of the day. This attitude did not happen overnight. Reluctance to begin new groups became a part of the Sunday School culture years ago and it is now entrenched. I believe that one of the primary reasons behind this attitude is that our groups have become more concerned with being protective of their identity rather than planting their identity.

So obviously, groups that refuse to plant a new group have an identity crisis! When a group takes its eyes off of Jesus and puts its gaze on protecting the group, it has exchanged its identity in Christ for a human identity. I'm really weighing my words here carefully, and I'll probably get in trouble for this but... here goes. Folks, this is a form of idolatry. The identity of your group or class is not in yourselves, it is in Jesus.

Another thing that happens when we choose to protect the group rather than plant a group is that we lose focus on our mission. Our mission is make Jesus famous and the more groups we have doing that, the better! By refusing to start new groups, we focus more on group protection than expanding the Kingdom of God into our neighborhoods.

Here are some reasons why your class should consider beginning a new group:

• New groups grow faster. They just do. Existing classes are virtually guaranteed of having people in attendance each week. New groups have no such guarantee. They must labor to build the new group. The result is that they are more driven to reach out.
• New groups provide more opportunities for lost or unchurched people to "stick". The more groups your church has, the more people it can both minister to AND involve in the mission.
• New groups put our faith into action. Do we really believe that Jesus is building His church? If so, we should begin new groups and put action to our faith. James said, "Faith without works is dead".
• New groups put more people into leadership and therefore more people are using their spiritual gifting.
• Finally, new groups are adventurous. New groups bring excitement and adventure to the church, and let's be honest... some of our churches could use a little excitement!

Missional small communities have group planting as part of their DNA. In fact, I am going to step out on a limb and say that if your group or class has not started a new group in two years or more, then you have not yet become a missional small community.

A Missional Small Community Is...Biblically Functioning

Since my last post, I have been leading seminars about missional small communities in both Phoenix and Oklahoma City. My presentations in both locations were full, we had to bring in chairs in OKC! I am learning that there is a lot of interest about "missional small communities". Reports from churches participating in Oklahoma's new One Day Initiative to equip lay Bible study leaders to lead their groups to be missional are incredibly encouraging. I believe that there are many Sunday School or small group leaders who are hungry for something more. I believe that people really want their group to have a Kingdom-driven purpose. These leaders are connecting with the idea of having a missional group.

In my last post, I talked about what a missional small community is not! In this post, I am going to share some things that a missional small community is, and because there is so much to dissect on this topic, we are going to look at just one aspect of missional small communities each day.

A missional small community is:  Biblically functioning. There are two key words here; biblical and functioning. Small communities are focused on God's Word. While this may seem rather pedantic, the second word, "functional" helps describe the situation. Have you ever been in a dysfunctional situation, like maybe your home or workplace? In dysfunctional situations, people act as if everything is fine and ignore glaring problems for the sake of "unity". Mom and the kids ignore Dad's temper out of fear of an explosion. Dad and the kids ignore Mom's drinking problem. No one ever asks the oldest son what he was doing when he comes home at 2:00 in the morning. Dysfunctional families accept the status quo because addressing the situation is painful.

A biblically dysfunctional small group may acknowledge Scriptural authority in class, but refuse to live under biblical authority during the week. You know the drill... everyone nods their heads affirmatively in support of the lesson that day, like say, I don't know... let's pick evangelism. Every single person supports the importance of sharing Christ in their relationships at work or on the ball team. But a simple glance at this group shows that they have not led one single person to Christ... in years! Or perhaps the Bible study is about controlling the tongue, and earlier the group used their prayer request time to gossip about a church situation. Dysfunctional Bible study groups settle for less rather than expect more of their group members.

A missional group chooses to help each other live under the authority of God's Word in their every day lives. They hold each other accountable. We choose to live "life on life" with each other. When someone in the group shares how that week's study has impacted them, they get a couple of supportive phone calls during the week to see how they are doing.

So you may be thinking, "Okay, I get the idea of being biblically functional, but how is that missional?" An essential component of being missional is that ordinary people's lives are being transformed by the power of the gospel. This transformation is exciting and contagious. Missional small communities are contagious! But also, as we are engaging the people in our workplaces and neighborhoods, we are examples of heaven on earth. How can we ask people to make a commitment to a lifestyle that they perceive is no different than their own? To have a missional group, the group members need to live a lifestyle that is real and authentic, and this kind of lifestyle is darn near impossible in a biblically dysfunctional group.

Here are a couple of ideas of how we can develop biblically functioning small communities:

• First, leave more time at the end of each week's Bible study for application. In far too many of our groups, we spend so much time in Bible study that there is no time for personal application. This is a recipe for a biblically dysfunctional group! Now, if you are afraid of allotting 10 minutes of unstructured time for application at the end of your Bible study because you might have a lot of silence, guess what? You probably have a dysfunctional group! Allow more time for application and your group will gradually begin to respond.
• Second, as a group leader, you need to make a phone call or two each week and support and encourage anyone in your group that shared a personal commitment. Yes, technically this is called accountability. Your group needs to learn that we take this life on life thing seriously.
• Third, when someone in the group has a transformational experience, let them share what happened and how God worked in their life. In other words, start sharing stories of God at work in your group. Let's make the transformed life the "norm" instead of the exception.

You may have some other ideas about how to lead your group to be a missional small community. Feel free to leave your ideas in the comment section.

A Missional Small Community is NOT

I am in Phoenix this weekend for their annual ACE Conference (Arizona Church Equipping Conference) at North Phoenix Baptist Church. This is a great church growth conference by the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention. The entire ASBC staff participates in this conference and it is a pleasure to be asked to be a presenter at it.

One of my topics while here is about missional small communities. Small communities is a term that has been coined by Ed Stetzer to try to span the Sunday School and small group movements. While I have been trying to deliberate how to present this topic, I decided to go with a "not" and "is" style of presentation. What a missional small community is NOT and what a missional small community IS.

There is way too much material here for one post, so I will split it up over 2-3 days. First, let's look at what a missional small community is "not".

A missional small community is not:

• A weekly gathering of the biblical intelligentsia. Now I truly appreciate great Bible studies that help us understand the scope and context of a Bible passage. But seriously, when a small group or class gets so focused on impressing each other at Bible Trivia, I think we have lost the point.
• A biblical separatist movement. Classes sometimes huddle together in an attempt to protect each other from the big, bad world out there. The talk begins to center around keeping oneself unstained by the world, and apparently the best way to do that is to avoid all contact with it. This worldview is the total opposite of a missional worldview. Remember, Jesus hung out with tax cheats and harlots (In light of the next point, I'll make no political commentary here). Stetzer says it well, "A Christian should have dirty hands and a clean heart."
• Moral Majority attitude. Christianity is not a political movement. Period. Classes that attempt to change the world through laws and politics miss the point of Romans 13:1-5. The Kingdom will not be advanced through human, political means.
• Outsourcing evangelism. A group that expect the pastor and denominational missionaries to do the evangelistic work has outsourced evangelism to the hired guns.
• Organized for ministry. Read this carefully, I'm not saying a missional small community does not minister to each other. Tomorrow's post will explain this more fully.
• A group that seeks comfort. Getting comfortable may be one of the more telling attitudes a non-missional group has. Comfort is another opposite of missional.
• Protective of class identity. Non-missional small groups are protective of their group. Self-preservation becomes a driving class principle.
• Come to our class. Non-missional groups have a "come to us" mentality. We have often heard it stated as "the community knows where we are, if they need us.. they can find us".
• Authority is acknowledged on Sunday and denied during the week. Non-missional classes are not living under authority. They study God's Word in the group, and then rarely put it to practice in their daily lives. Non-missional groups grumble under church authority too.

Okay, the bad list is over. Sunday and Monday we will look on the bright side - what a missional small community does that makes it missional.

What Kind of Disciple am I?

The wicked stepmother in story of Cinderella would stand before her mirror each day and ask it the rhetorical question, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" She was flabbergasted one day when the mirror did not respond with an answer she deemed appropriate.

As I reflect on the wicked stepmother, I wonder if I really want the spiritual reflector I use in my own life to speak to me honestly, or just state what I want it to say. If I want the answer that reinforces my opinion of myself, I want my spiritual mirror to say, "You may not be perfect Bob, but look at so many other people. You are way better than they are." I find that sometimes, I need to be shocked. I need an honest reflection and an honest answer of what I truly look like and not what I want it to say.

I read Thom Rainer's blog this week, and found that Dr. Rainer has some "mirror, mirror" questions on it. These are questions that any Christian leader should ask themselves before they ask these questions to someone else. Dr. Rainer's 10 questions are listed below.

1. Do I read and study my Bible daily so I can know what the Word says about a Great Commission lifestyle?
2. Do I pray each day that God will lead me to a Great Commission lifestyle?
3. Do I need to reconcile with someone so that God can truly use me in the fulfillment of the Great Commission?
4. Am I willing to change my lifestyle materially so I might give more and be less dependent on the things of the world?
5. Do I really show concern for the poor and hurting in this world and in my community?
6. Would my family testify honestly that I lead a Great Commission lifestyle with them?
7. Do I have a gentle and loving spirit that reflects the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life?
8. Do I major on minors?
9. Do I see the speck in others’ eyes without seeing the plank in mine?
10. Does my life reflect genuine joy?

As a Sunday School leader, you are a leader to the group of people in your class. It may be frustrating at times to try to lead a group of people into transformational life change, whether they are kindergarteners, students, or adults. But that is our challenge. However, it will be very difficult for us to lead them into life transformation if our own lives are not showing evidences of transformation.

I have generally been ending each daily post in the 31 Days of Sunday School with some practical suggestions to help you with your Bible study ministry. Today, I want to encourage you to find some time during your daily activities, and invest time reflecting on Dr. Rainer's 10 questions for a Great Commission lifestyle.

To read Dr. Rainer's post about these 10 questions, go here.