In 1780 Sunday School began through the efforts of one man, a printer who was concerned for the future of his country and welfare of souls.  It all begin with one word.  While Robert Raikes stood on the street of Gloucester, England and listened to a  woman complain that the swearing of the children on the Sabbath Day made it sound more like hell than heaven, God dropped into his heart one word—try.   He took thirty children off the street and began to teach them how to read.  Their first lessons were “God is one” and “God is love.”  He cleaned them up, gave them clothes, and taught them that vice is preventable and that a good example can draw others like a magnet.  Other children were drawn so that the one school grew to seven, and after three years, he published to the world the affects of his experiment.  He called it “botanizing in human nature.”  In a letter to a friend, he explained that his vision was to “create a new race out of what others called waste.”

John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Queen Charlotte of England along with numerous others inquired about his work.  When visitors came, Robert Raikes would first show them street children fighting and swearing and then he would take them to his Sunday School where the cleanly dressed children sang hymns and recited Bible verses.  Inspired visitors returned to their home towns to start Sunday Schools of their own.  Before long, Sundays Schools, or as they were called back then, Sabbath Schools began to spring up in every town and village.  By 1785 the London Sunday School Union was formed.  And before Robert Raikes’s death in 1811, over four hundred thousand children were on the books of organized Sunday Schools.

Two hundred and twenty-five years after its founding, it is easy to forget why Sunday School was started.  Formality, tradition and old fashion are words associated with Sunday School.  But when you hear about the life of Robert Raikes, those words will fall in the face of his testimony.  He was a man ahead of his time that saw the value of people and believed that God’s Word could transform lives.  Motivated by a vision to raise up a new race, he acted to stop the spread of vice and ignorance. 

Today, many Christians find themselves in a similar position as Robert Raikes found himself.  When fifty-two percent of youth raised in Christian homes deny their faith before graduating from college, we are forced to acknowledge the prevalence of vice and ignorance in our own land.  Numerous books written by Christians that critique our culture have confirmed our worst fears, and most of those books offer no hope.  Robert Raikes assessed the condition of his generation and acted according to the Word of God to raise up a new race so as to secure the eternal salvation of souls and preserve his nation’s future.  We are not without hope if we will act according to God’s Word.

What he did was not without difficulties.  The first teacher that he hired quit when a boy named “Winkin Jim” brought a badger to school. Unruly kids and unsupportive parents frustrated his efforts.  But Raikes would not be deterred.  He hired another teacher, Mrs. Mary Critchley.  She served at her post for twenty-three year and passed the job to her daughter.  Her efforts have earned her the honor of being the first Sunday School teacher.

Our Sunday School is an extension of Robert Raikes’s vision.  We believe that God through Sunday School can reach out to non-Christians and raise up a new race of Christians that are equipped with a faith that can face an adversarial world.   

Children and adults alike need the Bible training that Sundays School provides and children and adults alike can utilize the opportunity that Sunday School provides for inviting a friend to an age relevant Bible Study.  To some, Sunday School is an old idea, but we prefer to think of it as a proven vision.  It offers fresh hope to those who want to learn God’s Word.