Dear "joemonphilip"

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
 

Yours

Sam

Dear "joemonphilip"

Each assembly is Independent, the assembly has its own discretional powers to implement as per the requirements, everyone should admit there are expenses in the sunday school, though the teachers are our own believers and does free service , the rent for the room, the study materials, and the various expenses have to met and  please do note that the offering taken in the sunday schools majority of the amount in many assemblies are utilised for children related activities in India and many parts of the world such as orphanges and Child Evangelism Fellowship works.

Sure we give offerings in the weekly meetings (not only in worship meeting, but in other week days meetings),  in our assembly almost all  the sundays have two offerings, faithboxes for different neccesities (such as for marriages of our God's servant children, to build assembly halls in different parts of India, our poor brethren suffering with different types of illnes who cannot afford treatment etc.). Why I wrote the verse from Proverbs, Let us train our children to give without any grudges , sure when we give God will reward us multifold back. Dont keep an account for what is spent for spiritual activities, if we keep an account, sure God will also keep an account.

Yours in Christ

Sam

During yester times when the believers were poor, they had no cash to offer.
Every mother of the house at the time when they put rice for cooking, a handful of rice was put in another earthenpot.
This gets accummulated and once in a month a collector of the church visit each house and take the rice thus kept.
Rice from all house when collected is auctioned at the church for cash.
Mind that the rice from different houses used to be of different variety and mixture is a heterogeneous collection.

in the same way, sunday school students used to carry every sunday a very small packet of rice (less than 50 gms).
When they reach the sunday school, this was placed on the table. This collection by tiny-tots over a period also used to be auctioned for sunday school expenses.
It is not that this is the only income for sunday school, but as br. sam put it, a child is trained in 'giving' in this process.
Those days, sunday school anniversary had avil & pzham & kattan kappy (Sweetened rice flakes & banana & black coffee) and the fellowship was so sweet.

Now the assemblies are well off,  but the fellowship is missing and a child hardly knows giving the hard way.
 

we used to auction the first fruit of the farm in the church - bananas, tappiocca, yam..... every produce, the first fruit was designated for the LORD before the hearvest starts.

 May I ask why assemblies cannot budget sunday school expenses as part of their expenses...isn't that the way it is done? Wouldn't that be part of a church's regular expenses?

I do agree with Bro.Sam that we should never keep accounts of what we give the Lord...after all it is not our money to begin with, it is money the Lord has given us, however much we love to believe we earned it.

Now to "train" children to give...does it really have to be through a separate Sunday school collection? They can do the "offering" instead of the parent during church, right?

Now the idea of training children to "give"....like to orphanages/child ministries/disaster victims/children of missionaries or those less fortunate is actually a great idea!!.....But that can be done also by setting up a "drive" 3-4 times in a year, where the children are given information about the organization, about their needs, asked to donate something personal like letters/cards, and things needed....which gives them a definite idea of what they are doing, why they are "giving" and how their time and donation helps another child or another human in need......It promotes them to think of others in a community.

This can extend to making children aware of families in need and offering their time or help......Even spending time, helping  older folks in churches with some chores......Wouldn't this type of efforts promote  and provide a better training ground  for 'giving' ? ..........
Can contributing to a sunday school collections/offering truly give them that feeling or encourage them to be givers from the heart? Wouldn't it be another meaningless ritual to them rather than shepherding their heart?

This is all just a thought....

It is acceptable.

Nothing wrong with that.  Its up to each independant local assembly to decide.