EXPANDING SUNDAY PROGRAM REQUIRES SPRITUAL GROWTH

Sunday schools don't grow using gimmicks, methods and program plans but through true spiritual development, says an expert in the field.

Dr. Leon Kilbreath, who is known in Southern Baptist circles as "Mr. Sunday School USA," will conclude an association revival at 7 tonight at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Mo.

Kilbreath has been meeting with Baptist churches in the region to talk about enlarging their Sunday school programs and developing strong leaders. He's been doing just that for 40 years in various churches around the country.

Having the key elements are essential to any Sunday school growth, and those elements aren't new programs or methods. "Anybody can use a method," Kilbreath said, but what he teaches are spiritual lessons and leadership.

"The first thing you do is start dealing with the spirituality of the leadership," he said. It's time for people to read God's word and understand it.

Leaders need to be maximum Christians who are ready to reach the gospel message, create unity within the church and to reach the unreachable, Kilbreath said.

For 45 years, he's been talking to churches about how to develop Sunday school programs and has had great success. Many of the churches he visits report doubling in attendance and membership afterwards.

"I thank God every day for the tremendous success," he said. The churches "get a new light, new grasp, new vision."

Sunday school isn't an organization in the church, but part of the body. "It's the church doing God's business of reaching people" and teaching disciples and then sending them out as missionaries for the Lord, he said.

But churches often get sidetracked or scared because reaching new people means change -- not just physical or mental but spiritual, Kilbreath said. Churches reach people through prayer and fasting, not by culling their membership rolls. "We give up too easy. You have to be spiritual and have contact with God."

Kilbreath, 86, began his ministry as a Sunday school superintendent for a rural Illinois church. He was then asked to serve as the superintendent for an association of Baptist churches in the area. That role led him into full-time ministry and a career that had him traveling the nation for 45 weeks of every year for 40 years.

He's cut that schedule to about half now -- in an effort to begin retirement, but still preaches the same message.