How to Keep Students

Getting people to come to a Friday night class is hard work. You must put forth the effort. However, God will not be debtor to any man. If you will combine your confidence in God (faith) to give you students and your efforts put forth to do the work for the fruit, it will produce life. Are you sowing the seeds? Your harvest may be a time in coming, but don’t delay the planting of the seed. I encourage you, Director, to study and implement the “Battle is On” strategy in your chapter right away. Do not delay, and don’t make excuses. Excuses never bring visitors. If you would like these strategies explained to you or would like more ideas on how to generate new students, call Bro. Ben Burks today. He has the plan mastered. It works every time. Most everyone I talk to about this problem is doing nothing to fix it, even after I give them suggestions. That is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. If you do what you have always done, then you will get what you have always gotten! Get some advice, take the advice, follow the advice, and experience the reward!

Next month’s visitors often depend on this month’s work. This strategy has always worked! Please do not become so focused on your current students that you fail to reach out to new students. Do not become so focused on fallen students that you fail to reach those who want to be students. Do not become content with your class at its current size. There are many more addicts in your community who need you. I encourage you to set goals and then take steps of action to reach your goals. Get your whole chapter involved by motivating them to join your army of soldiers in your city’s War on Addiction! If you just show up on Friday, then all you ever do is talk, talk, talk to whoever came to listen, listen, listen. Don’t just talk, talk, talk, but rather motivate, motivate, motivate and you will see your chapter elevate, elevate, elevate.

This is often a bigger problem than that of getting students. We get them in the front door (new visitors) and lose them out the back door (missing students)! The best way to build a large RU is to focus on the back door even more than you focus on the front door. In other words, you must spend a larger amount of time focusing on missing students than you do on getting new students.

Here are some reminders on how to protect the “back door.” The assistant director (or the beginner’s class teacher) ought to be visiting all the visitors after their first week. After they get into a group, the 2-3-4 plan kicks into place and patrols the back door. The 2-3-4 plan has proven to be extremely effective; however, it must be implemented by the leaders of the groups, not the director or assistant director. It is imperative that you as a director require your leadership to do their part; otherwise, they are not leaders. When your leaders take ownership of their people, you will see a greater compassion and urgency from worker toward student. I cannot emphasize this enough!

You may ask, how do they take ownership of their students? The change that we have made in the beginners’ class will help this become a reality. From this point forward, you should only keep your visitors in the beginners’ class for one week. You might even consider placing them with their new leaders during the final talk so that they can exchange numbers and take ownership of their discipleship post haste. It is in their very own small group where they will feel that they “belong.” They will find the acceptance and support they need to get over their next hump. Remind your leaders of the importance of students accepting new students into their group. Children do not like to share their parents with their siblings, and it is the same for your group. A new person may pose as a threat to those students who have had all of their leader’s attention for a while. A dirty look here or an insensitive comment there, and that student is gone! Both students lose because that existing student could have experience Remind each leader the importance of the 2nd talk. This is where students talk to EACH OTHER. Leaders are to lead the group, but they ought to be pointing the students towards the challenger, the journal, the Sunday school class and the church. Shine your light toward the tools of RU and watch your students grow as they develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I fear that many leaders think they know a “better way” and create their own group itinerary. This is wrong! Unless your pastor feels it is better to follow the leader rather than the RU given format, then this should be stopped right away.

Stop here! I have been told by many leaders that they felt this way at one time, but found when they tried something else, they were spending more time with struggling students throughout the week. When they pointed the students to the curriculum, the students found answers from God, thus making the job of the leader much easier! Remind leaders that their #1 priority is to be their student’s burden bearer. Help them carry their load, but be a constant “flashlight” – pointing them in the right direction. Remind them also to point their students to the third talk! Recently, I was reminded of the importance of getting our students to the third talk by a leader who was burdened by other leaders who kept students out of the third talk to “counsel” them. This leader said to me, “when you keep your students out of the third talk, you are telling your student that what you have to say is better or more important than what God has to say!” After all, the third talk is when God talks to us.