Abby Rioux: People have got to see that you love what you do.

I wished I could stay in NYC, to be part of biggest Sunday School in the world, Metro World Child, and she was one of the reasons. I would love to stay and learn from her experience, passion, professionalism. But same second I had this thought, another one came to my mind, you can stay and learn, or you can go and become this "Abby" to other people. One more time, thank you for your effort, and most of all - for your heart. You are such a big EXAMPLE. Hope, you enjoy reading it it as I did while interviewing. 

Abbigail Rioux is Education & Training Director at Metro World Child / www.metroworldchild.org

How did you come to know about Metro and how did you become director of Education and training?

I came as a visitor just for six days, and this experience changed my life. In 2002 I came as an intern, I loved it and I wanted to be there. I got an invitation to come back as a sidewalk staff member and so I did that. After one year in sidewalk my team leader got pregnant and passed the team to me. I was a sidewalk team leader for about five years and I just knew that there was more that I wanted to do, but I didn't know what it was. One day the department head for the education and training department offered me her position because she was leaving. I was given three days to think and pray about it and I knew that was an opportunity I didn't want to miss. It felt right as hard as it was to leave my site where I was for about six years, but I knew I would regret it if I said no. I agreed to take her role and now I've been in this position for seven or eight ears. 

What are your main responsibilities?

I oversee Indoor Sunday School and the lesson presentation as well as lesson writing and curriculum across both parts to our Sunday school. I work with those who oversee lessons for Sidewalk and then we develop lessons together. I also work with training and developing new leaders here and training others to be able to take our curriculum and principles all over the world. 

What would you say are the main advantages of Metro Sundays School? 

I think it is what pastor Bill said - it's built on principles that work. Games for example, that's just a principle, kids love game time, they'll come for games, they'll enjoy it and it’s fun. Or that you need to have visuals, you need to show what you're saying, it needs to be not just something boring or inapplicable to their life, but it needs to be something that they can relate to, you need to use real examples that applies to their life. Always trying to figure out what works, what engages people, what is fun, how do we continue to grow - it's always evaluating what is the best way to do something. 

Also, keeping the same type of structure and same type of principles each week. For example the quiet seat principle, how to keep kids quiet - it works to have a positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. 

The structure itself is solid, and that's why it can be adopted in so many different places because you're not changing everything about it, you’re just figuring out how it works in a different culture, that's what makes it so successful. 

This program on Saturday's Sunday school is mostly evangelistic; would you recommend using it as a Sunday school program in churches on Sundays? 

You can do this structure on Sunday, but in the lesson that you're teaching you would probably do more discipleship type stuff. 

In Metro Sunday School our lessons are more evangelistic because a lot of kids one week they come, they skip a couple of weeks and they come again, so we can't necessarily build a deep foundation, like you can do in kids church. If I had my own kid’s church, I would probably have a different type of curriculum, or just keep lessons more topical. Here for indoor and sidewalk Sunday school it’s more random, but you could group them together, you can have a series of different topics. Maybe even parents could follow up with what the kids are learning, by giving the kids a worksheet with a memory verse then the parents can go over it with their kids. But here it's different. 

Some people could say that 20 minutes of lesson and one worship song comparing to all time is not enough, what would you answer to them? 

I think that it works pretty well here, if we have more time like in camp, we have more worship songs and it's great. But here we only have one hour and fifteen minutes and it is more focused on evangelistic outreach. This isn't really the setting for that because the kid’s attention span is so short, even adult services are kept short because people are disturbed so quickly. 

It works how we do it here, I would like to have another worship song, but it's hard sometimes because not all of the kids are into it, not there spiritually, some kids would love to do it for twenty minutes another kids are punching each other. It's about balance what actually works and giving them taste, and kind of building foundation of what church would be like, it’s like running a church service for kids. 

How would you change this setting for kid’s church on Sundays? 

I wouldn't do a longer lesson, I think shorter is better - it keeps you from rambling, keeps you straight and direct. How much information can kids maintain that is applicable to their lives? I prefer to stay simpler, illustrate one topic/point and show that. I would probably add an object lesson but the reason I took that out of Sunday School here was because I wanted to add worship. I want to have lesson time and worship time, so we combine it. 

What is most challenging thing that you face working here in metro? 

The most challenging thing is when you are really passionate about something. I pour out my heart and life for what we're doing in Sunday school and I've just seen our kids moving from our neighbourhood and things are changing. We're trying so hard to reach people and sometimes I feel like is it working? I want so badly to be able to make a difference.

All the challenges that we continually face are having a lack of money and a lack of people, if we had more money and more people we could do so much more. Probably the biggest challenge has to be figuring out the balance of all those things and making it work with what you have even though often you still want to do more. Sometimes it can be discouraging, but you just have to keep going, telling yourself "I’m still going to do this; I still believe in it, it's not so hopeless just because we don't have money for that." We try to be just as good as we can and do our best out of what we've been given, there are just sometimes when it's hard and can be tiring because it's a lot of work. 

There are two teams in indoor Sunday school, what qualities are important for those who work on the stage and in the crowd?

Now we have two teams, people who work on the stage and who work in the crowd. It wasn't like that before, we started to do separation this semester because of the logistical side and the floor team wanted some stability. I'm always open to let anyone have a go at teaching and anyone who is interested to have a go at acting. In the stage team it's about being somebody who wants to grow and learn, someone who has a heart to teach. It’s not about performance, it's not about them and they will just have a passion to teach not just be in the spotlight. 

They have to be people who are willing to serve, I never have new staff that just come up and teach. I want to see that they are willing just to act in the Bible lesson, or serve behind the scenes, before they’re put in the position where they are speaking. 

Can you give some advice how to build effective team for running Sunday school? 

People have got to see that you love what you do. You can't tell people what to do and how to do it if you're not the best at what you're doing. So you have to work really hard to be good at what you do. So the people can learn from you and say "that's the best example that I have, I can be like that, teach like that, connect with people like that". 

You have to be about people, you can't just be demanding from people and not value the person themselves. It's also a huge part to take consideration of everyone’s individual gifts and talents. When you find people who want to be involved and they are good in creative areas plug them in there, if you find people who are good with acting and they love it, plug them in there. Take people’s ideas, because if they can invest in it, they can believe in it.

It’s also important to care personally about the people you work with. If you're just to be used for ‘whatever’ it doesn't feel the same as when you know someone actually cares about you as a person. Ask them how they are, have they eaten, make them coffee – because that’s human and that's what the team needs. 

But it takes time too; it takes time to build a solid team and find your core group of people that are just really good. It doesn’t have to be a lot of people but if you find the right people that’s the best way to begin and then you can continue to build your team from there. 

What is the role of teen volunteers in Sunday school?

I don't really use the teens that much, but I do little bit more than before, Tata is one of my workers and I've plugged him in to the games picking, and stuff like that. Once I did ask him to share his testimony in one of the object lessons. I like stuff like that, I think it's great to involve and give them opportunities to be plugged in. 

How would you define art? 

A lot of Sunday school is a creative art, it is creative communication; it's got to be art in terms of lesson writing. You have to have ideas, creativity and an artistic mind to be able to write skits, think of characters, themes and how to design it. I think there is definitely a skill and talent that it takes to be able to come up with all the ideas and execute them effectively. The logistics of putting it together is an art in itself - the ability to be able to have a mind to understand how things can work without turning into absolute chaos and without worries.

I think art is anything that is design and is creativity and there is some sort of product that you can see from it. I definitely see what we do as an art. 

Is there any type of art that you enjoy to do? 

I write, I just write personally, sometimes I get my Bible journal and I draw and paint a little bit. It's not my favourite past time, but I kind of like it. I love photography, singing, I like a lot of art types but I'm not doing it or trained to do it. Writing is the one that is most me but I don't share it with people. 

What books would you recommend to read, that impacted your mind-set, and way of thinking?

Living of the level of mediocrity by Charles R. Swindoll. I read it when I was new Christian just before I came here. It really impacted my life. It is basically a comparison of chickens and eagles, the difference between them.

What is the last revelation that you can share? 

In 1 Corinthians 13 and how it talks about love. I was thinking about how I need to be with people, I need to be patient, because that's loving people and love is patient. I realized that love itself if it would be personified, isn't a thing. It’s just patient. It’s not in a hurry but love itself is easy going it's like a smooth soft walk and it's not always action, it’s just patient.