Fernon Retzeer,who at that time was the Sabbath School Director of the General Conference, made a great impact on our Sabbath School around 1972. He impressed us with the EGWhite counsel that the Sabbath School could very well be our best tool for evangelism in the church, if we conducted it in the right way.

He taught us to cut each class down to about 5-8 members, and as soon as the class got any larger we should divide it in two - and that it should always be our goal to increase the membership of each class - and then divide it. This would be the best way of evangelism in our church.

Right after his visit I had a course for Sabbath School teachers in the largest church of our conference, and to our astonishment a lot of young people enrolled in the course. Perhaps one of the secrets was that we told them if they would take the course we would let them teach a very small class. We even made it a requirement that nobody could become a Sabbath School teacher unless (s)he had taken the course.

Two things happened when we cut the classes down to just a few members:

1. In the smaller group nobody spoke very loudly, so there was no disturbance from one class to another, like there had been before where each teacher tried to get the attention of as many as possible in his large class.

2. Earlier it was difficult to find people to take part in the services. Once the young people had the experience teaching in a small class they were all enthusiastic and willing to have a part in the church activities. Here were all the signs of a growing church.

With no Pretzer around people forgot the ideas of a soul winning Sabbath School class. Soul winning has greatly dwindled in the Western world, while I believe there are soul winning Sabbath Schools in those parts of the world where the church is growing.