The Impact of Sunday School Participation on Spiritual Formation in African American Baptist Churches in North Carolina

The purpose of this correlational quantitative study was to determine a relationship between Sunday School participation and spiritual formation upon participating congregations of the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (GBSCNC). The process of spiritual formation comes through the spiritual disciplines being practiced. The spiritual disciplines were measured through the study sample of GBSCNC churches in this study using four spiritual development modes from the Christian Spiritual Participation Profile: growing through a relationship with God, growing through the Word, growing through critical reflection, and growing through relationships with others (Thayer, 1996). The research findings were based on a sample of 289 GBSCNC congregants attending Sunday school. Nagelkerke r correlation, logistic regression analysis, Hosmer and Lemeshow Goodness-of-Fit test, and independent t-tests were used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. Several relationships between the variables were observed, especially a high correlation between Sunday school participation and the disciplines of fellowship and evangelism. Other strong correlations included reading the Bible and mediation, service and fellowship, service and evangelism, critical reflection and repentance, and repentance and prayer. From these results, the researcher recommended further study of other African American denominations that are affiliated with an ethnicity other than their own. The findings were used to propose a model to local church Christian education leaders to promote and measure congregational spiritual formation