Sunday School

Definition and Meaning

Sunday school is a gathering in which a church brings together children and youth on the Lord's Day (Sunday) to instruct them in the faith. It combines worship, Bible study, singing, and fellowship activities. In Korean churches the term church school (gyohoe hakgyo) is also used, reflecting the extension of instruction to adults. The names of individual age-based departments, such as the elementary department or the middle and high school department, are sometimes used to refer to the Sunday school as a whole.

Biblical and Historical Background

Churches cite several Scripture passages as the basis for passing on the faith to the next generation. These include Deuteronomy 6:6-7, which commands that God's words be taught diligently to one's children, and Mark 10:14, in which Jesus says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not."

The Sunday school in its modern sense is generally said to have begun in England in the late eighteenth century. Its origin is usually traced to the newspaper publisher Robert Raikes, who around 1780 began teaching reading and the Bible to poor children in Gloucester every Sunday. The Sunday school subsequently spread widely through British and American Protestantism, and it was introduced to Korea in the late nineteenth century by foreign missionaries.

Practice in Korean Churches

Many churches divide their Sunday schools into departments by age. Common names include the following:

• Infant, toddler, and kindergarten departments: preschool children
• Elementary departments (yunyeonbu and chodeungbu): elementary school students. Typically the yunyeonbu serves the lower grades and the chodeungbu the upper grades.
• Middle school and high school departments: secondary school students. The two are sometimes combined into a single middle and high school department.

The criteria and names used for dividing departments vary from church to church. Small churches combine several departments into one.

Each department is usually led by a member of the ministerial staff, such as an evangelist or an associate pastor. An elder or deacon serves as department head, and lay teachers divide the students into classes and lead lessons using gonggwa (Sunday school curriculum materials). Many churches use curricula published by their denomination's education office. During school vacations, churches hold vacation Bible school and retreats.

The content of instruction differs according to each denomination's understanding of baptism.

• Denominations that practice infant baptism, such as the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Anglican churches: children baptized in infancy are prepared to profess the faith for themselves as they grow and to be received into communicant membership. In the Anglican tradition this process is called confirmation (a rite in which a baptized person firmly affirms the faith).
• Baptist churches, which do not practice infant baptism: emphasis is placed on leading children to profess the faith for themselves and receive baptism by immersion.

In recent years, Sunday school enrollment has been declining because of the low birth rate and young people leaving the church. Several denominations have observed that a growing number of churches are unable to operate a Sunday school, and the education of the so-called "next generation" is regarded as a major challenge for the Korean church.