Lakeside Sunday School teacher marks 50 years of service, still going strong

For Sara Morton, teaching Sunday School has been her life’s calling. This youthful, 82-year-old Sunday School teacher has been teaching God’s Word for more than 50 years and she has no plans to stop in the near future.
   
The Lakeside Baptist Church member has been attending the Birmingham church since 1958 when she and her now deceased husband M.A. Morton left Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, to help launch the infant church that Shades Mountain had planted. They were two of the 80 charter members of Lakeside Baptist, and Morton has had the distinct honor of serving on every pulpit committee the church has ever had.
   
Today, Morton is the leader of a 40-member women’s Sunday School class that she has been teaching for five decades.
   
Her teaching debut began at Central Park Baptist Church, Birmingham, in 1951. She was 31 years old and had just delivered her youngest child.
  
“Wayne Dehoney was the pastor at Central Park and there were two couples classes. The pastor didn’t look favorably on couples classes back then so it was decided to split the classes into two classes for women and two classes for men. I was asked to teach one of the women’s classes and I had never done anything like that before,” she recalled.
   
Although Morton said she was at first nervous and unsure of herself, she gradually became confident in her teaching skills and blossomed into an accomplished teacher.
   
The majority of her teaching tenure has focused on women’s classes although she did briefly teach a young couples class at Lakeside for five years. “I realized I just couldn’t keep up with them,” she said with a laugh.
   
When Morton was asked to teach her first women’s Sunday School class at Lakeside she said the class was held in the old Rocky Ridge schoolhouse.
   
Her room location has long since moved and the class she teaches today is the Hope Class, named for the message in Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit,” she recited without hesitation.
   
Morton professes her deep love for teaching God’s Word by simply stating that it is her calling. “One of the greatest callings anyone could have is when you feel like you’re useful in service to the Lord. I feel like I’m fulfilling His will in my life,” she contentedly said. “I haven’t wanted to give it up. I’ll keep teaching until they push me out,” she joked.
   
During her 51 years of teaching she has become a prolific Bible scholar and can recite verses without hesitation.
   
Morton says that before she prepares for any lesson she always reads the Scripture.
The mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother of two says that after teaching the Bible for so many years it’s hard to claim a favorite Bible verse. “Every time I teach a lesson I’ll say, ‘This is my favorite verse,’ and then the following week I’ll think, ‘No, this one is my favorite,’” she said.
   
Throughout the years Morton has had former members of her class tell her that she served as an inspiration to them. “I’ve had class members who have moved away call and tell me that certain Scripture verses we studied had a great impact on their life,” she said.
   
Members of Morton’s class are astounded with her memory recall. “She can recite verses left and right,” said Jo Ann Prichard, who has been a member of Morton’s class for eight years. “There is so much to admire about Sara, one of them being her biblical knowledge and how effectively she interprets the Scriptures with the class lesson,” she said. “Sara lives the life that she teaches,” Prichard added.
   
“My ladies don’t realize that it’s been my pleasure to teach this class. I get more out of it than they know. I count it a privilege they let me teach them. Sometimes I have to apologize to them and tell them I’ve gone from teaching to preaching,” Morton said.
   
Morton recently experienced a special occasion when her class honored her with a reception celebrating her half-century of teaching. She was presented with an oil portrait painted by Lakeside member and portrait painter Jim Thacker. Morton was unaware that she was being presented the gift and said that she was surprised beyond words. “Jim did a magnificent job,” she said of the portrait, which now hangs in a place of honor in the fireside room at Lakeside.
    
One of Morton’s greatest admirers is her pastor Mike McLemore, to whom she fondly refers as “Brother Mike.”
   
“Sara is a very special person to this congregation,” McLemore said. “She is a wonderful Bible teacher and a godly woman.”
   
And as to Morton’s plans for the future, she says she’ll keep teaching until “the Lord calls me home.” And when He does, she said she hopes to hear Him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”