Scout the Opposing Team:
Preparing Your Team for Spiritual Battle

Written by Tim Smith

To defeat the opposition, a great coach must think like his opponent. He must scout out the opposing team so that he can develop and implement a plan to counteract its attack. In like manner, pastors need to know that they have a spiritual enemy who wants to ruin their Sunday Schools. Satan wants to defeat them because he knows they have the potential to make an impact for Christ. If he cannot totally destroy them, he will settle for rendering them ineffective.

In short, Satan's battle plan involves preventing Sunday Schools from doing those things that will lead to great victories in their churches. Here's what he wants us to NOT do.

Do Not Pray
No Sunday School will ever win apart from prayer. Without it, Sunday School leaders will be spiritually unprepared to accomplish the work of ministry. Jesus made prayer a priority in His life. If the sinless Son of God needed to pray to carry out His ministry, how much more vital is prayer to the work of Sunday School leaders?

Do Not Attend
Satan will tell church members, "Sunday School attendance is really not important. No one is going to miss you anyway." His strategy is to keep members from participating in class fellowships. Satan also targets special training opportunities. The Enemy greatly fears God's people being better prepared to do the work of ministry. He wants them to believe that they have enough experience and knowledge without training.

Do Not Serve
Satan realizes that the success or failure of Sunday School classes rests greatly on leaders who serve. Since evangelism leaders encourage people to be trained and active in sharing their faith, Satan will use every roadblock available to stifle their service.

The Devil also desires to restrict the ministry of care groups. He does not want people to be contacted or for those in need to receive ministry. The Devil desires to prohibit prayer leaders from functioning in Sunday School classes. Our adversary cannot afford to allow sincere prayer to be practiced. The enemy also targets fellowship leaders. When no one accepts responsibility for organizing class fellowships, unity, love, friendship, and kindness are greatly limited.

The Prince of Darkness also despises class secretaries. Since he is the author of confusion, he is aware that keeping accurate records is essential for good planning. He knows that if the records are inaccurate, the leadership cannot properly plan for future growth.

Do Not Cooperate
The Opposition realizes that he can paralyze Sunday Schools by causing division. It is very satisfying to the Enemy when people resist the changes needed to strengthen the Sunday School ministry.

Do Not Fellowship
Satan is constantly working to disrupt the warm, loving atmosphere within Sunday School classes. One of the quickest ways to kill a Sunday School class is to build walls of division that discourage fellowship. Our opponent wins victories when he is able to produce relationally cold classes.

Do Not Enroll
Satan is aware that a Sunday School cannot grow without prospects being enrolled. Since there is a direct connection between enrollment and attendance, baptisms, and giving, the enemy will try any trick he can to keep Sunday School leaders and members from enrolling new people.

Do Not Evangelize
Sunday School is the church organized to carry out the Great Commission. If the enemy can stop the Sunday School from reaching people with the gospel, he has effectively succeeded in derailing the church's outreach. The evidence of his success can be seen in the churches that have no organized visitation ministry. The deceiver attempts to convince many Pastors and Sunday School leaders that visitation will not work in this modern age. The liar also tells many people that they cannot speak of their faith because they lack the verbal skills or biblical knowledge needed to effectively communicate.

Do Not Prepare
Preparation is a major threat to Satan. He knows that prepared Sunday School leaders are effective ones. He and his demons work around the clock to keep Sunday School team members away from leadership meetings.

The deceiver equally hates other training opportunities that are offered through the local association, or state and national conventions. These training events feature some of the most effective Sunday School leaders around. Attending these events is sure to result in stronger Sunday Schools, and the adversary does not want stronger Sunday Schools.

Satan also works against leaders who set goals and objectives for their Sunday Schools. He wants to keep leaders unsure about where they want to lead their members. Not having an identified target pleases the enemy because he desires for Sunday Schools to fail, to have nowhere to aim.

Do Not Sacrifice
Our opponent tempts people to avoid making the sacrifices necessary to have healthy, growing Sunday Schools. He tries to keep leaders and members too busy to invest in kingdom work. The adversary also attempts to convince God's people not to use their spiritual gifts. He offers them many reasons why someone else can do a better job and be more effective than they can. The liar also has an extremely effective plan to get Christians to keep God's money. He reasons that if he can prevent believers from giving sacrificially, the Sunday School ministry will lack the resources necessary to succeed.

Conclusion
Having the playbook of the opposition is helpful for warding off his attacks. To be sure, Satan has a plan to destroy every Sunday School that is determined to advance the Kingdom of God. He will not easily give up the fight. The only way to win the battle is to put on our spiritual armor and stand firm. Too much is at stake to simply "hold the fort until Jesus comes." The victory has already been won. The time has come for believers to advance.

Dr. Tim S. Smith serves as the Team Leader and Consultant for the Sunday School/Open Group Ministries of the Georgia Baptist Convention. He served for 15 years as a minister of education in churches in Georgia and North Carolina. Tim earned his Doctorate of Ministry degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and his Master of Divinity with Christian Education from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He and his family live in White, Georgia.

Reader Comments:

I am using this in my midweek prayer service Wednesday night. We are just starting to see some growth because we have implemented some of these strategies, such as open enrollment and organizing the classes. Also, we have just lengthened our Sunday School time. We used to begin at 10:00 and worship at 11:00. We also had an assembly so we really had only 25 minutes of lesson time. We eliminated the assembly and are now beginning Sunday School at 9:45. It is working out beautifully

By: pavorotti2 On: 3/16/2009 9:41:08 PM  

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Tim, thanks for a creative, helpful article! C. S. Lewis would be proud! I will pass this along to all our Sunday School leaders. Keep up the good work.
David Procter
Austin, Texas

By: bathammer On: 3/4/2009 3:38:28 PM  

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I most definitely appreciate Tim's articles on Sunday School growth and importance. Keep up the good work. By the way, Anonymous, studing the word is what Sunday School is all about.

By: WeltonMC On: 3/6/2009 1:58:07 PM  

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It is incredible to me that after reading this entire article there is no reference to study of the Word! This article is all about "doing" - it is a list of things to do. Isn't the first order of business to defeat to be in the Word? Prayer is a vital link and we become aware of how the "enemy" wants to defeat us by study of the Word. How can you defeat the enemy if you do not know the Word? To me this list is busy work. I would reformat this list with prayer, study as the first two items needed.

By: Anonymous On: 3/4/2009 3:14:03 PM  

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