“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
Henrietta, one Sunday School teacher
Henrietta Mears was born on October 23, 1890. She was born into a Christian family whose custom was to attend church each week. By the age of five, she told her parents she wanted to receive the Lord into her life. It’s told that one day she stood up in kindergarten and said that kindergarten didn’t suit her. “Kindergarten is designed to amuse children, but I’m too big for that, I want an education!”
Henrietta loved the Lord very much. Already at the age of 12, she taught her first Sunday school class. During one week, when she was in her early 20s, she had a particularly difficult time with the girls’ group she taught at church. That night she couldn’t sleep; she felt that she had failed the Lord and made the decision that this would never happen again. To strengthen her decision, she wrote ten rules for herself, and they became a kind of Ten Commandments for her as a Sunday school teacher:
- I will work to gain each of my students’ loyalty to the Messiah.
- I won’t consider my work is done when my students accept the Lord in their lives.
- I’ll make sure my students always find a definite place for themselves in some kind of classroom activity.
- I will take faith out of the unreal into everyday life.
- I will help every student discover the will of God for his life so that the Lord will act through him and use the gifts given to him.
- I will create spiritual discomfort in anyone who can do more than he does. I will do this without telling him this in his face, but while giving him a vision for higher things. I will do so with enthusiasm and passion.
- I will make it easy for my students to come and share their problems with me, not by pushing them to do so, but by showing sympathy and understanding. I will never let anyone feel that I am ashamed of him.
- I will make sure that the Cross of Christ remains a central factor in the life of the believer.
- I will pray as never before that God would give me strength and wisdom.
- I will dedicate myself to the struggle of the gospel in the children’s lives, and I will give everything in me to this fight.
These are lofty and not simple goals, but challenging. Henrietta was a teacher by profession, but after ten years of work she decided to devote herself to full-time ministry among children, teenagers, and young people. She was responsible for hundreds – if not thousands – of children and teenagers who learned the Word of the Lord every week. She made sure that they had well-founded, thorough and sound material to learn from; she made sure that they had a sufficient knowledge of the Word of God; she made sure that everyone had a chance to receive the Lord – and thus influenced many important people in the Lord’s Body, who due to the basic study of God’s Word they received from Henrietta, went out to preach the gospel to millions around the world.
What an impact! And it all began with one Sunday school teacher, who chose not to give up, who chose the hard way, to persevere and challenge her students to follow the Lord, discover their gifts and use them to bring honor to the Lord’s Name.
If you could write your own Ten Commandments as a Sunday School teacher, what would they be?
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Place your Ten Commandments in your Bible and pray on them at least once a week. Ask the Lord for help in fulfilling the challenge that the Lord has placed before you in these Ten Commandments.
I was very blessed by Henrietta’s words. Maybe others will also be blessed with your Ten Commandments. Take a picture of what you wrote above and send it to us by email or WhatsApp, and we will be happy to share it with others, even if you prefer to do so anonymously.