Finishing life to the glory of Christ means resolutely resisting the typical American dream of retirement. It means being so satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ that we are set free from the cravings that create so much emptiness and uselessness in retirement. Instead, knowing that we have an infinitely satisfying and everlasting inheritance in God just over the horizon of life makes us zealous in our few remaining years here to spend ourselves in the sacrifices of love, not the accumulation of comforts.
John Piper

Robert Raikes

Robert Raikes

Robert Raikes
1736-1811
Sunday School, the greatest lay movement since Pentecost, was founded by a layman. Robert Raikes was the crusading editor of Gloucester Journal. After becoming frustrated with inefficient jail reforms, Raikes was convinced vice could be better prevented than cured. While visiting in the slum section of the city, he was distressed with the corruption of children. Raikes shared the problem with Rev. Thomas Stock in the village of Ashbury, Berkshire. They conceived of a school to be taught on the best available time–Sunday. They decided to use the available manpower–laymen. The curriculum would be the Word of God, and they aimed at reaching the children of the street, not just the children of church members.

The movement began in July, 1780, when Mrs. Meredith conducted a school in her home on Souty Alley. Only boys attended, and she heard the lessons of the older boys who coached the younger. Raikes wrote four of the textbooks, but the Bible was the core of the Sunday School. Later, girls were allowed to attend. Raikes shouldered most of the financial burden in those early years.

Within two years, several schools opened in and around Gloucester. On November 3, 1783, Raikes published an account of Sunday School in the columns of his paper. Excitement spread. Next, publicity was given the Sunday School in Gentlemen’s Magazine, and a year later Raikes wrote a letter to the Armenian Magazine.

Raikes died in 1811. By 1831, Sunday School in Great Britain was ministering weekly to 1,250,000 children, approximately 25 percent of the population.