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“Attend to the people . . . and call them in”
“Is there an instruction manual for being a superintendent of Sunday School?” I was asked recently. I receive a number of calls with questions like this because I currently serve as the Sunday School Support Lead for the Church Activities Department of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston.
When The Mother Church Sunday School was being organized in the late 1800s, the church’s Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote to church members involved in this work. In one letter, she said, “Now is the hour for you the Sunday School to organize and have a Superintendent to conduct things orderly” (Mary Baker Eddy to W. L. Johnson, December 14, 1891; L03282, The Mary Baker Eddy Library, © The Mary Baker Eddy Collection). In another, she wrote, “The time has come for the Sunday School to organize and have a Superintendent to attend to the people outside and call them in . . .” (Mary Baker Eddy to Ira O. Knapp, December 14, 1891; L03414, The Mary Baker Eddy Library, © The Mary Baker Eddy Collection).
While thinking about these instructions, I was also reading Exodus, and it occurred to me that the story of Moses could be a kind of instruction manual for superintending. From the perspective of those whom he led through the Red Sea to freedom, Moses may have appeared both astute and good at “attend[ing] to the people” and “call[ing] them in,” but Moses felt he had no ability to do what God had charged him to do. After all, he was reluctant even to communicate with the Israelites, protesting to God that he was “slow of speech” (Exodus 4:10). Reluctance based on believing oneself unequipped for leadership is similar to how I felt when I was asked to serve as superintendent at my branch Church of Christ, Scientist.
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