At Mattie Richland Baptist Church in Pineview, Georgia, the adults have been back in Sunday school and the kids led a Black history presentation, but the bus that picks up children for their education program will remain idle until January.<\/p>\n
Sunday school, adult forums and other Christian formation classes, already threatened by declines in worship attendance, have been further challenged since COVID-19 shuttered churches and sent their services online. A study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research said more than half were disrupted in some way. Other research shows religious education for adults has bounced back more than for younger church members.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some, it continued without any real major disruptions, and for others, it basically collapsed,\u201d said Scott Thumma, the institute\u2019s director, summing up its 2022 pandemic-related research during an October event at Yale Divinity School. \u201cAnd the easiest way to make it collapse was to keep religious education for children and youth online. If you kept it online, you probably don\u2019t have a religious education program now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rev. Scott Zaucha, pastor of St. Ann\u2019s in Woodstock, a mostly white congregation with about 50 attending on Sundays, said its Sunday school had ceased to exist before the pandemic because of its aging congregation. He wondered how to begin it again and learned that online Christian education was not the answer because it seemed like \u201canother thing to try to keep up with\u201d when regular schooling was online.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a crisis of catechism going on in America right now,\u201d said @UMIChicago<\/a> CEO Jeffrey Wright, expressing concern for the religious upbringing of the youngest generation. My @RNS<\/a> story: https:\/\/t.co\/Ji7MySJBgA<\/a><\/p>\n — Adelle Banks (@AMBankstw) December 22, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n