Imagine seeing your church numbers double every year. Impossible? Not at all.

“We have whatever it takes, but it will take everything we’ve got,” said Pastor Bill Wilson, founder of Metro World Child.

Often called the largest Sunday school in the world, Metro is living proof that such staggering growth is achievable.

Emerging from the pandemic with a global weekly attendance of close to 100,000 in 2021, this figure jumped to more than 200,000 in 2022 and over 400,000 in 2023, then crossed the one million mark in 2024.

Metro is on a similar trajectory this year.

As of July, almost 1.5 million children come for its weekly Sunday school. By the end of 2025, Metro estimates that they will have 2 million children.

Although the faith-based humanitarian organisation was founded in 1980, “the greatest move (it has) seen in Sunday school has happened in the last four years”, Ps Bill observed.

What started as a burden to share the love of Jesus Christ with at-risk children in one of the grittiest neighbourhoods in New York City has expanded to a global movement that reaches families in 25 countries today.

Go where the fish are

Speaking at the Winning the Children conference organised by LoveSingapore on July 9 and 10, Ps Bill and his team not only shared about how they run their Sunday school, but also stories from their own lives – each a testament to what God can do through an ordinary person’s willingness and faithfulness.

After all, that is how Metro began more than 60 years ago.

As a 12-year-old boy, Ps Bill was abandoned by his mother at a bus stop when one ordinary Christian man stopped for him and sponsored his attendance to a Sunday school camp.

That is why Ps Bill has a soft spot for children like himself. Up to today, the 77-year-old is still actively involved in the ministry, driving a bus around New York and picking up children for Sunday school whenever he can.

Whether it is preaching the Gospel to children living in the cemeteries of the Philippines or providing hot meals for students in Kenya, the focus is always on the unchurched.

Ps Bill Wilson, founder of Metro World Child (left) and his Special Assistant, Yenni Wu (right), emphasised that Metro embraces this one principle: Go where the fish are.

“We don’t wait for the kids to come. We don’t just ‘babysit’ all the church members’ kids. We go where the kids are,” explained Yenni Wu, Special Assistant to Ps Bill.

Leaving behind her corporate life to become a full-time missionary in 2019, the Taiwan-born Singaporean never expected to be doing what she is doing today.

But what Yenni saw on a Metro mission trip in 2018 to the slums of Manila moved her into action.

Today, the 52-year-old is pounding the streets of New York to invite children for Sunday school, knocking on doors to do home visitations, teaching Bible lessons from a truck parked on the sidewalk and engaging with churches from around the world who are keen to learn more about their ministry.

“Sunday school is actually a church growth and planting strategy.”

Debunking the myth that Metro’s model of outreach is only successful for communities in need, Yenni shared examples from trainings they have done in Taiwan.

Just earlier this year, volunteers and staff from a church in Taipei were taught how to go out into the streets to invite children and parents to come for Sunday school.  

That weekend, they saw over 100 kids and their parents turn up in their church for the first time.

Metro held a training for Taiwanese churches earlier this year. They learnt how to run Sunday school both indoors and outdoors. Photo courtesy of Metro World Child.

Another church in Kaohsiung was also trained to conduct Sunday school outdoors or what Metro calls “Sidewalk Sunday School”.

Just on their first try, nearly 40 kids and more than 20 parents showed up for the lesson that was held in a park.

Can this kind of children’s ministry work in affluent countries?

“It has been proven. It has been done already,” stated Yenni.

“If you want to have a result you have never had before, you have to do something you have never done before.”

3 things the Church needs to contend with

The Church of Singapore is facing some serious challenges today.

Speaking to the 165 Pastors, leaders and volunteers from 53 churches and organisations who attended the two-day training, Ps Debbie Yow, who heads the children’s ministry at 3:16 Church, singled out a few.

She and her husband Ps Norman Ng, Senior Pastor of 3:16 Church, are helping to drive LoveSingapore’s Winning the Children strategic thrust, which comes under the key priority of Winning the Youth.

Ps Debbie Yow observed: Many churches are focusing on discipling the next generation that is within our walls, but what about all the other children outside?

1. The Church is ageing

Highlighting national demographic trends, Ps Debbie said that these were also being reflected across our churches.

She cited findings from the State of the Church in Singapore 2024, pointing out that “the population distribution in the Church of Singapore is similar to that of our nation”.

“That means, over time, we are going to have a lot more seniors as compared to children,” said Ps Debbie.

Described as an “aged society”, Singapore is projected to become a “super-aged” society in 2026. By 2030, one in four citizens will be seniors.

“And Singapore is facing an existential crisis of population growth,” she added.

Since our nation’s total fertility rate is 0.97 and we are not having enough babies to replace ourselves, what would that mean for the future of the Church in Singapore? What would that bode for the continuity of Christianity?

2. Churches are mainly serving children of members

“From our current understanding, a lot of us are serving primarily the children of our members, which is good and important because discipleship is key,” noted Ps Debbie.

“But we all know, Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come.’ That is not just the children in our church today, but also the children everywhere.”

Inspired by the work being done by Metro, she hopes that more churches will catch this spirit.

“They don’t just wait for children to come. They go. That’s what we need to do. We must have a ‘going’ posture.”

3. Winning the children requires a change, but change is possible

In John 21, the disciples fished all night and caught nothing. But when Jesus appeared and told them to “throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some”, they listened and hauled in a miraculous catch.

Challenging the audience, Ps Debbie asked: As children’s ministers, have we been fishing on only one side of the boat? Are we set in our ways, allowing culture or church history to limit what we can or cannot do?

“Perhaps today the Lord wants us to be a blank canvas once again – to dream with Him, to hear what others are doing and to say, ‘Holy Spirit, it’s not about what programmes I already have planned for this year.’ But it’s about saying, ‘Lord, have Your way. Would You give us the courage to turn our eyes to You and to ask You to show us which side of the boat we should be fishing on?’”

Discipling children within the church is important, but most of the kids are outside the church, Metro’s Yanni pointed out.

“Why are you not going to where they are? Why do you keep inviting the three kids in your church? Invite the 300 kids outside.”

Sunday school in a park: Taiwan-based television station GOOD TV featured how a Kaohsiung church found success with Metro’s Sidewalk Sunday School. Source: GOOD TV

Encouraging Sunday school teachers to cast their net wider, Yenni said that perhaps there are some “fish” that do not fit into their church’s current profile of children.

“Are you willing to go out and bring them in?”

Referring to the 4-14 window, where research in the US has found that the majority of people who accept Christ do so between the ages of 4 and 14, Yenni questioned: “Are we grabbing the window? Or are we waiting for them to become a teenager, a young adult, then we reach out to them?”

While many see problems, Metro sees possibilities.

“A lot of people say it cannot be done. Very often we limit ourselves,” said Yenni. “It is possible. You just have to believe, pray and keep going.”

“It can be done!” she emphasised, drumming home this message again and again.

Don’t let fear stop you

Reminding the participants to persevere even when opposition comes, Ps Bill also shared a few lessons from the Book of Nehemiah during the conference’s night session.

Born during the time when Israel was taken into captivity by Babylon, Nehemiah decides to initiate a rebuilding project after hearing that the walls of his city are still broken despite earlier groups of Jewish exiles who have returned to Jerusalem.

But as soon as they start building, Nehemiah faces fierce opposition.

“When you start building or rebuilding something, somebody is always going to come to you and say, ‘What? Who do you think you are? Why are you doing this?’” said Ps Bill.

“There will always be people who will question your motives, your tactics.”

What did Nehemiah do? He got the people to keep working – with a shovel in one hand and a sword in the other.

Titling his message “Voices from the land of Ono”, Ps Bill said that in Nehemiah 6, the enemies of the Jews continued to scheme to stop the rebuilding by asking to meet in a village on the plain of Ono.

Playing on the word “Ono”, Ps Bill remarked that when we start building something that God puts on our heart, we might also be confronted with many naysayers.

“Oh no, we can’t. Oh no, we’re not. Oh no, it can’t be that way,” he said, recounting real-life examples of people who have allowed discouragement to kill their desire to make a difference.

“The voices in the land of Ono are as real today as they were in Nehemiah’s day.”

“When the Lord begins to move something in your heart, to encourage you to make a difference, are you ready?” asks Pastor Bill.

Showing how we can learn from Nehemiah’s response, Ps Bill highlighted Nehemiah 6:9.

“They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, ‘Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.’ But I prayed, ‘Now strengthen my hands.’”

Sharing that this is also his own prayer, Ps Bill said: “People say it can’t be done. No. Lord, give me the strength. Strengthen my hands.

“At 77 years old, I’ve learnt that if you don’t go through the door that God opens to you when He has opened it to you, guess what? That door will not stay open forever.”

When we do not seize the opportunities that come with open doors, “somebody else is going to come through it,” he added.

“Why am I saying this? Because I’ve seen just enough evil in this world.

“You know what a generation is being fed – the foolishness, the negativity, the perversion that is being thrown at these kids. Who is going to speak against it and bring them truth and give them an opportunity to know the King of Kings?”

There is a generation that is hanging in the balance, declared Ps Bill.

“This whole LoveSingapore campaign is, to me, just a perfect mandate for all of us to say, ‘If there was ever a time to come together and make a difference, this is that time.”

Let us arise and build

Wrapping up the first day of training, Ps Norman, coordinator of LoveSingapore’s Winning the Children, affirmed that God is releasing a new vision for children’s church in Singapore.

“Isaiah 43:19 tells us to, ‘Behold, (God is) doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

“Some of you have been in children’s ministry for a long, long time. Today, in this declaration of His Word, God is putting in your heart a new dream and a new vision of what he intends to do through you, to establish a new work for the children for our nation, so let’s lean in.

“There is a vision for us to catch and for us to run with.”

Urging the participants to open their hearts to what God might be calling them to do, he said: “The sovereignty of the Lord God Almighty has opened the door, and we’re going to go into a pioneering phase of the most glorious age of children’s church in Singapore.

“Would you arise and build?”

This is Part 1 of our coverage from the Winning the Children conference. Read Part 2 to learn about the techniques that Metro World Child uses for their Sunday school.

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