Turnout for Carter’s Sunday school lessons dipped during the Great Recession. But the crowds returned after his cancer announcement, with some folks lining up outside the church the night before.

Carter taught his Sunday school class roughly twice a month to accommodate crowds that sometimes swelled to more than 500.

FILE - People wait in line outside Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., to get into a Sunday school class taught by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Aug. 23, 2015. It was Carter's first ...

No matter how many times one crammed into the modest sanctuary at Maranatha Baptist Church, there was always some wisdom to be gleaned from the measured, Bible-inspired words of Jimmy Carter.

Sunday school class with Jimmy Carter: What it was like This was another side of the 39th president, a down-to-earth man of steadfast faith who somehow found time to teach Sunday school classes ...

FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown, Aug. 23, 2015, in Plains, Ga. The 90-year-old Carter gave one lesson to about 300 ...