The Workers' Meeting
81. The meeting which is commonly called the Teachers'-Meeting we prefer to call the Workers' Meeting, because it should be as helpful to the officers as to the teachers. It is impossible to overestimate the value of a properly conducted Workers' Meeting, and yet it is difficult to maintain one. A Sunday-school without a Workers' Meeting is a collection of classes, and not a school at all, strictly speaking. A helpful Workers' Meeting maintained regularly every week guarantees a good Sunday-school. It is a thermometer accurately indicating the true condition of the school. To the tired worker it is a refreshing port-of-call between the two continents of Sunday; to the discouraged, it is a heart stimulant; to the over-busy, it is a storehouse filled with what they need, and ready for their use. To all who are willing to pay the price of the best work, it is a necessity.
82. Leadership.—The superintendent should preside. It is his meeting. The program should be in his hands, and of his making. He should not teach the lesson unless he is the best qualified person to do it. He should have a special message for the workers at each meeting, bearing upon some phase of the work.
83. Equipment.—All who attend should have their own Bibles. Tablets and pencils should either be brought from home or be furnished by the school. There should be a good blackboard at hand, also the necessary maps and charts for lesson study. A teachers' library is very important, and the librarian should be present, so that the workers may take home the books if they desire. Models of the tabernacle with its furniture, the temple, an Oriental house, etc., will be helpful. Leaflets on various phases of the work, for distribution, may profitably be used from time to time.
84. Who Should Attend.—Certainly the pastor. The teachers are his best helpers; the Sunday-school is the whitest part of his great field. He cannot afford not to be in vital touch with the workers of the Sunday-school. He may or may not be the best person to teach the lesson. All the officers of the school should be there, for the details of their official duties will be discussed from time to time. Of course the teachers will be there, and the substitute teachers who are to act on the following Sunday. It would be well also for the prospective teachers or the members of the training class to be present, if possible. Some schools require the attendance of the teachers upon this meeting.
85. The purpose of the meeting is to study the school, to plan for the school work, to create Sunday-school enthusiasm; to disseminate Sunday-school intelligence; to maintain a vital relation to the great Sunday-school movements of the day; to show how to teach the lesson for the following Sunday. It is to help, instruct, encourage, and equip the officers and teachers at every point, and in every way.
86. Time and Place.—If possible, devote an evening to it, late in the week and at the church. Settle upon one night and stick to it. Those who are absent will always know exactly when and where the next meeting will be held. No more important meeting is ever held at the church than this, and it ought to have the right of way one night in the week. It is a short-sighted policy on the part of any church to deny this.
87. Methods of Lesson Work.—The Workers' Meeting is not a Bible class. To conduct it as one will usually kill it. A good Workers' Meeting presupposes previous preparation of the lesson on the part of the teachers. They do not come there to study the lesson. Other things being equal, that Workers' Meeting is the best which, under wise leadership, has the largest number of participants. It should be conducted on the catechetical rather than the lecture plan. The method of presenting the lesson should have more consideration than the subject-matter. The "Angle Method" of conducting the lesson periods of a Workers' Meeting is very popular, and is explained by the following, which may be printed on cards, and handed a week in advance to ten persons, each of whom is asked to be prepared on a given "Angle."
Angle No. 1—Approach.
Give subject of last lesson, brief intervening history, time, place, and circumstances leading to this lesson.
Let the lesson text be read at this point.
Angle No. 2—The Lesson Story.
Give the lesson story in your own words.
Angle No. 3—Analysis.
Give one or more simple working outlines for studying and teaching this lesson. Use the blackboard if convenient.
Angle No. 4—Biography.
Give the names of persons, classes, and nations mentioned or referred to in the lesson.
Angle No. 5—Orientalisms.
Give any Oriental customs or manners peculiar to this lesson.
Angle No. 6—Central Truth.
Give the central truth of the lesson and your reason for its choice.
Angle No. 7—First Step.
Give a good way to introduce this lesson so as to secure attention from the start.
Angle No. 8—Primary.
Give the features of this lesson which are best adapted to small children.
Angle No. 9—Illustrations.
Give a few incidents or facts that will serve as illustrations.
Angle No. 10—Practical Lessons.
Give the most practical lessons in personally applying the truths of this lesson.
The leader should be prepared on all the "Angles," so that he can take the place of any one who is absent.
88. Program.—Begin with a bright, earnest, tender devotional service of ten minutes, remembering in prayer any who may be sick, and special cases of interest mentioned by those present. Then devote fifteen or twenty minutes, according to the need, to some feature of the school work previously decided upon. It may be a discussion of finances, led by the treasurer, or of the records, led by the secretary, or of grading, led by the superintendent of classification, or a consideration of a given department, led by the superintendent of that department. Follow this with thirty or thirty-five minutes in the consideration of the lesson. Then devote about ten minutes to messages or suggestions from the pastor or superintendent, or both, closing with a five-minute service of prayer and song. The service can be made to come within an hour, by shortening some of the items named above. At the close of the Workers' Meeting, spend a few minutes in social intercourse. A Workers' Meeting conducted after this manner will be a veritable dynamo of power for the Sunday-school, and none who can attend will willingly remain away.