11. What Shall We
Teach?
ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO, Henrietta Mears was in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she was being featured on the radio broadcast called "The Outstanding Visitor of the Day." She was in Cincinnati as the featured speaker for the National Sunday School Convention, which she had helped organize and promote as an outgrowth of her publication of Sunday school materials in Gospel Light Press. When she introduced herself to the worried-looking program manager at the radio station, he looked startled. "Are you Miss Mears? I didn't expect anyone like you. I was expecting a religious speaker. I didn't know you would have such a charming appearance; that is, I mean—!"
"I know what you mean," she smiled warmly.
After the radio program she was rushed away to an appointment with the outstanding dentist of the city. Later, the dentist confided to his friend, "Wow! I wondered what hit the place. What a woman!"
Later in the afternoon, a newspaper reporter was sent to her hotel for an interview. He came dubiously, and slightly grudgingly, expecting to stay only a few minutes. He stayed an hour.
"Miss Mears," he flippantly opened the conversation, "do folks in Hollywood really want religion?"
"No, they really don't," she replied shrewdly.
"Well," the reporter gasped, thrown off guard, "I thought that's what you were representing out there—religion!"
"They don't want religion. But they do want reality. And that's what I present to them, the reality of Jesus Christ," she said.
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The reporter's stay lengthened and his interest mounted. Suddenly he dashed over to the telephone and dialed his paper. "Send over a photographer. Send over two photographers. I've got the number one saleslady for Jesus Christ in all America, in all the world!"
Miss Mears laughed heartily as she recalled the incident. "It has always given me a good opening when I've talked to reporters," she said.
The first question that Miss Mears faced as she established her Sunday school in Hollywood was: What shall we teach the children? She wanted material that was Bible-based, Christ-centered, and child-concerned, graded for each specific age level, with a continuing challenge as the child progressed. The keynote of her quest for Sunday school material had been struck by a young man studying for his doctorate at the University of California at Los Angeles, a Phi Beta Kappa honor student who said, "What's wrong, Miss Mears? I've gone to Sunday school all my life and I have average intelligence, yet if I were to take an examination on the Bible tomorrow, I'd flunk it." A junior boy expressed it more fervently: "Sunday school just gets dumber and dumber and they tell the same old stories every year and when I don't have to go to Sunday school any more I'll never go back." His distraught mother relayed the information to Miss Mears.
"What's wrong, Miss Mears?" and "just dumber and dumber" kept echoing in Miss Mears' heart as she searched for materials to teach. She called in specialists and teachers and they did a survey on available materials, giving them careful study. Finally, she found the lessons she wanted to teach: she found them in her heart. So she began writing the lesson plans and the lesson books for her teachers to present in the classes in her Sunday school. She sat up late at night writing the lessons that were "Bible-based, Christ-centered, child-concerned." Miss Mears knew that if each pupil is centered and well-grounded in Scripture, his own personal center is going to be well-balanced; so she wanted her lessons to be child-centered in interest, but also to be sure that Scripture would be written in the child's heart as a result.
As they studied available material, it seemed that much of it was written and presented as a grasshopper's method of study of the Word of God: hop here, hop there; jump from the the acts of Abraham to the Acts of the Apostles, hop from the Saul of Kings to the Saul of Tarsus. In much of the available material there seemed to be a
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lack of progression as the pupils went from one year to the next. When people ask Miss Mears why she presents such closely graded material, in other words, material aimed at each specific year in a pupil's life, she replies, "The Lord made people closely graded; I didn't. The little red school house first practiced a different level for each year of a student's progression in school; we should practice the same progression in Sunday school."
As she wrote the material, she based it entirely on Scripture with fresh, pertinent, applicable illustrations. The lessons were Christ-centered in the language of the child, to fit the kindergarten, the primary program, to capture the junior mind, challenge the junior high, to win the high school and to earn the full college approval. The material was not divisive or controversial. The Bible had promised milk for the babes, bread for youth and meat for men, and she based her lessons on the appropriate lessons and Scripture. "It is a terrifying spiritual condition," Miss Mears felt, "to see elders and deacons in churches having to be put in spiritual high chairs with bibs around their necks and fed spiritual milk. Yet that is what will happen if our children do not learn Scripture and Bible truths while they are young. Youth must not be strangled with spiritual truths far beyond their comprehension; the material must be graded and have logical progression through God's Word."
She began writing the material line by line, between telephone calls, callers, conferences, meetings, appointments and the steady cycle of Sundays, trying frantically to keep ahead of the next Sunday. She had a wonderful helper in Miss Esther Ellinghusen, who was superintendent of the junior department in the Sunday school and a special teacher for remedial reading in the Los Angeles public schools through the week. She began assisting Miss Mears in the writing and research. The first copies of the lessons were mimeographed, and no one had any thought of their being used beyond the Hollywood Presbyterian Church. However, results were immediate in the church: a steady growth began. The Sunday school grew from four hundred to four thousand in two-and-a-half years. Parents stopped by, inquiries poured in: "What are you teaching?"
Children like to learn; they like to accomplish, and soon the children here were far outdistancing their parents in knowledge of the Bible. Families started attending from Santa Monica, El Monte, Van Nuys, even from fifty miles away. The parents became the biggest boosters. They said, "Training, ethics and morals are discussed in the public schools.
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We want our children to know something about God's Word and His plan for their lives." As the parents brought their children, they stayed for the adult classes and so the adult Sunday school and church services grew and kept pace with the Sunday school. The Sunday school and the church became integrated. Kitchens, mimeographing rooms, offices, were used for classes. Apartment houses next door were taken over and renovated. A little row of bungalows was put up and then, gradually through the years, building funds grew and beautiful new buildings were planned and provided.
The zest and enthusiasm and glow were evidences of the spiritual growth in the same way that physical health responds to vitamins. The Sunday school was being fed spiritually and it was growing spiritually. The members of the Sunday school were learning God's truth and applying it to their own lives and watching the exciting results in every area of their living. Out of these spiritually alive classes came the teachers, the superintendents, the secretaries, the class officers, the pianists, the youth weekday activity directors, the club leaders; today there are 575 such leaders in the Sunday school carrying on the various duties involved in keeping the work going and growing.
Homes were Christ-centered and established on the Word of God in Hollywood, where notoriously one out of every two marriages ended in divorce. Sunday school and church worked together in a spirited spiritual harmony that beamed a powerful Christian witness to the community and surrounding areas.
Soon requests began coming in from every side for the material. But there was so much pressure and demand in just feeding her own hungry giant of a Sunday school that Miss Mears had no time to lift her eyes or pen beyond her own walls. Then a momentous morning arrived. Of course, no one recognized it as that kind of a morning. It was a small conversation that took place, hardly noteworthy at all when there were thousands of people surging through the church and thousands of conversations taking place. Yet, twenty-five years later the conversation was remembered as being the beginning of Gospel Light Press.
A gentleman came up to Miss Mears and she hurriedly and heartily recognized him: it was Mr. Marion Faulkner, a druggist from Santa Ana and the Sunday school superintendent in his church. She started to move on but he would not move from her path. "Miss Mears, I have been asking you repeatedly through the months for copies of
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your Sunday school literature. I must have copies of your lessons." Miss Mears laughed in delight and started to rush away; she had heard the request before. "Miss Mears! I will not leave this church until you give me some copies of the material or until I have your promise that it will be printed!" Something in his desperate determination somehow struck a spiritual spark. Seriously, the promise was given.
Miss Mears, Esther Ellinghusen and Ethel May considered the request later in the week. Should they print? Dared they print? Well, if the Lord was leading, they could but follow. So among the ringing of the phones, the meetings, the conferences, the classes, they revised some of the lesson plans with the idea of printing. Then Miss Mears sought counsel from Dr. Harry Rimmer, in the church, who was an eminent scientist and lecturer and had experience in publishing. He suggested Cary Griffin of Glendale Printers as a good man to help them. They approached Mr. Griffin and he showed great insight and understanding and, even more important, offered them extended credit.
The order was placed for a thousand copies of the junior lesson book. When the order of the books was completed, it looked to the three women as though it would be enough to last until eternity. Now the problem was: What to do with it? How would they distribute it? Mr. Stanley Engle, a teacher in the junior department and a real leader in the church, came up with a brilliant plan.
"Miss Mears," he said, "I've been using this material in my classes and I know it's good. I'm sure of its future." Miss Mears looked dubiously at the mountain of one thousand booklets and said, "It's not the future that concerns me as much as it is what we will do with them now. We stumble over them every time we turn around!"
"I'd like to help," Mr. Engle said seriously. Then he made a magnanimous offer; "Put them in my garage!" So his garage became the first "Gospel Light Press" distribution center; a small desk in his dining room was the first "head office" for distribution. Soon the garage was overflowing with lesson books and the desk was too small to hold the increasing orders. There was no advertising; it had all come about just from word-of-mouth recommendation and the personal testimonies of those using the lessons.
I remember the first time I arrived in Hollywood in 1943, when I turned down Vine Street just two blocks south of Hollywood Boulevard and saw a large picture of Salman's head of Christ illuminated
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in a bookstore window. I had a lift in my heart as I thought, "It's all right. Christ is in Hollywood, too!" At that moment I did not realize that this was the first office of Gospel Light Press, established after Mr. Engle's garage was outgrown. Nor did I realize that the day would come when I would be writing the biography of the founder of Gospel Light Press and of the one who had done so much to establish Christ in the hearts of Hollywood.
This location is now occupied by the Hollywood Gospel Supply Center and there are two other bookstores which were established as distribution centers for Gospel Light Press in Long Beach and San Diego, California. These stores are now privately owned. Today there are two offices for Gospel Light Press: large spacious three-story headquarters in Glendale, California, and a branch office in Mound, Minnesota. The Press is now managed by Cyrus Nelson, president, a former leader of the College Department, and William T. Greig as vice-president and treasurer. (He married Henrietta's cousin, Margaret; remember the two little girls who were baptized together, Henrietta and her cousin, Margaret?) Their son, William T. Greig, Jr., is vice-president and in charge of the office in Minnesota.
Today there is not a state in the United States that does not have churches using Gospel Light literature. The only Protestant church in Afghanistan uses Gospel Light literature, and Noel Lyons noticed a Sunday school in a military installation in Berlin, Germany, using the material. It has been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, German, Arabic. The foreign countries use the material by specific permission, the only stipulation being that the material must be translated without any change in meaning.
"It's amazing, Miss Mears," said one translator, "the ease with which Gospel Light Press material is translated into other languages. Even the illustrations fit beautifully and can be translated with perfect meaning into any foreign language."
Teacher smiled her smile. "Not so amazing when we consider that Christ is the author and finisher of our faith! And also of Gospel Light material!" she added with a twinkle.
More than forty full-time employees — writers, specialists, research workers, librarians, business administrators, mailing clerks, and secretaries attempt to keep pace with current demands for the literature.
An excerpt from Esther Ellinghusen's travel diary of her trip around the world with Miss Mears in 1952 gives a glimpse into discoveries they made on their trip. "Tokyo, Japan, September 16, 1952— We visited Tokyo Bible Seminary. They
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are using $100-worth of Gospel Light Press Sunday school books every month. There is a plea for additional translations . . .Today we saw Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Fisch, who are doing such a remarkable job of getting Gospel Light Press literature into the Japanese language. They feel because of the advanced educational standard in Japan, it is far more important for them to have the closely graded material of Gospel Light Press than it is for some of the other areas. They rejoice that thousands and thousands of our books are behind the "bamboo curtain" in China . . . (Today, the Fisches have progressed from a bamboo room to a three-story, fireproof building in downtown Tokyo and as part of their work they are translating and publishing three books of the Gospel Light curriculum each month.) Days later we were thrilled beyond measure to see in a Chinese store in Taipei, Formosa, some Chinese copies of the material which had been produced by the Fisches, so their work is still continuing with the Chinese as well as getting a good start with the Japanese. They pleaded with us to see if work could be started at once on translations into Korean . . . . Taipei, Formosa— Luncheon with the Dick Hillis family; a marvelous time chatting about home, about Forest Home, and about their wonderful work in China and now in Formosa. Dick took us to visit the Canadian Presbyterian Hospital to see Gospel Light Press material in both English and Chinese . . . . Had tea with Mr. and Mrs. James Dickson . . . Saw where Dr. Mackay, under great persecution, started the Canadian Presbyterian work in Formosa more than eighty years ago. We called on his son, Dr. Mackay, and his wife in the old home where he was born. Mrs. Mackay was so thrilled to see us. She had just that very day received the Gospel Light Press nursery course and when we came she was busy cutting out the handwork in preparation for her class. When I took her picture she insisted on holding the package and the cow 'cut-out' which she had just mounted. . . ."
In the very early days of the first publications of the lesson materials, Miss Mears was invited out to present them to a church in El Monte, California. She and Miss Ellinghusen drove to El Monte for a Sunday afternoon meeting with the leaders of the church to make a simple presentation of the available material. It was in the depths of the depression, and while the teachers were very impressed with the material, they felt they just could not afford to make the change to the material at that time. Two months later they sent in a large
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order. Their instructions were: "Please rush order. We cannot afford not to use the lessons. Another church in El Monte is using Gospel Light material and they are getting all the children!"
So much interest was shown in the lessons that Miss Mears decided to make the first presentation of the material to the public. A display was set up in the lower auditorium of the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood. Invitations were sent out and it was arranged to serve a supper after the presentation to make it more convenient for the guests to remain for the evening church service. The theme used to present the material was "Something New Under the Sun!" They had no idea who might come. First they were surprised at the number of people who showed up. The surprise turned into horror as the auditorium filled and kept filling. The dinner had to be stretched and stretched and emergency supplies rushed in. Viewers were so pleased with the material that they hurried to telephones to call up and invite others they knew who would be interested in seeing any new way of presenting the Word of God attractively to young people.
Through the years Teacher has been constantly writing, editing, counseling on policy, and representing the motive of the material by making countless challenges to audiences all over America to build Sunday schools and develop spiritual leaders by presenting Jesus Christ and the Bible, His Word, as the only infallible truth and guide.
Gospel Light Press presents a leadership training conference each year at Forest Home, to which come teachers and leaders from all over the United States. The conference is packed so full with ideas and principles for Sunday school leadership that one man said, "I dropped my pencil during the first lecture, and I never did catch up again!"
So the material that Miss Mears sat up far into the early hours of the morning to write for her own Sunday school classes has grown into a circulation of millions of copies each year. Lessons that were written in the language of her own heart to glorify the Lord she loved so much have been translated into languages that are spoken throughout the world, that all echo the universal heart need for the Redeemer of Zion. By filling the need she found in the hearts and minds of her own classes, she has broken the loaves and fishes and is feeding the multitude. Her prayer is that the literature of Gospel Light Press will continue to go out to all the world to exalt Christ, as Saviour and Lord, and that the true purpose will never alter nor change until Christ comes again as the Living Word.
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Jean Shay, who traveled through Europe with Henrietta and attended the Billy Graham London Crusade with her, says, "Everywhere we went in Europe I was impressed with Miss Mears' "language of love." She couldn't speak Norwegian, but everyone everywhere could understand her. She could always get her meaning across, through her smiles and laughter, her gestures, her expressions, her delight, they knew what she meant, and everyone just scurried around to give her all the help they could. They could just feel her love for them and her interest in their lives, through her 'language of love.' "
It is this same language she had used to write the Gospel Light lessons.
