In 1978, when Lila, Mom, and I joined First Baptist Church, transferring our membership from Memorial Baptist Church, where my grandmother had been a charter member, I began attending the Ruth Sunday School Class. It was a woman’s class, married, never married, divorced, or widowed, ages 25-45 years. It was wonderfully well taught by Sue Ham and had been for years. When Sue wanted to step aside, I felt called to become the teacher and have continued in that role for 49 years.

For our first twenty years we met in a small room upstairs; Dr. Patterson led the devotional and then we would go to our individual classrooms. Over time, our class grew in number of members and our members’ ages also grew, preferring not to be promoted into another class. So, we became the Ruth Class, ages 25-55; the Ruth Class, 30-60; the Ruth Class, 40-70, until we reached our current status of 45-85.

A more important transformation happened about 20 years ago. A man visited our class! His wife attended class with us and he wanted to be with her. Who says no to that? Then, sensing an opportunity, another man attended, also wanting to learn with his wife. We all held our breaths. What could this mean? We had two concerns. First, this flew in the face of our Sunday School class structure. Second, what did our class members, women, think about it?

So, when we had an opportunity to discuss this phenomenon among ourselves, we weighed the pros and cons and considered the answer to that great question: “What has God said to us about this lately?” As it turns out, we had forgotten to ask Him. So, when we did, we prayed and sensed that this was God’s direction and agreed, tentatively, to try it.

Now, 20 years later, out class is pretty fluid with respect to age, includes a healthy mixture of women and men, and is called, cleverly, the “Ruth and Boaz” class. We learn together and we serve together, assisting others with mission projects, providing support (usually food) for Vacation Bible School and church celebrations, and volunteering at the Food Care Center. It is indeed a brave new world.