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.

As a Carter admirer who lived only 2.5 hours from Plains, I figured I’d better go check it out since the end of an era was approaching. It was the best Sunday school class I’ve ever attended.

Carter taught his Sunday school class roughly twice a month to accommodate crowds that sometimes swelled to more than 500. (On the other Sundays, no more than a couple dozen regulars and a handful ...

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29, 2024, famously taught a Sunday school class at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia.

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.

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 ...

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 ...