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A Brief History of Rotation.org and the Workshop Rotation Model

A Brief History of Rotation.org

In 1997, the Rotation.org website was created by Neil MacQueen to share his church's Workshop Rotation Model manual, seminar articles, and lesson plans.

From 1998-2000, Neil and a group of fellow Rotation enthusiasts managed and expanded the site with more lessons, paying for it out of their own pockets and the occasional donation. These folks came from a variety of churches across the US and Canada, and included teachers, pastors, and Christian educators.

During this same time, the Workshop Rotation Model itself was spreading out from its original base in Chicago as individuals began sharing the word at local, regional, and national seminars. In an article about Sunday School in 2002, Time magazine called the Rotation Model "one of the most innovative."

In 2000, a message board was added to Rotation.org --allowing others to post lesson ideas and discuss topics with each other. It was a first for Christian education, and set the course for what we were to become --a website that can collect and archive great materials so that they are here when YOU need them (and not subject to publishing/marketing/product calendars).

In 2001, a donation from a Rotation church allowed us to hire Phyllis and Ken Wezeman as our part-time coordinators. In addition to helping people with the site, they began shepherding a group of volunteer writers known as "the Writing Team."

In 2005, our first official volunteer Board of Directors was formed and took over the decision-making from Neil MacQueen. Neil served on the Board and Carol Hulbert was elected our first president.

In 2008, Rotation.org was incorporated as a non-profit and ownership of the site was officially transferred from Neil to Rotation.org Inc. Later that year, Neil stepped off the Board and into an advisory role.

In 2010, in order to help fund and expand the site, the Board began offering annual Supporting Memberships. It was a smashing success.

In 2012, Rotation.org began a major review and renovation of content. Later that year we also moved everything on our site to a new "software platform" (the software behind our site).  

Acutely aware of our growing technical and editing needs, in the fall of 2012, the Board hired Neil as its very part-time webmaster and "content renovator." From 2012-2014, Neil worked with a group of volunteers and Board members to "read, weed, and feed" our public lesson forums.

In 2013, Rotation.org was accepted into Google Adwords' grant program, which gives non-profits $10,000 worth of free search engine advertising on Google every month.

Early in 2015, the Board decided to replace the original volunteer Writing Team's lessons with lessons that met its creative and formatting standards. In May 2015, the Board hired Neil to lead that effort and he worked with members of the Board to write new lessons over the next three years.

In 2016, our site's software platform once again underwent a major layout and feature transformation in order to make it 100% compatible and "responsive" on all types of computers and screen sizes.

In 2017, the Board approved more work on the Writing Team lesson sets and expanded presence on Facebook. We also began to more broadly adapt our "Rotation Style" lessons to the wider audience that comes to our website and who use a variety of models, times, and places to teach Bible lessons to kids.

In 2020-21, we undertook a herculean effort to adapt many of our lessons for online and at-home use during the COVID pandemic. An entire new forum of resources, lessons, and articles was built to address needs. These resources become some of the most visited on our site.

Here in 2022, we created the new "Go!" Renew, Launch" forum of lessons, ideas, and resources to help Sunday Schools get back on their feet after a devasting two-year pandemic. These "GO!" resources are the Board's birthday gift to our members and will be expanded over the years to continue to stoke renewal efforts. At the same time, we dismantled our enormous Pandemic-era forum, then edited and redistributed many of its wonderful lesson ideas into our regular lesson forums. We also kept our "online Sunday School" inspirations and plan to expand those at a later time.

...and they said it wouldn't last.

Learn more about Rotation.org

Learn more about our Board of Directors


Our Vision

  • To teach others about the Workshop Rotation Model for Sunday School.
  • To be a  "lampstand" for creative ideas, teachers, and lesson writers.
  • To be a place where Christian educators can support one another and ask questions.
  • To be an innovative and open online resource for all types of Sunday Schools.
  • To demonstrate to the denominations not only a great way to do Sunday School, but a way to create and share creative content online across the grassroots and denominational lines.

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Last edited by Neil MacQueen
Original Post
Rotation.org Inc. is a volunteer-run, 100% member supported, 501(c)3 non-profit Sunday School lesson ministry. You are welcome to borrow and adapt content for non-commercial teaching purposes --as long as both the site and author are referenced. Rotation.org Inc reserves the right to manage, move, condense, delete, and otherwise improve all content posted to the site. Read our Terms of Service. Get a free Registered Membership or become a Supporting Member for full access to all site resources.
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