Sunday School Songs Songs of Praise


Sunday School Songs

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Now, children, I'm going to present the certificates.

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Congratulations, Albert.

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Back in 1880, Sunday school would have looked a bit like this.

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Congratulations, Ellen.

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Hold your certificate for the class to see.

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Nowadays, things are a little less formal,

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but the message remains the same.

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For over 200 years, Sunday schools have brought children together

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to give them the good news that Jesus loves them.

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And so on this week's Songs Of Praise,

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I shall be looking at how this national movement

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has shaped generations of young people.

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We hear how gangs of unruly children led to the establishment of

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an institution that's cherished by millions.

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I've still got my certificate for a good attendance.

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Bill Kenwright explains Everton Football Club's link with Sunday school.

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You go to any Evertonian, they'll all know.

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And music from our junior and senior School Choirs Of The Year.

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For me, and millions like me,

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Sunday afternoon meant one thing - Sunday school.

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When I came home from Sunday school from my very first visit,

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Mum said, "What was it like?" I said, "Yeah, it was fine."

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She asked what we did. I said, "We sang a song about a bear."

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She said, "What?" I said, "We sang a song about a bear with cross eyes."

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When she asked me what it was called I told her -

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"Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear!"

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Turned out it was actually a line from a hymn by Fanny Crosby.

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But some of the hymns that I learned in those days

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have stayed with me ever since and

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our first hymn today is a Sunday school favourite that has become

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a favourite of each successive generation that's discovered it.

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No-one knows where and when the first Sunday school was held,

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but by the second half of the 1700s, various people were teaching

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children either in their homes or in churches.

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But it wasn't until this man, Robert Raikes,

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began his Sunday school in 1780 that a national movement started.

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Robert Raikes was a Gloucester publisher and newspaper owner.

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The story goes, according to Raikes,

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that he was working in his study on a Sunday afternoon

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and he was disturbed by the noise of boys outside playing in the street

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and he wondered why they were doing that, and realised it was a Sunday.

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At the time, very few children received an education.

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Most of them had to work.

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Children would very often start work maybe as young as five

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and children in the mines and the potteries worked 18-hour days.

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That was six days a week. So Sundays were the only day that they had off.

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So, Raikes had the idea to set up a school for them.

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During the course of the day

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they would have done some reading practice, possibly a little writing.

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They would then have gone to church for the afternoon

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and then come to do the catechism class after church.

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So, in that way, Raikes had kept them off the street for most of the day.

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The women who taught in the schools also benefited.

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This was enormously empowering because women at that time

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had no access to any sort of higher education, career prospects,

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and women really were able to use their skills in leadership

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in a way that there was no other area of life

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that they could do that.

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Raikes published an article in his journal

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that spread the idea to other towns and cities

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but studying on a Sunday caused some controversy.

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There were Christians who thought

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that on the Sabbath you shouldn't work

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and learning writing and certainly, learning arithmetic,

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smacked too much of work on the Sabbath,

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so this was a controversy amongst the early founders of Sunday schools.

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And there weren't just worries about breaking the Sabbath.

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The propertied classes were, some of them,

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worried that if people learned to read,

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the poor learned to read, they might read radical pamphlets.

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And they weren't happy at all about the poor having uncensored access

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to the Bible and discovering that God was on the side of the poor.

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So, reading the Bible themselves

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was about discovering good news for the poor.

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ALL: Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

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# Gentle Jesus, meek and mild...

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# Hear the pennies dropping

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# Listen as they fall

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# Every one for Jesus

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# He shall have them all... #

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By the mid-19th century, 1.4 million children went to Sunday school.

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They were the centre of community life

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and each one would have its own impressive banner.

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What's fascinating is the images on them.

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You'll notice that one there has got a lighthouse,

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so that's a very common image because it's about saving children.

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-That fellow looks a bit angry, doesn't he?

-He does!

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That "train a child up in the way it should go"

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is from the writings of St Paul, I think.

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I think, actually, it's probably modelled

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on the actual Sunday school superintendent.

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He looks like a Victorian gentleman.

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Can you just imagine the children

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if that's looking from the wall down at you?

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You'd think you'd be very good.

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How did the banners come about?

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The banners are very much like the logos of their day.

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They were setting out what the Sunday school stands for and then,

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of course, the real purpose was for taking outside the Sunday school

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to march and you'd all march and you'd all march behind your banner.

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When? When would the marches happen?

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It could be Sunday school anniversaries,

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but the big ones were the Whit walks.

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These events were the highlight of the year

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and brought the streets to a standstill.

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And it wasn't just young children who would attend Sunday school.

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This is extracts from soldiers' letters.

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If you notice the date, it's 1917.

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-It's First World War.

-That's right.

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And it's at a time when this church

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is having the Sunday school anniversary

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and all these young men, who are actually part of the Sunday school,

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have written letters because they can't be there.

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It's really quite moving.

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And like this chap here, J Partington,

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and he says,

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"I'm proud to say that it is the good teachings I've received there

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"that have been my greatest help in times of danger and temptation."

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Sunday school was all about praising children as well,

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-and dignifying them, wasn't it?

-And very much encouraging them.

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So, you've got medals for regular attendance.

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It was about belonging.

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It was where you met your friends,

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it was where you had social activities.

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-"Annual sports, a public tea."

-It says, "children's treat".

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Exactly. So, this is the outing.

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You can see here they're going in wagons -

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"wagons will leave the hillside chapel."

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The children's treat would perhaps be the only chance

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they ever got to go outside their community.

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And of course, the music was so important.

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The songs were such a part of Sunday school. Here's a hymn and tune book.

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And it's tonic sol-fas.

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# Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. #

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Yes. You see, they wouldn't have had an instrument necessarily,

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so they had to use their voices.

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# Sol, mi, mi, re

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# Mi, sol, sol... #

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Ha-ha! We know that one.

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When the state took over the education of children in 1870,

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Sunday schools turned their attention

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to training the body as well as the soul.

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And football has a lot to thank them for.

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Everton Football Club came out of St Domingo's Sunday School

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and their current chairman, Bill Kenwright,

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knows just how important that was.

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You go to any Evertonian and you say, "St Domingo," they'll all know.

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-Really?

-They'll all know.

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They'll all say, "That was our church."

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The reverend there decided to start a cricket team in the summer,

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and it was very successful and the word is -

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I wasn't there, believe it or not! -

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the legend is that to keep them fit for the next summer,

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he started a football team and that was called St Domingo's.

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And word that got round that they were good,

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so they got some ringers in,

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some people who weren't particularly from the parish of St Domingo's,

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that didn't probably go to the Sunday school,

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and so they decided to change the name to Everton,

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which was the communal home of the area.

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So, it started, famously, from a church.

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In 1892, the football club split into two

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and became Liverpool and Everton.

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The team that had been St Domingo's

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crossed over to the other side of the park

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and established their ground at Goodison.

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Goodison Park was the first

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purpose-built football stadium in the land.

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-I didn't know that.

-It was the very first.

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And was there still the church connection,

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-the Sunday school connection at that point?

-Oh, absolutely.

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It got bigger because, if you look here,

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you'll see that is St Luke's Church.

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That is still there in the corner of our ground.

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I don't know of any other football clubs in the world

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that have a church in the corner but St Luke's is still there.

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So, are you saying that really,

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some of the values that birthed the club still exist in the club today?

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I would like to think all of the values.

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I'm a Christian.

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I just believe that the church

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and football have to be role models to each other.

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-I think community is important.

-Yes.

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So, we started in 1988

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a football in the community programme.

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That football in the community programme at Everton is

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the biggest source of pride to our football club imaginable.

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We're there for the underprivileged, for the abused,

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for anyone with a problem or even a hope on Merseyside.

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If that's not based on church thinking, I don't know what is.

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For many, the mention of Sunday school

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brings memories flooding back.

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The anniversary days, I suppose,

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really became part of the highlights of the year.

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Obviously apart from anything else,

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one had a new dress for the Sunday school anniversary.

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I used to think how good it would be to carry one of the banners

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in the great Sunday school parades which took place.

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And I had my eye on those poles.

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First of all, you might be allowed

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to hold one of the strings that steadied it.

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But when you reached adolescence, you might just be big enough

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and I think I just about made it to carry the actual banner.

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All the other Sunday schools in the area would come to us

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and when they had their anniversary, we would go to them,

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all troop down to the streets together.

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Over 100 of us - it was a wonderful sight.

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In the afternoon and the evening,

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a laud choir made up of the Sunday school children

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would, in inverted commas, "entertain" the congregation.

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Probably about 50, 60 children, all in their best frocks and so on,

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were all arranged on the stage going up in tiers.

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I could never remember my words.

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I'd got words written on my sleeve,

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which was quite against the rules, to sing some solo.

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And it was always some daft business about birds and bees and trees

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and flowers and what have you.

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There was no amplification or anything.

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If you couldn't be heard,

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that was you off and they got somebody else in, you know.

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I can remember we had this afternoon when we were pretending to bake.

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I don't think we had any ingredients whatsoever

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and then the teachers took away our cake tins

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and they came back with all these cakes that we'd made.

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I think what they were trying to teach us is that miracles do happen.

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The thing that really stays with me is the beginning of faith

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and it is, I think, very important that children are able

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to have that starting place

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and from there, your spiritual journey develops.

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Songs, definitely. I can still sing them.

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# Now, Zacchaeus was a very little man

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# And a very little man was he... #

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You have to have the actions!

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Father, just before we go, here our prayers tonight.

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We are all thy children here, this is what we pray -

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keep us till the morning light and throughout the day.

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Nice little sample hymns in a very nice way.

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I remember particularly singing There Is A Green Hill Far Away,

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which helped to explain, with the music,

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helped to explain the Easter story

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in a way that children could best understand.

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Since the 1950s,

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fewer and fewer children have attended Sunday school.

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These days, there are so many other options.

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Shops and restaurants are open,

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there are countless leisure activities.

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Sunday schools face a lot of competition.

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And here in this cinema in Manchester,

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loads of children come every Sunday.

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But it's not to see the latest blockbuster.

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# Our God is a great big God... #

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They're here as part of Ivy Church

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and whilst their parents are worshipping in screen one,

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they're next door.

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# And he holds us in his hands. #

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Dave, why do you meet in a cinema?

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Well, the church is over 100 years old.

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We've got our own building, but we outgrew it several years ago

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and trying to find somewhere where there's a big meeting place

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for everyone to meet together, but also lots of separate rooms.

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It's blooming cold out here.

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I wish the weather would dry up

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cos I don't want to be as cold as last night.

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I know what you do in here, you do in a really contemporary way,

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but do you feel like what you do

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owes anything to the original Sunday school movement?

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Yeah, definitely. We're still telling the same stories.

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If you go to some of the younger groups,

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you'll hear that we're singing some of the same songs as well.

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You know, children have always wanted community, friendship,

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and those are the key things here.

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Sometimes it seems like there isn't a link to Jesus but actually,

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it's quite a big link to Jesus.

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I've learnt that it doesn't matter how you look like,

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God still loves you.

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What you see here today are the youth, the secondary school children,

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leading the primary school children, the younger children.

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I enjoy coming because I can teach the younger ones

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and then have more of an empowering role.

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For me, it's more the confidence.

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It's definitely given me a real sense of right and wrong

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and I take everything I've learnt in church out into the real world

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and I can pass that on to my friends.

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The best thing about Sunday school - it's very fun.

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Bread roll!

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It's great where I am.

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'One of the things that has changed

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'is that children are fantastic critics

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'and they know when they're bored.'

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So, I think kind of doing the similar stuff as has always been done,

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but just more and more through the language of fun.

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'Children today have big questions. They perhaps always have done.

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'You know - Why am I here? Who am I?

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'Does my life have meaning, purpose? Is there a God?'

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I love the idea that this can be a place where, for some children,

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it might be the only place

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where they can begin to unpack some of those questions.

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Jesus wrote a different rule.

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He wrote the rule which was "love your neighbour." Love everyone.

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'I don't think Jesus is just for those that have been'

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brought up in the Christian family.

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I think Jesus came for everyone, Jesus loves everyone

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and his message has always been for everyone.

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Our next song is performed by

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our Junior School Choir Of The Year from Derry-Londonderry.

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We're going to sing a song about a deaf boy and how he sees the world.

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This song reminds us what the church teaches us

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about our faith - to respect everyone and to treat them equally.

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Father God, thank you for the dedication of Sunday school teachers.

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May you continue to speak through them

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so that we know that you love us.

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Thank you for all the songs

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and stories that bring the message of Jesus to life.

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May they help and guide us as we travel through life.

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ALL: Amen.

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Over 200 years ago,

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when Robert Raikes began his Sunday schools, he wrote,

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"If good seed is planted in the mind at an early period of human life,

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"though it show itself not again for many years,

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"it may please God at some future period

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"to cause it to spring up and bring forth a plentiful harvest."

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Little could he have known how successfully that seed would grow

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and what a lasting impact it would have.

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Next week, as we all get older, we focus on retirement.

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And Pam meets a number of people who've found that

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being retired is not what they expected.

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Plus, treasured hymns from around the country

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and music from Tessera and Lara Martin.

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