One of Sunday School’s finest went home to be with his Lord last week. Leon Kilbreth passed away Thursday, September 2 at 1:45 pm. Leon was one of the last of the great Sunday School pioneers of the stature of Arthur Flake, J. N. Barnette, and Harry Piland. A champion of Education Ministers and Sunday School, Leon was well known for his Sunday School Revivals. He was known throughout the midwest as “Mr. Sunday School.”
Leon’s funeral service will be at 11:00 a.m. at Calvary Baptist Church in Alton, Illinois. Memorials may be made to Eunice C. Smith Nursing Home at 1251 College Ave., Alton, IL 62002 or to BJC Hospice. Additional information and online guest book may be found at www.gentfuneralhome.com
If you are in Christian education ministry today as an education minister, Sunday School director, teacher or class member, I can just about assure you that you are part of the Sunday School legacy of Leon Kilbreth.
Leon has gone on to his heavenly home, but his legacy in the Sunday School movement remains. You are encouraged to leave a comment below about how Leon has impacted your life and ministry.
I was in college and serving as the part-time minister of education and youth at Bowdon Baptist Church in West Georgia in 1984. The associational missionary called and told me that since all the other churches in the association did not have a minister of education I was being nominated to serve as the association’s Sunday School director. He also told me that I was in charge of the association’s Sunday School revival with Leon Kilbreth. I did not know Leon Kilbreth but after sending a week with him my life was changed forever. It was during that week that I clearly heard God’s call to serve Him through Sunday School. Much of what I have learned about Sunday School and consulting with churches I gained from Leon. He made a great impact on my life and he will be missed. May those of us that he impacted do the same in the lives of others.
If anyone’s “middle name” could literally be “Sunday School,” it was Leon Kilbreth. Leon will forever remain one of the giants of the movement. One of the joys of heaven will be to just listen in on a conversation between Leon, Harry, Arthur, and Sunday School champions from many denominations and numerous nations. Let’s carry on!
Leon Kilbreth certainly impacted my ministry. As a young minister of education in my second fulltime church, the pastor invited Leon to lead a Sunday School Revival. I still have those notes, the manual for conducting this revival, and the tapes that I purchased. Thanks Leon for your passion for Sunday School and utilizing your gifts to advance the Sunday School movement.
May all who come behind us find us faithful.
I heard Leon when I was in High School. I got the chance to listen to and post many of his messages available here: http://www.joshhunt.com/leon_kilbreth_audio.htm
Josh
Leon helped many times in Arkansas while I was State Director. He truly was a giant for Sunday School. He was a great mentor and coach for a young educator learning the ropes. Well done good and faithful servant.
Psalm 116:15
Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His saints.
On behalf of our family, thank you for sharing your words of tribute to a great man and for joining us in giving praise to the God he served. Most people knew him as Bro. Leon or Mr. Sunday School. We knew him as Dad or Grandpa K. My words are wholly inadequate to describe what he meant to us.
He was bigger than life, and he made life special for us in ways too numerous to count. He was the real deal – the same out of the pulpit as he was in it. He had a great sense of humor and always brought laughter wherever he went. I have heard people say many times that he could preach for an hour and still leave you ready to hear more. He was a great man, with simple humility before God. He was a great Christian and a great servant of Jesus – the greatest I ever knew.
But perhaps the greatest thing he leaves us is his legacy:
• Of serving the Lord with your whole heart
• Of loving the Church and investing yourself in Kingdom efforts
• Of making a difference with your life by living to the fullest and living for others, not just yourself
My son, Joseph Leon Kilbreth, (currently serving in Iraq) expressed how we all feel when he said of his Grandpa, “He was the spiritual patriarch of our family. He taught us how to be a strong, but gentle, spiritual leader in our home and our community. I am proud to carry his name. I hope I can live up to it.”
Near the end of his life, the great American evangelist, D.L. Moody said:
“Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of Northfield is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal – a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.”
Then from his deathbed Moody said:
“Earth recedes; Heaven opens before me. This is no dream! It is beautiful. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley there. God is calling me and I must go. I have been looking forward to it for years. This is my triumph. This is my coronation day.”
On Thursday, September 2, 2010 Dad was called home to heaven. He has been reunited with our Mom, his parents and other family and friends who have gone before. But most of all, he has gone to be with the Lord he served so faithfully. I am confident that upon entering the Lord’s presence, Dad heard the words he longed so much to hear – the words of Matthew 25:23…
“His Lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.’”
Kevin,
My deepest sympothies. I sent you an email two days back, I hope you got it.
He was one of the greatest men I have ever known.
Sincerely,
Billy Ward
Mr. Kilbreth inspired me as a new believer in Columbus, Ohio. I remember going forward to offer myself as a Sunday School teacher. A few years later I was called into ministry and in my first church I started to follow the SS Principles Leon Kilbreth taught. I still have VCR tapes with the bright suits and marker board he used. Mr. Kilbreth helped set the course for my ministry. I still believe in SS as it allows the Great Commission to be placed into the hands of common, garden-variety Christians like me. I still listen to his teaching to inspire me and challenge my life.
I was just out of college when my home church, Clairmont Hill Baptist Church in Decatur, GA had a revival with Leon Kilbreth. My mother and I attended and it was that night that I surrendered my life to full-time service of the Lord. Needless to say, Leon Kilbreth had a tremendous impact in my life! He will be missed.
Bro. Leon Kilbreth as his son Kevin said was larger than life to me. I first met him in August of 1992 at an area wide crusade in Rome, GA and my life has never been the same. Less than a year later he came to my home church when I was a layman and we struck up a freindship that lasted until he longer could make and take phone calls. I would go see him him in revival if he was within 100 miles of me and he even came to see me at my business in Alabama when he was doing a a revival in the area. We also wrote letters back in forth every three months or so and I saved every one,his words of wisdom are priceless. I left the business world in 2001 to enter full-time ministry and I credit Bro. Leon with providing the encouragement for me to make that move. At my first church in AR although he was starting to fade a bit we had long conversations on the phone about being an effective Minister of Education and the work of Sunday school. I always said when something happened to him I wanted to attend the service. God allowed that recently and I was able to represent thousands of Education ministers, Pastors, and leaders that the life of Leon touched in a great way. He will forever be my hero! As was proclimed at the service it may be good-bye for now but we will have all eternity to fellowship with our brother. I am a life that has been changed and I say thank you Jesus and thank you “Mr. Sunday School.”
In the summer of 1979, weeks after coming to Christ through the faithful witness of my brother and fellow minister Michael A. Morales, Mike took me to hear Rev. Leon Kilbreth. It was during that message that the Lord spoke into my spirit and made clear to me that I was to follow the work of the evangelist. Brother Leon was used as no other man has been used in my life, his faithfulness, his zeal, his complete commitment to the Gospel as an evangelist was to be my pattern of life.
I praise God for Leon Kilbreth and I can say that the Lord used him in a way that has changed my life course forever. I praise God for his faithful witness!
Kevin, Bro Leon did several meetings in two of my pastorates in Bonham. God used him to teach me, which ultimately and radically changed me and the churches I pastored. He was a good friend and mentor. In fact, over the years I called him one of my spiritual heros. I still pull out his sermon: How to Be a Maximum Christian. One of the greatest sermons I have ever heard. I thought of him this week as I recalled him singing So Send I You, which I plan to do on my next sermon. I loved him deeply. I hope you get this note.
God bless.
Chris Cowen
June 7, 2013
Many memories of my friend…..worked with him and had him in several churches….missed him thru these years
I had the pleasure of taking my Sunday School Staff and teachers to a Sunday School seminar in Huntington, West Virginia in the late 1980s. Bro. Leon was teaching at the West Moreland Southern Baptist Church and our church (Sunshine FWB Church) was invited. I still remember much of what he taught. It was a tremendous help to the growth of our Church. May God continue to use his material and the good men he influenced for good in building Sunday Schools all around the world.
I pray all of his family are still being blessed for the good he has done.
Rev. Dr. Carl B. Lilly Jr.
St. Augustine, FL
3/1/2023
After 12 1/2 years I just saw this obituary about my mentor.
I am reminded of the comment by Dr. George C. Truett in his tremendous sermon God Calls Leaders Isaiah 6:1 he made concerning the death of the great SBC Leader Dr. B. H. Carroll. Dr. Carroll was the founder and first President of the great South Western Baptist Theological Seminary of Ft. Worth TX. This message was given sometime in early 1945 by my research and calculations. Speaking of the passing of Dr. Carrol he said, “The Mighty Cedar of the Forest has Fallen! Who will come and take his place?
That is especially true of Leon Kilbreth. He was like Arthur Flake and J. N. Barnette, all three of them were Southern Baptist Laymen. Not a preacher among the three. That alone says something in the church world of today!
On one one occasion I was on the platform with Dr. A. W. Washburn nephew to J. N. Barnette. I had spoken first, then Dr. Washburn with Leon closing the morning messages. As he was in his introductory remarks Dr. Washburn pointed to Leon Kilbreth and said “that man has done more than any man alive today to turn the Sunday Schools around.” Now if that’s not High Cotton I don’t know what is.
Thankfully I am bringing his fifteen 20 minute Tips for Teachers into the 21st Century soon. You will be able to receive them free of charge according to Leon’s son Kevin Kilbreth. Join me in bringing him back and let Leon revive your Sunday School as only Mr. Sunday School can do!
David Keith Kenemer, Sr. BA MRE
Religious Education Consultant
sundayschoolman@yahoo.com