{"id":13284,"date":"2025-12-22T07:42:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T07:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13284"},"modified":"2025-12-22T07:42:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T07:42:26","slug":"guinness-book-of-records-recognises-the-worlds-longest-serving-sunday-school-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13284","title":{"rendered":"Guinness Book of Records recognises ‘the world\u2019s longest serving Sunday School teacher’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Pam Knowles just organised her 75th Christmas nativity at St Anne’s.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: Church of England)<\/span><\/p>\n

Guinness World Records has recognised an 87-year-old woman in Liverpool as \u201cthe world\u2019s longest serving Sunday School teacher\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pam Knowles begun helping at St Anne\u2019s Church in Aigburth with its Sunday school in 1951 at the age of 13.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Guinness World Records recognition, this Christmas marks another milestone for Pam – taking part in her 75th Christmas nativity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seven decades, 16 prime ministers and two monarchs later, she\u2019s still there and says she has never lost her passion for teaching the next generation of Christians.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Church of England, Pam talked of the importance of St Anne\u2019s Church in her life, saying she had been baptised, confirmed and married there. She also celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary with her late husband there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy calling has and always will be to St Anne\u2019s. I just love the church!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pam was first approached to help at the church by its superintendent. After passing a test set by the Diocese of Liverpool, she was permitted to run a children\u2019s group.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on her lifetime of experience as a Sunday school teacher, Pam noted that the basic format hadn\u2019t changed and that timeless stories like the birth of Jesus, Jonah and the whale and the garden of Eden remain favourites.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think little children can relate to these stories and they often bring their own innocent take on the Bible, which is just wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI\u2019ve noticed children aren\u2019t quite so well behaved as they used to be \u2013 they run around a bit more now, I guess it\u2019s a bit more relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having ministered to children for so long, many of Pam\u2019s charges now have families of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve been doing this for 74 years, some days I feel like I\u2019m only just starting, as there\u2019s new children all the time. It was great to be recognised by the Guinness Book of Records \u2013 my son has hung the certificate near the front door in the hall for visitors to see, he\u2019s very proud!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, I don\u2019t intend to stop doing this. I still have a lot of energy and I\u2019m just as enthusiastic about it now as when I started!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pam Knowles just organised her 75th Christmas nativity at St Anne’s.\u00a0(Photo: Church of England) Guinness World Records has recognised an 87-year-old woman in Liverpool as \u201cthe world\u2019s longest serving Sunday School teacher\u201d. Pam Knowles begun helping at St Anne\u2019s Church in Aigburth with its Sunday school in 1951 at the age of 13. In addition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1725,3805,1206,3806,684,202,2766,498,1626,113],"class_list":["post-13284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-book","tag-guinness","tag-longest","tag-recognises","tag-records","tag-school","tag-serving","tag-sunday","tag-teacher","tag-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}