Peapack Reformed Church: Christian Education News

Sophia Cooke began the whole thing by teaching a group of street children to read in the narthex of her father’s church over 200 years ago. When she told Robert Raikes, a newspaperman about it, he took an immediate interest and gave generous support to the idea of educating children on Sunday, the only day of the week when they were free from their labors in the mills and factories of England. Mr. Raikes felt that an educated populace would be less likely to engage in criminal activity.

Sophia Cooke used the Bible, the book most likely to be present in English homes, to teach reading. Hannah Ball, an early English Methodist, probably provided the first learning tool for Sunday School classes. She painted a series of pictures illustrating Bible stories, thus giving us our first flip-chart. Others began to gather groups of children for learning using their kitchens, their yards and sometimes the halls of churches as meeting places.

Often, the parents were more enthusiastic about the classes than the children. Parents began to understand that their children would have a better life if they learned to read, to know and love Jesus Christ, and to avoid the immoral life of the streets. Early writers tell of children brought to the classes by their parents, who would then chain the children’s ankles to a log so they couldn’t skip class. (Wonder if that would work here???) Mr. Raikes and Victor Hugo were among early supporters who brought little cakes and candies to these underprivileged children. (Could that have been the beginning of our Feast in Children & Worship?)

The Bible continues to be the text and inspiration for Christian Education. Today we know a great deal more about teaching methods and about how people learn and about how faith is formed and nurtured. Ms. Felkner writes, “By the twenty-first century, Sunday School teachers are among the most numerous of millions of volunteers in our world.” (Will you raise your hand and offer to help?)

I Knew Them All By Heart: The Legacy of a Sunday School Teacher by Myrtle E. Felkner


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