RU Sunday School Class

If you do not have your RU Sunday School class activated, we strongly encourage you to do so. The ultimate the goal of Reformers Unanimous is to get people connected Christ and to His local church, as it remains God’s support group to minister to addicted people. A few ideas to help you implement or IMPROVE the RU Sunday School class:

1. We follow a similar format as Friday night, just somewhat different. First, we talk to each other through fellowship. Many of us get there early and have coffee and a Danish of sorts.  Though sometimes it leads to actual counsel, often it’s just friendly fellowship.  Second, we “officially” open class by talking to God in prayer and testimonies. This is done in a briefer format. Here in Rockford, we dedicate 10 minutes to popcorn testimonies (people just pop out short testimonies of God’s goodness).  And third, God talks to us through the message.
2. The curriculum for the Sunday School class has many options. One, you can use the Nevertheless I Live book, but at the other end of the book (i.e., if you are in chapter one on Friday, be in chapter 6 on Sunday or chapter 3 vs. chapter 9).  Or, you can use the Tall Law or Umbrella Fella Sunday School curriculum which has a teacher’s guides and corresponding student’s guides.  These should be purchased by the student separately. Battleship is a great 8-12 week study as well!  Or, thirdly, you can teach through what your church uses for their Sunday School class, but make sure you are angling it all toward teaching the crucified Christian life, and not a “try harder to do better” mentality.
3. In the starting of your 2nd RU class, be careful not to mandate that all of your leadership or even longer attending students attend without your pastor’s approval. The truth is you should build this class with people from your community. This does not mean that it would not be helpful to have a handful of workers from your church join your students, particularly your leadership if available. This should be navigated with your pastor as not to hurt other ministries already operating in your church.  Don’t start a R.U.S.S. ministry (RU Sunday School Class) and then take students or your class leadership from other classes.  It only leads to resentment.  We should always be known as the church’s primary ministry that produces fruit, not plucks fruit.
4. However, if I were your director, I would watch the parking lot AFTER SS to  look for people coming in to church that do not appear to attend a Sunday School class and ask them to consider visiting your RU class for some intense discipleship.   This could be a way to gain more people from the church on Friday night.
5. Remember.  Though most every church at first considers it an extra, unnecessary ministry, they soon realize it is just too big of a stretch to expect addicts to assimilate into our SS formats in their earliest months of recovery.  Let them have their own group until they are comfortable around the church folk and then let them augment into the ministry.  We don’t make the singles hang out with the seniors, or the young married’s with the teens.  If they can have a clique for such a time as this, so ought the “newbee’s” who have just come to believe and are looking to be received.

I think all of this indicates that an RU Sunday school class is not only a wise ministry to have within your chapter, it is an integral ministry.

Kidz Club

In the early years, we’ve had some chapters that did not start out with a Kidz Club in their chapter. Today, we highly discourage this.  Why?  Because not only do the addicts coming to the your RU class have kids between 6 and 12 years old that need something worthwhile  in which to participate, but the workers have children who need the same.  We have observed that chapters who failed to start a Kidz Club when they first began, but subsequently started within the first 18 months invariably doubled the size of their class within just a few short months.  They also saw a greater consistency in student attendance, leadership retention and a general lowering of recidivism back into the world.   I think all of this proves it also is not only a wise ministry to have within your chapter, it is an integral ministry.

RIP

We also highly recommend established chapters to start a RIP (Reformers Institutional Program) ministry in the county jail or area prison or both. It will not only reach the incarcerated, whom are in the jail for minor skirmishes with the law up to charges that have a maximum of 364 days, but their family members as well. Most county incarcerated are blue collar and even white collar who are there for 60 days or less stints in the county clink for offenses from writing bad checks, dui, driving without insurance, domestic issues or other intoxicating issues that all but guarantee they need your program as a “get out of jail free” card.  I have KEY and I mean KEY staff that I first met and ministered to while they were incarcerated in the county jail.  Your efforts on the behalf of your county law enforcement will also provides an opportunity for you to personally reduce recidivism in your community upon their release by plugging them into a Friday night RU and your local New Testament church. All of these ideas will increase your effectiveness in ministering to the addicted.

I think all of this proves it is also not only a wise ministry to have within your chapter, it is an integral ministry.

In closing on these three ministries, we have tools and training available for all three of these programs.  If you do not currently have a 2nd RU Class on Sunday, an RU children’s program, or a RIP program, please call us. We have supplementary kits that can get you started right away ministering in these three additional ways.  Expand your ministry.  Costs are extremely minimal and the benefits are huge)

Summer Advertising

Addicts ALWAYS want to sober up on January 1^st (New Year’s Resolutions!) and on June 1^st (They want a sober summer!).  It is now that time of year when the weather begins to break from the cold! We recommend that you prepare for the summer by stocking up on your advertising and implementing a strong summer Battle is ON! Strategy.  It’s so easy and your students WILL follow a motivated leader into enemy territory to look for soldiers will to defect to the Lords Army.  If you will motivate, they will participate!!  It would be a good idea to reactivate your bar drops, along with your community outreach poster drives on Saturday with your students.

We give out envelops with 7 tracts to all students who raise their hand to give them out over the course of a week or so and we do this LITERALLY every week.  You can’t go wrong with our high quality, low cost tracts!  Our church handbills are designed for YOUR church bulletin.  You just have to follow it up with an announcement to the church member for each to PLEASE post in a prominent place or distribute with a heart of grace.

If nothing else, lay out your ENTIRE advertising package you received with your starter kit on an 8-foot table and encourage your people to distribute at their leisure and announce it every Friday and or Sunday.  C’mon Directors, “if you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got!”

Please call Barry today if you need to place an order for these things at 815-986-0460 ext 108.

Freedom Threads

This is a fundraising arm of our ministry that allows our ladies to make a small income to assist in the cost of their stay in the Women’s Home. We have high quality t-shirts and imprints available for purchase. If you or your church is in need of a custom t-shirt, then please contact us. Some ideas would be RU shirts as a fund raiser for your chapter, church softball team, youth department, custom RU or Kidz Club shirts, or personal customized shirts. Please call Will Fowler for a free quote at 815-986-0460 ext. 133.

Ministry Travel

Bro. Burks is currently booking travel for those who represent our ministry for the summer of this year. If you have a desire to book Bro. Steve Curington, Dr. George Crabb, Bro. Ben Burks, or any of the advanced trainers of our ministry, then please call Bro. Burks at 815-986-0460 ext. 109.  We seldom book out more than 90 days in advance so our chapters and supporting churches can have our services when needed most.

Question and Answer

We would like to begin a question and answer section for our Friday blogs. If you have a Friday blog question that you would like to see Bro. Curington or one of the staff answer, please submit these questions by addressing it FOUNDERS REPORT QUESTION and emailing it to weneedu@reformu.com and be sure to mention it as a Friday blog question. We may not be able to answer all of them but we will answer as many of them as we can and we sense your questions will help others develop their chapter as well.

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