Related articles and links |  1 of 4

Henrietta Mears has been called the "mother of Sunday school." Her revolutionary teaching methods (adding lively pictures and implementing grade levels) changed the landscape of Christian education in her day, and her imprimatur remains on today's models for curriculum. But I like to think of her more as the "grandmother" of modern evangelicalism. Her vision for the Christian life inspired a generation of young leaders who, in turn, inspired my generation.

She has the perfect pedigree to be the grandmother of evangelicalism: she accepted Christ consciously, dutifully, and single-mindedly at the age of seven (and never wavered); she sacrificed the (non-Christian) love of her life for the gospel; she had an unquenchable passion for Sunday school; and she wore goofy hats.

But as grandmothers go, she also would have been one who sometimes asserted an opinion where it may not have been solicited; she would have been a source of discomfort to those Christians who could not get to church on time; and she would have raised an eyebrow among those who could not abide her blue dress with butterfly sleeves, red earrings (and bracelet and pin and necklace), bright lipstick, polished nails, and rings on every finger. ("Why not look your best when you go to church on Sunday?") An apostle to the Jesus freaks she was not.

Still, for the historical moment of her rising, big hats with pinwheels and long-legged birds on them served her well. She used to say: "I wear my hats for my college boys, and they love them."

She also used to say: "There is no magic in small plans. When I consider my ministry, I think of the world. Anything less than that would not be worthy of Christ nor of his will for my life." So while inspiring her "college boys" with her hats, she also imparted to them the vision of conquering the world for Christ. And her "boys" included the likes of Campus Crusade's Bill Bright and former U.S. Senate chaplain, the late Richard Halverson.

Billy Graham's preaching ministry itself was galvanized at Henrietta Mears's summer Bible conference center, Forest Home. It was there that Graham came to terms with the authority of Scripture in 1948. Bill Bright was emboldened in 1947 by Mears's challenge to him and the other members of her "Fellowship of the Burning Heart" to pledge themselves to "absolute consecration" to Jesus Christ and his gospel.

So that makes Henrietta Mears a kind of spiritual grandmother to me. Billy Graham's preaching galvanized my new-found faith in the summer of 1972. My faith was emboldened the same summer at a youth evangelism event, Explo '72, sponsored by Bill Bright's Campus Crusade for Christ. Mears may well be the spiritual grandmother of us all.

Seven-Year-Old Disciple

Henrietta Cornelia Mears was born into the high society of Fargo, North Dakota, in 1890. She was the last of the seven children of Margaret (then 42) and Ashley Mears, who owned several banks in the Dakotas. From the start, she was a precocious child who protested when her mother would "dumb down" Bible readings to make them more understandable. On her first day of kindergarten she returned nonplused, saying that kindergarten was to amuse little children and that she had been "amused enough"; she wanted to be "educated."

At the age of seven, after the family had resettled in Minneapolis, she convinced her mother that she sincerely felt the weight of her sin and wanted to surrender her life to Christ. Her mother protested, saying, "I'm afraid everyone will think that at seven you are too young to understand what it means."

next page... |  1 of 4

September 16 1996, Vol. 40, No. 10