Sunday School

The History of Sunday School

The Sunday School  exists in the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil since the church was founded, on the 15th of November, 1951. However, maybe due to its very name, during a long time most of the people who used to attend the lessons were children up to twelve years old.

It was a young missionary, a lecturer at an University in the South of California, the one responsible for changing this concept that had been among the Brazilians for a long time. Her name was Lucille Marie Johnson. She was sent to Brazil in order to assist the church in the education area.

In 1959 she left her family, her country and her job at the university in Los Angeles and came to Brazil. She became a teacher at the ITQ (Theology Institute of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil), where she taught Music and Regency, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Christian Life and Organization and Administration of the Sunday School.

Ms. Johnson also encouraged the creation of "Luz do Evangelho" (Light of the Gospel), the booklet which was published by Bethany Publishers (Editora Betania), and its utilization in the Sunday School, since at the time the church did not have its own booklets.

As she had been brought up attending to Sunday School lessons, Ms. Marie (as she was known by the Brazilians) knew the importance of its teachings in the discipleship of Christians, so that they would grow strong in character. She also knew that it was not only children the ones who had the need to be taught, but also youngsters and adults, but to achieve this aim it would be necessary to extinguish many stereotypes and wrong concepts existing among the people. 

This was a task to be carried out under the direction and power of the Holy Spirit. Guided by this same direction, Ms. Johnson organized other activities such as camps for children, Summer Holidays Bible Schools, kids crusades, choirs and worship groups. As she was a musician, she was always either singing or playing the piano. In 1973, at the Barra Funda's Church, she organizes a choir composed by 220 youngsters, know as Batalhao Quadrangular (Foursquare Battalion).

This precious servant of God made a difference to the Sunday School in the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil. Her devotion and love for teaching attracted many faithful followers, who not only followed her steps while she was still among us, but who are still faithful to this premise which tells us that we ought to "teach the Word of God in a clear and straightforward, practical way to children, youngsters and adults" and that "Bible School is the 'spinal column' of the church, for it is by it that the characters of Christians are formed, so that they grow in strength and conviction in the Word and in faith".

Like other groups in the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil, until 1963 the Sunday Scholl had only local and regional coordinators. It was in that same year that the first National Coordination was created, post occupied by Missionary Lucille Marie Johnson until 1974, when she left us to be with the Lord.

On that occasion, Mrs. Edna Luiza Brandolis was named for the position. Then, in 1977, Pr. Gary Royer, a missionary sent to Brazil by the international church, became the new National Coordinator, position in which he stayed until 1979.

His successor was Pr. Cesar Augusto dos Santos. He was an auxiliary at the church headquarters in Sao Paulo, and later sent to Campinas and, after that, Curitiba. He is married to Elizabeth Pereira dos Santos and has two children: Lilian and Cristina.

Engineer, professor at universities, a teacher at the Theology Institute of the Foursquare Church and an auxiliary pastor at the church in Curitiba. This man was the one responsible for achieving our aim of producing and printing our own Sunday School Booklets. He carried out an excellent job in the education field at the Church in Brazil and, as an engineer, he has blessed many of our churches with his professional work.

Since the year 2000, with the new church statute, the Sunday Schools are under the supervision of the General Secretary of Education.