I was blessed to work as Christian Education director at…

I was blessed to work as Christian Education director at Fairborn, Ohio
Church of God on Dayton Yellow Springs Road with pastor Ancil and Donna Carter. What a pastoral team!! Pastor Carter was from Harlem County, Kentucky, uneducated and old fashion. He was the best pastor I have ever known. My wife and I enjoyed that year. We left there and went to Turkey to work with servicemen.

I had followed Jerry Millwood who had served as Christian education director and successfully so.

Back then 72/73 Church growth was Sunday School growth and they already had a fleet of five buses for SS ministry. They had men who were really into the work.

The Sunday School would average 2-3 hundred and would peak to 4 or 5 hundred. Right out of college I applied my minor study of Christian education (the other was missions) to SS growth.
Whatever I did Pastor Carter insisted it be strong in personal visitation. His rule was “why get people to do something you can do yourself?” I had to match him visitation by visitation by doing just a little more than he did!!! and I did!!!

But I also applied statistical research and had a five year chart in the Christian Education office for all to observe. I determined the highs and lows for SS attendance and then developed growth to increasing the highs (everyone works toward that goal) but my goal was to work to increase the lows and bring them up thus increasing our average attendance. That really worked but was not recognizable by most people. They want a one time a year big attendance! …well twice if you count Christmas and Easter.

Pastor Carter kept statistics on his 12 month desk calendar blotter. Every visit got a mark and at the end of the month he had his report for visitation. We were “enjoyably competitive” and at first at end of the month meetings he would show me his “report” on his calendar. From the start I outdid him in visitation. I was too driven to succeed. Working with Pastor Carter in this was absolutely delightful and we had good times!

We had 50 SS teachers! I improved an already good SS record system and developed a teacher visitation program encouraging
personal, phone and mailings as visits. I required them to report monthly to me. The Bus ministry had good records and I combined those with the SS teacher’s records. The bus ministry had to also post monthly to me. This monthly reporting was not an easy task to accomplish but it did work.

Anyway when we would meet at the end of the month and pastor would smile his big smile and display his blotter sheet I would produce a manila folder with 2-5000 visitations by church workers.

Our monthly averages increased greatly and on Easter Sunday 1973 we reached our goal of over 800 in Sunday School. Our sanctuary was too small for everyone so we had to compartmentalize our worship services. The Church that year added a half court gym/family center and two story Sunday School building.