Insights & Information

Engage: Church's front door becomes connector

Doulos Engage Sunday School ministry image from KNOWName Media video

With more than 1,300 people alone attending worship services at Triad Baptist on any given Sunday — either contemporary or traditional — there’s always a lot of coming and going from the church’s Worship Center/Gym.

Tim Wall’s job is to make sure there’s also a lot of connecting that takes place, and a ministry he leads is designed specifically for that purpose.

Triad’s former Sunday School ministry was renamed “Engage” last spring to better reflect its purpose of not only offering Bible study but fellowship — communities where personal relationships are formed, grow, and become avenues for service to reach others for Christ.

Wall says closing the gap between the number of those who worship and connect personally with others in Engage communities will plug even more people into the church.

Tim Wall

“We all need a place where everybody knows our name, and our Engage communities are the place where that happens,” he says.

“If someone is a first-time visitor to an adult Engage Sunday School class then they’ve given us their full permission to welcome and make them feel at home, needed, loved and accepted,” Wall adds. “With that also comes a huge responsibility as the gifts of shepherding, exhortation, hospitality and nearly every other spiritual gift are needed from Engage members to then minister to them and sustain this ministry.”

In late 2014, Wall took over the Engage leadership from former young adults pastor Shean Phillips, whose responsibilities had included Triad’s Sunday School communities.

Wall draws on a host of strengths already in place as he advances Engage’s mission of connecting people with each other so they ultimately experience the fullness of Christ and His power in their lives.

Those include:

  • Church leadership commitment
  • Passionate and mature leaders (about 30 plus substitutes)
  • The focus on Bible study and the place of scripture as the source of strength, growth and nourishment as a Christian
  • The shepherding of these smaller congregations for fellowship, and help in times of personal crisis and need

Trends signal opportunity

The work to realize the mission of Engage comes amid trends that have been underway for decades, such as the relationship between Sunday School and worship attendance. In an article titled, “Does the Sunday School have a bright future?,” Elmer Towns — co-founder of Liberty University and church growth, Sunday School, and church leadership expert — notes that worship attendance passed Sunday School attendance in 1970 and, today, is at least 25 percent higher.

He says Sunday Schools once served as the front door to the church, with pastors trying to get Sunday School attendees to stay for church services and worship, but now the reverse is true. Before 1971, only 39 percent of Sunday School members were adults, Towns writes. Now, more than 51 percent are.

At Triad, where Engage attendance has averaged 680 so far this year, 58.5 percent are adults. Meanwhile, weekly worship attendance averages 1,371.

Engage Sunday School image from KNOWName Media video

Towns says changes such as Sunday Schools shifting from the reaching to the nurturing arm of the church, from primarily instructional centers to shepherding ministries, and from church steeple (the main focus of promotional campaigns, bus ministries, and programs) to church foundation where members are grounded in Bible teaching and Christian living is a huge opportunity to reach others for Christ today who yearn to connect with and relate to others.

Wall agrees, which is why he’s excited about the assignment and opportunity to work through Engage leaders as they work together to see more people plug into the church’s work for Christ through these Engage.

“The scriptures present a formula in Acts 2:42 that gets to the heart of what we want our Engage communities to be about,” Wall says. “The verse says, ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.‘

“When you ask people how they came to know Christ, for most, it’s through the influence of a friend or relative and Engage is a great place for those relationships to be formed as we work together to advance the cause of Christ. Through this lifestyle evangelism and follow-up with class members, people are not only won and bonded to Jesus Christ, but bonded to the church.”

Wall’s priorities for 2015 as Engage director are:

  • Increasing the effectiveness of outreach and inreach toward current church members who aren’t involved in an Engage group or who dropped out of a group
  • Finding ways to shorten the time between the first worship attendance and first Engage experience
  • Improving follow-up and feedback with first-time visitors to Engage groups
  • Creating a regular forum for communications and feedback from Engage leaders, including providing input about teaching topics and studies
  • Increasing the coordination of people being ministered to by the Flock Care team and integrating them into Engage groups
  • Managing the current administrative needs of Engage
  • Arranging special speakers and creating new training opportunities for Engage leaders
  • Better integrating Engage into the First Step class and the work of existing ministry teams

“There’s nothing better than to see lives changed as the Holy Spirit moves in their hearts, because of the ministry of the living written Word of God as delivered and brought to life in love and service to others through these communities,” says Wall, a contract project manager for Adecco who previously worked for more than 25 years in Christian publishing.

A Triad member since January 2013, Wall and his wife, Cindy, live in Kernersville. They have four children, Blake & Ethan, 23, Levi, 10, and LydiaFay, 3. He also serves on the Creative Communications, Flock Care, Greeting, and Next Steps ministry teams.

Along with his current and future goals for Engage, Wall says he’s evaluating The Gospel Project curriculum which will continue to be taught year round in the Doulos Engage community along with High School, Middle School and Children’s communities. Bible study curriculum in addition to The Gospel Project include verse-by-verse, topical studies, or those addressing a particular life stage issue, but all remain focused on the Scriptures. Regardless of the curriculum used, Wall says it’s not “the lesson” printed in the book that changes lives.

“It’s the prayerful Engage leader shepherding their flock, whose heart is overflowing from the work of Christ in them, and relying on the Master Teacher. We’re incredibly blessed to have people leading their Engage communities in exactly this way.”

Doulos Engage Sunday School ministry image from KNOWName Media video

Phase 2 Shot of TBC B&W 17

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