Kids, Dogs, and Real-World Words

From my journal: Samuel Logan Brengle (died 1932) was a Salvation Army commissioner. Among Salvationists, he has always been appreciated as one of their greatest evangelists. When a young man, Brengle was converted to Jesus one night through the preaching of the Army’s founder, William Booth, when the general visited Boston at the turn of the 20th century.

Toward the end of my sermon last Sunday, I read to our congregation Brengle’s description of the “morning after” his conversion experience.

“I walked over Boston Commons before breakfast,” Brengle wrote, “weeping for joy and praising God … In that hour I knew Jesus, and I loved Him till it seemed my heart would break with love … I was filled with love for all His creatures. … I heard the little sparrows chattering; I loved them … I loved the dogs, I loved the horses, I loved the little urchins on the street. I love the strangers who hurried past me, I loved the heathen—I loved the whole world.”

When I read these words I could feel the congregation warm to them. But I was hardly ready for what happened in the next few days. All kinds of children who had been in the service responded to Brengle’s experience and talked about it to their parents on Sunday afternoon. They connected with Brengle’s new affection for sparrows, dogs, horses and urchins. They sensed something which was very real to them about what it meant to give their lives to Jesus.

The lesson for me—the preacher—was important. Faith is more compelling to children (and to the rest of the younger generation) when it is aligned with the realities of the real-world, especially the world of creation such as the thin slice of it which Brengle found on the Boston Commons. Talk to the children in the language of the professional theologian, and you’re likely to lose them. But talk in a context that is real and very special to them (sparrows, dogs and horses come to mind), and they remember what you said and take it up with their parents at lunch time.

At the top of my “insight” list for this month: “There are certain people we meet to whom we feel we can talk because they have such a deep capacity for hearing; not hearing words only but hearing us as a person. They enable us to talk on a level which we have never before reached. They enable us to be as we have never been before. We shall never truly know ourselves unless we find people who can listen, who can enable us to emerge, to come out of ourselves, to discover who we are. We cannot discover ourselves by ourselves.” So wrote Edward Farrell. Isn’t this what was going on in that remarkable conversation between Jesus and the unnamed “woman at the well” (John 4)? I think it’s all summed up in her comment: “Come see a man who told me everything I did.”

Books to fertilize the mind: Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking (Little, Brown , 2005). Now I understand a little more about the reliability of my wife’s (Gail) first impressions about people and events.

Lighter but worthy reading (if you like sports): David Halberstam’s The Teammates (Hyperion, 2003), a reflective description of fifty years of friendship among four Boston Red Sox baseball players who played major league ball and then, in retirement, grew old together.

Halberstam writes of Johnny Pesky, who after his playing days became a some-time team manager with a spotty record (by major league standards) of success. “What became clear … was that (as a manger) he was better in the minors than in the majors, better with young players who wanted to learn than with veterans, and that as baseball changed over the years, becoming a harder and edgier universe, with more and more of an emphasis on the money, he was probably too nice a man to hold one of the managing jobs at the top.”

I think one could have a lot of fun with this comment if there was a discussion on the changing role of pastors in the modern church.

Oh, and if you get a chance: There’s a new book, A Resilient Life (Thomas Nelson, 2005), authored by Gordon MacDonald. I’ve gone through it a number of times and believe there to be a thoughtful page or two. (Note to myself: Is there need for full disclosure here?)

No Church on Sunday: In much of northern New England, the snow piled high on Saturday night a couple of weeks ago, and the TV stations listed the names of countless churches that closed their doors for the Lord’s day. What startled me was how restorative a morning it was to have a time of prayer and Bible reading with my wife, a chance to listen to quiet (and I mean quiet) worshipful music, and to stay in my bathrobe until noon. I actually rested!

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald also serves as chair of World Relief and editor at large for Leadership. Each month he shares with us entries from his extensive journaling on personal insights, quotes, and recommended reading.

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