Care Strategy for Members Who Don't Attend Every Week

Written by Christina Crawley

 

Today, a member who is in Sunday School twice a month is considered a regular attender. A person's irregular "regular" attendance requires special attention from Sunday School workers. How can Sunday School leaders plan to meet the needs of members who are present only every other week?

Understanding the Needs
Members who are absent every other week bring special needs with them when they do attend. Understanding those needs can help workers meet these special needs.

• Members who cannot attend each week need to feel like they belong when they do attend. Members struggle to fit in when they've missed the last activity and they're not up on the current conversational topics of the group. Helping them cultivate relationships by helping them get to know other class members becomes critical in developing a sense of belonging.
• Members who are not in Sunday School every week need help establishing real relationships with the Sunday School leaders. They need to know the leaders are interested in what happens to them personally. However, knowing what is happening in their lives is difficult to determine when they do not attend regularly.
• Members who attend bimonthly need help catching up with missed lessons and biblical information. Missing part of a unit of study can be like watching a movie from the middle to the end without seeing the beginning. Following the plot is difficult without knowing what happened at the beginning of the movie. Missing critical lessons can affect members the same way. They need help getting what they missed so they can move on with the rest of the class.

Practical Solutions
Sunday School members can have a difficult time walking into Sunday School after being absent for a couple of weeks. Making them feel welcome and that they really do belong to the group becomes essential. Consider the following suggestions:

• Greet members by name each Sunday as they arrive. Spend time finding out what is current or new in their lives.
• Always help members who have been absent re-enter the group by helping them relate to other members.
• Train regular attenders to watch for other members - and guests, for that matter - who are standing on the sidelines and help them become involved.
• If members are away for an extended period, send a note reminding these people that while they may have been absent, they weren't forgotten.
• If there are family difficulties, occasionally invite these members to join you for a meal after worship so they have opportunities to talk about concerns and frustrations to a neutral party.
• Drop absent members a postcard or email so they know you noticed their absence.
• Call them regularly.
• Show your happiness when they do come.

Many teachers and leaders fail to recognize an important characteristic of curriculum materials: Lessons seldom stand alone; instead, they build on a unit theme. Each lesson then becomes one part of a larger whole. Yet, a member who is only present for half of the lessons is missing much of the information that is needed to understand the true teaching of the Scripture. Consider these suggestions:

• Take a few minutes at the beginning of each session to review key ideas from earlier sessions in the unit. Review can help members catch up. Review also can help you test your teaching effectiveness by determining how much members who were present remember.
• Write on a postcard a lesson's Scripture passage and key ideas. Mail the cards to members who were absent. Some members will take advantage of the information by reading along.
• During your planning time, ask: What will members who were not here last week need to know to participate effectively this week? Develop your introductory remarks for Sunday morning's review around that question.
• When dividing members into small groups for group work during a session, form groups so that regular attenders are balanced with those members who have been absent. The group structure will help members catch up with the information while helping them feel they still belong.

For a member who isn't always present during Sunday School, how that person is treated when he or she does return becomes very important. By our actions, we demonstrate a member's importance and that person's value to the Sunday School. By following these tips, we can make sure that every member knows that he or she is loved, valued, and belongs.

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