# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S295
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

294 PARISH EDUCATION

and without hope. If our 4,800 Sunday schools were to report an
average gain of five unchurched persons per annum, that would
add 24,000 additional names to the roster. Conservatively stated,
we are falling down on the job every time our annual gain is Jess
than 75,000. For the sake of these souls our congregations must
make a continuous effort to hold what they have and to bring into

the Sunday schools large numbers of unchurched men, women,
and children,

Nursery Department. — During the pust three years the num-
ber of congregations maintaining a Nursery Roll has increased
from 1,791 to 2,198, and the enrollment has grown from 70,000
to 92,000. The enrollment of three-year-olds in Nursery classes
has grown from 25,000 to 29,000. Over a period of ten years the
Nursery Department has experienced an unusual growth. But
there is room for a great deal more growth. Potential births for
the next three years are 80,000 per annum. At the present time
we are enrolling 40 per cent of the potential. If all babies under
four and all children born during the next three years were
enrolled in the Nursery Roll, the increase would be 136,000.
So there is plenty of room for expansion on the Nursery level.

Nursery Class Materials. —Nursery letters, prayer folders, and
Bible-story leaflets are still being furnished for the home. The
course for the Nursery class, in use for some years, has been
replaced by a very fine course entitled My Nursery Bible Lessons.
The complete course includes Nursery Play Packets and Bible
Pictures for the Nursery. The new Nursery class materials have
been given a cordial reception and are being widely used.

Life in Christ Bible Lessons. — The revision and extension of
the Concordia Bible Lessons was begun in 1951 and completed
in 1955. Publication of the lessons entailed a four-year writing
program, which included the preparation of hundreds of pieces
of art work. A circulation of more than a million and a quarter
copies of Concordia lesson materials, papers, and teachers’ quar-
terlies every quarter bears witness to their popularity. One request
has been brought to the attention of the Sunday School Office
rather frequently, the request for a greater degree of uniformity
during the two years in which parallel stories are used in the
Junior-Senior Lessons. The Board for Parish Education has taken
cognizance of this request and hopes to take care of it satisfactorily.
The editors have prepared a new schedule of lessons, which will
enable them to meet this request part way without depriving
teachers of the expanded series of Bible stories that is considered
desirable. A new feature of the Junior-Senior Lessons is the

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