A Note From Aaron

     Sunday School is one of our central focuses here at Mt. Calvary. It is a great opportunity for the children of our congregation to learn more about our wonderful God. Throughout the years Sunday School has taken on different forms like individual classrooms for each grade or large groups where everyone is together like we are doing now.

     Next School year things will be looking a bit different than they are now, but this change is needed and will create a better environment for the children of our congregation. 

     Sunday School got its start in 1780 and you probably wouldn’t recognize it. A gentleman named Robert Raikes noticed there was a big problem. The lower-class children of time were often sent to factories and worked horrible hours during the week. They did not receive an education and because of that they could not read or write. Raikes opened his Sunday school in July 1780, he spent the next week inviting children from poor families to participate. Those first school days began at 10 a.m. with teaching. The students were dismissed for lunch and came back around 1 p.m. After a reading lesson, they would go to a church service. That was followed by another round of classroom instruction until around 5:30 p.m. when they were sent home. This program exploded. In 20 years, the number grew to 200,000 students across England and by 1850 the number was 2 million. As education became more popular Sunday School shifted to provide a more religious based education and that’s how we got to where we are today. 

     So now that we know the history we can discuss where we are going next with Sunday School. The Board of Education has been looking for Sunday School teachers for a couple of months now and God has blessed us with some amazing people!

     In September we will be going back to having multiple classrooms split up by age but to do that we will be taking our teachers through a training program during the month of August. We will still be having Sunday School during August it will just look a little different. Amazing changes are coming, and I can’t wait for September! 

 In Christ alone,

Aaron Finkel,  DCE