Sunday School vs(?) Christian Education

Lately I have been thinking of the concept of Sunday School. I can't get away from the idea that Sunday School needs to realise how much potential it has in training Christians. I feel like we have neglected this forum and put the pressure of explicating our faith solely on the sermon, or the pastor him/herself. But the sermon is usually a monologue, which allows for no discussion or questions, unless a pastor is gracious enough and the parishioner is bold enough to talk after the sermon. In light of this, I am throwing around things in my head dealing with how Sunday School can utilise its potential. The first concept in my head is to change the name from Sunday School to Christian Education. A simple name change seems that it could have an effect on the average Sunday School attendee. In doing this, the entire structure of the Sunday School would change. Instead of Sunday School Superintendent, have a Christian Education Coordinator/Superintendent

/Principal/whatever. And the Sunday School board would be known as the Christian Education Board and also, there would be Christian Educators, not Sunday School teachers.

This idea comes from my experience with Sunday School growing up and even today. It seems that the main purpose of the superintendent, board, and teachers is keeping supplied in materials, teachers and in trying to grow in number. When these are the foci, we seem to be neglecting the actual substance of teaching and knowing the progress of our students in knowledge and understanding. If this is the case, we are producing dumb Christians. If we produce dumb Christians, then how are they to know how to discuss, or even claim, what they believe? Also, if a dumb Christian is speaking to a smart non-Christian, the smart non-Christian probably has the capacity to trip up the dumb Christian even to the point of the Christian leaving the Church. This is the adverse effect of the purpose of Sunday School. I guess what I am saying is that I am tired of talking to people of all ages in the Church of the Nazarene who do not know what a Creed is, not to mention what the Apostle's or Nicene Creed is. I am tired of hearing believers struggle to explain Christianity by reverting to catch phrases that we hear every Sunday in church or every day on TBN. Something needs to be done. We need to produce intelligent Christians who can claim and explain what they believe.

In the beginning, Sunday Schools were sometimes better than the public schools. Teaching all different subjects, reading, writing, mathematics, etiquette, etc., the Sunday Schools became places of academia. They even had libraries that were envied by the local schools.

I guess my question is: What went wrong and how can we fix it? Is anyone out there teaching theological concepts, the history of the Church, and ways to communicate the Christian faith to others, in addition to the normal practice of teaching the Scriptures? I would love to hear that this is happening. Can we make Sunday School "harder"? (God forbid we ask anyone to read a book :-)

Peace,
Joseph