WHAT IS THE PEAR FORMULA?

The "PEAR FORMULA" is a tool for the Pastor and the local church to use to plan and develop a five year "growth plan" for their Sunday School.

The PEAR FORMULA helps the Sunday School leadership to follow all of the basics of enlarging a Sunday School and to put together a plan of growth. One may read 15 different books' on Sunday School growth and an overwhelming majority of them will state to have a growing Sunday School you must implement at least what is called the "Flake Formula". The Flake formula states you must: (1) Discover the Prospects; (2) Enlist and Train the Worker; (3) Enlarge the Organization; (4) Provide the Space; and (5) Have Organized Visitation.

In my book The Sunday School Manual" I cover in detail the Laws of Sunday School Growth as well as many other area's in the Sunday School, which I believe cannot be violated if a church is to experience the joy of an exciting and growing Sunday School. I will not repeat them in this material, but I do desire to stress that I strongly believe that if you short cut the laws of Sunday School growth, you will not reap the results that you are desiring in creating a five year plan of growth. Growth principles have been practiced for decades and have proven themselves over and over to be necessary for continued growth. The PEAR FORMULA forces a plan to be created that follows these principles of growth.

PEAR, as you will discover over and over, stands for:

P = Prospects

E = Enrollment

A = Administration

R = Results

May I caution you that you cannot begin with “results.” Growth is caused. You cannot force a Sunday School to grow, but you can make the conditions right for growth. If the conditions for growth are set in motion, then growth will be a natural outcome of those conditions. Results are what you desire to see, but as a dear pastor friend of mine often says, "Process precedes production". That is an accurate statement. If you want production (results) then you must set up the proper process to allow growth to take place. The PEAR FORMULA will enable you to do just that if you will lay it out in detail and then faithfully follow your plan. The key is to do what we have often heard said by successful people tn the past, "Plan your work and then work your plan.”

The PEAR FORMULA will enable you to have "balanced growth" which is very important. I recently helped a church organize their Sunday School because they had experienced a remarkable number of conversions in a short period of time. In just a few months they had seen 300-400 people converted to Christ. Most of them had followed the Lord in baptism and joined the church. The Pastor was at a total loss of how to minister to that many new converts. He realized that an "Organized Sunday School" was the only way he could take care of hundreds of new converts and members. We worked for days and enlarged his Sunday School organization by about 400%. At the same time we laid out a five year plan for continued growth. The goal of the PEAR formula is to help you to organize your Sunday School for growth before you experience it, not when you have to have it. Remember the goal of the PEAR FORMULA is to organize you for "growth" not maintenance.

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