How To Get Your Sunday School Literature in the Hands of Your Church Members During COVID-19

With the delta varient, COVID is on the rise again and many churches are reinstating social distancing and mask protocols. Some churches are even shutting back down due to the numbers of COVID cases in their congregation. But that must not stop us in our pursuit of fulfilling the Great Comission. One way that your church can continue to share the gospel is through Sunday School literature. However, there is one hump that we must cross, Sunday School literature distribution. 

So how can your church maintain social distancing and get your Sunday School or small group Bible study literature into the hands of your church members? We have some ideas. 

If your church is meeting 

Some churches have made the brave choice to resume their worship services. However, due to directives from leadership in various states, Sunday School and small group Bible studies have not been encouraged to resume in other states. In most states, children and teens are also not allowed to have their individual Bible study times either.

This means that outside of their Sunday morning worship time, most churches are not getting to go back into their normal routine. Honestly, normal is more than likely further away than we think. As church leaders, that means that we have to get Sunday School and small group Bible study materials into the hands of our congregation in different ways.

1. Use your open-air spaces If your church is already meeting, you have the advantage of getting to use the open-air spaces of your church grounds to distribute literature to your congregation before and after services. Simply set up a few tables outside of your meeting space with your Sunday School literature laid out on the tables for church members to choose what their household uses. Have one person from every household to come up to the literature station and choose which books their family uses. To maintain social distancing, have volunteers with gloves on to pick up the chosen pieces of literature and put them in a bag. Provide hand sanitizer at the end of the tables for church members to use after picking up their literature.

2. Pre-package your literature by family Another option would be to have the literature pre-packaged for each family. This would require Sunday School teachers and small group leaders to work together before hand to assemble the bags for their classes while wearing gloves. Before and after worship services, church members could come by the open-air literature station, give their name and pick up their literature from volunteers who are wearing gloves. Be sure to provide hand sanitizer for church members to use after picking up their literature.

If your church is not meeting 

If your church has chosen not to meet, our Sunday School and small group Bible study materials are a great way for your church to continue social distancing discipleship. Using the packing method mentioned above, pre-package literature by families. After packing the literature, there are two main ways that your church can deliver literature to its congregation.

1. Host a literature drive thru While hosting a Sunday School literature drive thru, families can drive through and pick up their literature one Saturday. This is also a great time to have posters and volunteers greeting and waving as church members drive thru to get their literature as a moment of encouragement.

2. Deliver your literature   Another option is to deliver Sunday School literature to the families in your church. Church leaders and teachers would divide up the literature bags by neighborhoods. Church members would be notified of the date and hours in which their literature would be delivered with the instructions to stay inside their homes until their delivery person is safely in their car. If they catch their delivery person, church members are welcome to come out and wave after their delivery person is safely in their car. Church leaders would then deliver the literature within the time frame while wearing gloves.

Children and Teens 

The exception to the ideas above might be how you handle distributing your children and teen literature. For children and young teens, you may want to distribute the literature weekly through the mail.  

All of our children’s material and our Young Teen Leaflets, can be assembled and folded into a standard envelope and mailed with a normal stamp. With this mail out each week, you may want to include the information about where children and teens can find your weekly Sunday School lesson video on social media and when it can be expected. If you are hosting a virtual class time, you can provide children and teens with that information in your note as well.  

Your High School Sunday School literature can be distributed quarterly along with the rest of the family’s literature. However, you will still want to maintain weekly contact with them throughout your time of social distance ministry. 

Either way, a note of encouragement weekly to your children and teens can go a long way in continuing your church’s relationship with its children and teens. 

Sunday School literature is a great way to encourage your church members to continue their personal relationship with God while social distancing. If you have not already placed your literature order for the next quarter, call us today or visit our Sunday School page here at bogardpress.org.