📈 Ukuaji wa Kanisa — Sehemu ya 10: Shule ya Jumapili na Vikundi Vidogo📈 Church Growth — Unit 10: Sunday School and Small Groups

Tazama karatasi za maelezo.See the handouts.

Mojawapo ya alama za pekee za jinsi makanisa yetu mengi yalivyojengwa ni wazo la kukuza kanisa kupitia Shule ya Jumapili. Wataalamu wengi wa ukuaji wa kanisa wamesema moja kwa moja kwamba jambo hilo haliwezekani — lakini hawajayachunguza kwa kweli makanisa yaliyolifanya. Kinachofuata si mfumo sana bali ni ushuhuda, unaotokana na miaka mingi ya kuliona likifanya kazi.One of the distinctive marks of the way many of our churches were built is the idea of growing a church through the Sunday School. A good many church-growth specialists have said flatly that it cannot be done — but they have not really studied the churches that did it. What follows is less a system than a testimony, drawn from years of watching it work.

1. Usajili ulio wazi. Katika Jumapili yoyote, ni asilimia arobaini hadi sitini tu ya wale walioandikishwa katika Shule ya Jumapili watakaohudhuria kwa kweli. Kwa hiyo acha kuhangaika juu ya mahudhurio na ufanye kazi badala yake juu ya usajili — popote, wakati wowote, mahali popote. Katika makanisa mengine ni vigumu zaidi kuingizwa kwenye orodha ya Shule ya Jumapili kuliko kujiunga na kanisa lenyewe, na hilo ni kinyume kabisa. Nilibeba kadi za usajili kila mahali, nami ningesema tu, “Tunaamini kwamba kila mtu anapaswa kuandikishwa katika funzo la Biblia mahali fulani. Je, ungejali tukikuandikisha katika mojawapo ya madarasa yetu?” Mwaka mmoja huko South Dakota, swali hilo moja liliongeza watu mia moja katika usajili wetu.1. Open enrollment. On any given Sunday, only forty to sixty percent of those enrolled in Sunday School will actually attend. So stop fretting over attendance and work instead on enrollment — anywhere, anytime, any place. In some churches it is harder to get on the Sunday School roll than to join the church itself, and that is exactly backward. I carried enrollment cards with me everywhere, and would simply say, “We believe everyone ought to be enrolled in Bible study somewhere. Would you mind if we enrolled you in one of our classes?” One year in South Dakota, that single question added a hundred to our enrollment.

2. Hakuna kufuta majina. Mtu akishaandikishwa, jina lake linabaki — hadi afe, ahame, au aombe kuondolewa. Orodha si karatasi ya kujivunia ya wanaohudhuria; ni orodha ya watarajiwa wanaoweza kufikiwa, na dakika unapofuta jina unapoteza mawasiliano na nafsi hiyo. Katika kanisa langu la kwanza, mkurugenzi wa Shule ya Jumapili aliona kwamba majina yalipaswa kufutwa watu walipokosa wiki chache. Alikuwa na shughuli nyingi na akasema hakudhani angehudumu kama mkurugenzi mwaka uliofuata. Nilikubali kujiuzulu kwake — kwa masikitiko — na tukaweka mkurugenzi ambaye asingefuta majina kwenye orodha. Nilipoondoka, wastani wa mahudhurio ya Shule ya Jumapili ulikuwa umepanda kutoka takriban thelathini na watano hadi zaidi ya tisini, na ibada na utoaji vilipanda pamoja nao.2. No pruning. Once a person is enrolled, his name stays — until he dies, moves away, or asks to be removed. The roll is not a brag sheet of who attends; it is the prospect list of who can be reached, and the moment you strike a name you lose touch with that soul. At my first church the Sunday School director felt names had to be pruned when people missed a few weeks. He was busy and said he didn’t think he’d serve as director the next year. I accepted his resignation — with regret — and we put in a director who would not prune the rolls. By the time I left, average Sunday School attendance had climbed from about thirty-five to over ninety, and worship and giving rose right along with it.

3. Mawasiliano. Hii ndiyo funguo ya jambo zima. Tulijaribu kuwasiliana na kila mtu aliyeandikishwa, kila wiki — kwa ziara, kadi, au simu — na si wale waliokosekana tu bali pia waliokuwepo. Bila mawasiliano, usajili ulio wazi hauna maana; orodha inakusanya vumbi tu. Kazi ya kuwasiliana haipaswi kumwangukia mwalimu peke yake; inaweza kushirikiwa na darasa, na kila darasa linapaswa kuwa na kiongozi wa ufikiaji wa kuhakikisha inafanyika. Watu hawateleza mbali na kanisa linaloendelea kuwafikia.3. Contacts. This is the key to the whole thing. We tried to contact every person enrolled, every week — a visit, a card, or a phone call — and not only the absent but the present too. Without contacts, open enrollment is meaningless; the roll just gathers dust. The contacting need not all fall on the teacher; it can be shared by the class, and every class should have an outreach leader to see that it happens. People do not drift from a church that keeps reaching for them.

4. Kutia moyo. Watu wanapaswa kuamini kwamba jambo linaweza kutokea. Sehemu ya kazi ya mchungaji ni kuwasaidia walimu kupata maono, kwa maana karibu kila mbinu ina thamani watu wakishaikubali kwa moyo — na hakuna inayofanya kazi wasipoikubali.4. Inspiration. People have to believe something can happen. Part of the pastor’s task is to help the teachers catch a vision, for almost any method has merit once the people are sold on it — and none works while they are not.

Kwa hiyo Shule ya Jumapili, ikiendeshwa ipasavyo, si saa ya kufundisha tu; ni injini ya ukuaji — muundo wa madarasa madogo, kila moja likiandikisha watu kwa upana, bila kumfuta yeyote, na likiwasiliana na kila mtu. Na hilo linaelekeza kwenye kanuni ya ndani zaidi iliyo chini yake, ile ambayo sehemu hii inaihusu kwa kweli.So Sunday School, rightly run, is not merely a teaching hour; it is a growth engine — a structure of small classes, each one enrolling widely, pruning no one, and contacting everyone. And that points to the deeper principle beneath it, the one this unit is really about.

Seli, kikundi kidogo, kanisa lililokuzwa kwa udogo. Ubora wa pekee wa Shule ya Jumapili haukuwa kamwe mtaala; ulikuwa kikundi kidogo — duara dogo kiasi kwamba mtu angeweza kujulikana, kuandikishwa, kukumbukwa akikosekana, na kufikiwa. Ufahamu huo huo unapita chini ya kila kanisa lenye afya: kanisa lazima liishi katika kila ukubwa kwa wakati mmoja, sherehe kubwa ya ibada ya pamoja na seli ya karibu ambamo maisha yanashirikiwa kwa kweli. Katika seli namba muhimu si mamia walio ukumbini bali kumi au kumi na wawili walio chumbani — na juu ya msingi huo mdogo ukuaji wa kanisa unakuwa, kwa kanuni, usio na kikomo, kwa sababu unaweza siku zote kuanzisha kikundi kimoja zaidi. Umati unaweza kukua kwa kiasi fulani tu ndani ya chumba; idadi ya duara ndogo inaweza kukua bila mwisho.The cell, the small group, the church grown small. The genius of Sunday School was never the curriculum; it was the small group — a circle small enough that a person could be known, enrolled, missed, and reached. That same insight runs underneath every healthy church: the church must live at every size at once, the great celebration of corporate worship and the intimate cell where life is actually shared. In the cell the key number is not the hundreds in the auditorium but the ten or twelve around the room — and on that small base a church’s growth becomes, in principle, unlimited, because you can always start one more group. The crowd can only grow so large in a room; the number of small circles can grow without end.

Tulipo Sasa (2026)Where We Are Now (2026)

Katika makanisa mengi saa ya Shule ya Jumapili yenyewe imepisha kikundi kidogo kinachokutana majumbani katikati ya wiki — lakini usikosee, kanuni haikubadilika; ni chumba tu kilichobadilika. Na hapa kuna kejeli tulivu inayostahili kuonekana: nidhamu ya usajili ulio wazi, kutofuta majina kamwe, na kuwasiliana na kila mtu iliyojenga Shule zile za Jumapili za zamani ndiyo karibu hasa kile ambacho mgogoro wa watu kuliacha kanisa unakililia sasa. Tulijifunza kwamba wengi wa ule umati mkubwa ulioondoka hawakutoka kwa hasira juu ya mafundisho; waliteleza — walihama, maisha yalibadilika, safari ikawa ndefu — na hakuna aliyewafikia. Kanisa lililoshika kanuni ya zamani — acha jina libaki kwenye orodha, na wasiliana na kila nafsi kila wiki — lingewapata wengi wao kabla hawajaondoka kabisa. Kile kilichoonekana kama mbinu ya kizamani ya Shule ya Jumapili kinageuka kuwa mkakati wa kuwarudisha watu kanisani uliobuniwa miongo kadhaa kabla ya wakati wake. Vyombo vimeongezeka — kanisa sasa linaweza kufuatilia kila mshiriki na kufanya ukumbusho wa kujiendesha wenyewe ili kumfikia yule aliyetoweka machoni — lakini nidhamu ni ile ile, na nidhamu ndiyo kila kitu.In many churches the Sunday School hour itself has given way to the small group meeting in homes through the week — but make no mistake, the principle did not change; only the room did. And here is a quiet irony worth seeing: the open-enrollment, never-prune, contact-everyone discipline that built those old Sunday Schools is almost exactly what the dechurching crisis now cries out for. We learned that most of the great company who left did not storm out over doctrine; they drifted — they moved, life shifted, the drive got long — and no one reached for them. A church that had kept the old rule — keep the name on the roll, and contact every soul every week — would have caught many of them before they were ever gone. What looked like an old-fashioned Sunday School method turns out to have been a re-churching strategy invented decades ahead of its time. The tools have multiplied — a church can now track every member and automate the reminder to reach the one who has slipped from view — but the discipline is the same, and the discipline is everything.

Wakati huo huo, seli imekua kikamilifu kuwa vuguvugu lake lenyewe. Kikundi kidogo ambacho hapo awali kilikuwa idara ya kanisa, katika maeneo mengi, kimekuwa kanisa lenyewe — kanisa la nyumbani, kanisa la mlo wa jioni, kanisa dogo kabisa, kusanyiko la watu kumi au ishirini sebuleni au mezani wakila chakula cha jioni, mara nyingi wakikusanyika katika mtandao wa seli kama hizo badala ya chini ya paa moja kubwa. Hili ndilo maono ya zamani ya metachurch yakiwa yamekomaa, na lina nguvu mbili kuu kwa wakati wetu. Ni Kanuni ya Kitengo Kipya ikiwa imeachiliwa — kwa maana ni rahisi zaidi kuanzisha duara jipya kuliko kujenga jengo jipya, na vitengo vipya huelekea kukua haraka kuliko vya zamani, kwa hiyo kanisa linalozidisha seli huzidisha bila mwisho kwenye ncha zake. Na lilithibitika kuwa imara hasa wakati mikusanyiko mikubwa haikuweza kukutana: milango ya kumbi ilipofungwa, makanisa yaliyonusurika yalikuwa yale ambayo hayakuwahi kupuuza vitu vidogo, rahisi, na vya kibinafsi. Kwa kweli, makusanyiko makubwa kuliko yote duniani yamejengwa kwa njia hii — ni makubwa si kwa sababu chumba ni kikubwa bali kwa sababu yamejaa, kama sega la asali, makumi ya maelfu ya seli ndogo za maombi.The cell, meanwhile, has grown all the way up into its own movement. The small group that was once a department of the church has, in many places, become the church itself — the house church, the dinner church, the micro-church, a congregation of ten or twenty around a living room or a supper table, often gathered in a network of such cells rather than under one large roof. This is the old metachurch vision come of age, and it has two great strengths for our moment. It is the New Unit Principle set loose — for it is far easier to start a new circle than to build a new building, and new units tend to grow faster than old ones, so a church that multiplies cells multiplies endlessly at the tips. And it proved resilient exactly when the large gatherings could not meet: when the doors of the auditoriums were shut, the churches that survived were the ones that had never neglected the small, the simple, and the personal. The largest congregations on earth, in fact, are built this way — vast not because the room is vast but because they are honeycombed with tens of thousands of small praying cells.

Tahadhari moja, inayotokana na kanuni zetu. Kukua kwa udogo si uchawi, na mahali papya pa kukutania si tiba ya kanisa lililo mgonjwa. Lengo kamwe si ukubwa au udogo kwa ajili yake wenyewe; ni kwamba maisha yanashirikiwa katika kidogo na kusherehekewa katika kikubwa, na kanisa linahitaji vyote viwili. Lakini ikiwa lazima uchague mahali pa kuanzia katika kizazi chenye tahadhari, kilichotawanyika, na cha watu kuliacha kanisa, anza kidogo — kwa maana ni katika duara dogo ambamo mgeni anaandikishwa, aliyekosekana anakumbukwa, jina linakuwa uso na uso unakuwa rafiki, na mtazamaji hatimaye anaundwa kuwa mwanafunzi. Kanisa hukua kwa udogo ili likue kuwa kubwa. Hilo limekuwa kweli siku zote. Halijawahi kuwa kweli zaidi kuliko sasa.One caution, carried over from our principles. Growing small is not magic, and a new site is no cure for a sick church. The point is never bigness or smallness for its own sake; it is that life is shared in the small and celebrated in the large, and a church needs both. But if you must choose where to begin in a wary, scattered, dechurching age, begin small — for it is in the small circle that a stranger is enrolled, that an absent one is missed, that a name becomes a face and a face becomes a friend, and that a spectator is at last formed into a disciple. The church grows small in order to grow large. That has always been true. It has never been more true than now.

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