Oklahoma Hispanic churches should have one of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s most powerful Sunday School building tools available soon, said BGCO Sunday School specialist Bob Mayfield.
PowerUp Your Sunday School materials should be ready for distribution to Hispanic churches through the state’s six Hispanic Fellowships by Aug. 1, Mayfield said.
“The only thing we’re missing is the DVD sub-titles in Spanish,” Mayfield said last week of the tool which will feature Mayfield speaking in English, but have Spanish subtitles dubbed by the BGCO Communications Team’s electronic media group, led by strategist Marcus Wehmuller.
Mayfield said he expects the Spanish version, named Encienda Su Escuela Dominical, to be presented to Hispanic Sunday School leaders during workshops this Fall.
“We trained about 60 members of our Spanish associational teams in how to do this in March at Oklahoma City, Exchange Ave.,” he said.
Unlike English speaking churches, who normally introduce the PowerUp materials at the beginning of the Sunday School in either August or September, Mayfield said the Hispanic fellowships will determine their own timetable.
“They can do it any time,” he emphasized. “A lot of our Anglo churches last year didn’t start until after Labor Day and still finished before Fall break.”
PowerUp is a strategy of seven weeks of equipping and ministry aimed at elevating a church’s Sunday School experience to a higher level. The strategy centers around four power principles: The Power of Prayer, The Power of Community, The Power of 10 and The Power of One.
The Spanish version includes everything that is contained in the English version, such as sermons, hymns, outlines for weekly worker meetings, “to do” guides, publicity posters, preparation and evaluation guides for pastors and Sunday School directors and a simple training outline to equip Sunday School leaders.
The translation was done by Carlos Moreno, Hispanic pastor at Altus, First. BGCO church planting strategist Daniel Caceres, and Robert Haskins School of Leadership director Ramon Aleman checked the translation and proofed it.
“Last year, Altus, First participated in PowerUp, and Carlos took PowerUp and translated the sermons into Spanish,” Mayfield said. “When I told him we needed all of it translated into Spanish, he jumped on it. He translated everything, including the Power points and the sermons, and inserted Spanish hymns that matched the sermons.”
Mayfield expects the new Spanish PowerUp materials to be very popular.
“This will be, as far as I know, the only Hispanic Sunday School growth material in the SBC that’s evangelical, anyway,” he said. “I really expect, once the word gets out, for it to go far beyond Oklahoma.”
“If we can get the Hispanic churches to understand the value of Sunday School in developing friendships and the relational value behind it, I think it will strengthen our Hispanic Sunday Schools tremendously.”
Although there will be a small charge for the materials, they are still very affordable, Mayfield said.
“The Cooperative Program paid for the development, including the printing, and translating,” he stressed. “The churches pay only for the cost of the supplies used to print and reproduce them.”
Mayfield said churches that used the PowerUp strategy in 2006 saw a five percent increase in baptisms, a 35 percent hike in attendance, a 99 percent increase in the number of prospects and a 167 percent jump in the number of new class starts.
