Remembering a Good Teacher

I thought about Mr. John Gann today. He was my Sunday school teacher when I was nine or ten years old. He's been dead now for a number of years.

Sunday school is one of the most insidious inventions ever devised to torture boys. Whatever may have occurred at Guantanamo Bay is nothing compared to the boy's Sunday school classes of my childhood.

Brothers and sisters, let me preach on it.

Imagine being dressed up in clothes your momma picked out. Clothes that were called "dress clothes" in the South; and for most boys, it felt like you might as well have been wearing a dress. Start with one coarse, scratchy shirt, with buttons, no less (and even a necktie back in the sixties). Add starched, stiff pants made from some ungodly material. By ungodly, I mean any material other than cotton or denim. Pant and shirt combination accessorized with a shiny belt of some unknown leather-like substance.

And the shoes--well, that was the worst of all. The shoes were always too tight. This was the result of the cataclysmic collision of a limited family budget and a normal boy, who will naturally out-grow any item of clothing within a few months. This juxtaposition allowed mom two options: buy a pair two sizes too large, in which case you'd clonk along like Bozo the clown, or buy the correct size at the time of purchase. If she chose the latter, within two months all circulation to your toes would be halted for at least a couple of hours each week.

I hated those shoes. They were shiny and the toes were pointed. We called them "roach-killers", because you could squash a roach with them if you could hem it up in a corner.

If the attire wasn't bad enough, consider for a moment the setting. Take eight or ten boys, seat them in hard metal chairs arranged in a semi-circle, and require them to sit still and be quiet for 45 minutes. Read them a Bible story and tell them to be nice.

No self-respecting ten year old boy wants anything to do with nice. It ain't natural to be nice.

I believe that old style Sunday School was a female conspiracy. It was designed by women, for women. Perhaps good-hearted and well-meaning women, but women none-the-less. It was all very social--the clothes, the setting, and the teaching method. It surely wasn't masculine. In most churches, probably still isn't. Maybe that's why women outnumber men significantly in the average congregation.

How could it be different to attract and retain men and boys? Change the atmosphere. Relax a bit on the attire (I think most churches are doing that). Change teaching styles to those better suited to men and boys. Tell some stories--Jesus certainly did. Teaching about Jesus? Show Him as He really was, a real man's man, a carpenter by trade, not some baby-kissing Mr. Rogers who went around telling people to be nice.

I think that was what I liked so much about Mr. Gann. He taught us Bible lessons, but he wasn't opposed to talking a little sports or telling some stories to illustrate an important point. He put me at ease, in spite of the clothes, and I never remembering him even hinting that I should be nice. His message was simple: trust Jesus and follow Him. Never "try to be a good boy."

I remember in particular one story. Seems some friends of his were out camping one night, sitting around a fire, laughing and telling stories. Some liquor was being consumed--probably home-made white liquor, since it was in the late fifties or early sixties. As the night wore on, the liquor continued to flow. At some point a large timber rattler crawled up, probably attracted to the warmth of the camp fire on the cool night. One of the men, feeling no pain or lack of courage from the effects of the elixir, proceeded to try to kill the unfortunate rattlesnake by stomping it to death. Several bites later, one of the less inebriated men in the party took the man to the hospital, where he almost died as a result of the venom. His eventual recovery was long and painful.

Now I don't recall what Bible passage we were studying that day. It might have been something from Proverbs, which has much to say on the subject of overindulging in alcohol. But a better lesson in temperance I've yet to hear.

It was only as an adult that I figured out that Mr. Gann was at the camp fire that night. Makes me love and respect him even more today.