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.

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

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.

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 ...

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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.