A Little Drop of Love: Henrietta Mears, How She Helped Change a Generation and You Can Too

By Andrea Van Boven and Garth M. Rosell

Who did Billy Graham and Bill Bright say was the most influential person in their lives outside of their wives and mothers? Who did God use to train and send out hundreds of pastors, missionaries, and to inspire the birthing of at least fifty new ministries to proclaim the gospel? Henrietta Mears was a woman God used to love the lost into the kingdom. "To know Christ and to make Him known" was her motto. In spite of obstacles, "Teacher," as she was best known by those around her, vitally transformed Sunday school education and camping ministry, and impacted Hollywood. Those are only a taste of her accomplishments. Look inside to learn more about this remarkable woman. But don't stop with her story.
Throughout her life young people said to her, "I want to be just like you," to which she lovingly replied, "Nonsense!" She understood that every person has their own call and destiny from our Creator. You will find help to understand the timeless, biblical principles she lived by, to help you become the best you that God created you to become, from before the beginning of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Nov 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725279506

Andrea Van Boven

Andrea Van Boven is a cross-cultural missionary, prayer consultant, blogger, and historian.

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Praise for A Little Drop of Love

It is a rare moment in history when our Lord calls into his service a person like Henrietta Mears (1890–1963). With the help of heaven itself, she by the grace of God had an enormous impact on countless lives of some of the most distinguished men and women, who became a team of men and women who were the real shakers and movers of the spread of the gospel in the last half of the twentieth century. . . . In some ways, Mears ministered at the zenith of the Sunday School movement and had an enormous impact on subsequent evangelical ministries all over the world. Sadly, this movement is in serious decline these days, so we await our Lord’s call on another Henrietta. You will be richly rewarded for reading this unusual story of one of God’s most gifted saints.

—Walter C. Kaiser Jr., President Emeritus, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

I mentioned to some folks that I was reading a biography of one of the most important Bible teachers of the twentieth century. No one guessed I was reading about Henrietta Mears. Many people, good Christian folks too, have never heard of her. And yet her remarkable leadership, winsome personality, and memorable Bible teaching launched the ministries and missionary work of hundreds. . . . A number of Henrietta’s ‘disciples’ I am sure would ask you to read this book. And who are they? Dawson Troutman, Billy Graham, and Bill Bright, to name a few.

—Scott W. Sunquist, President and Professor of Missiology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

If you want to be more like Jesus, look for ordinary people that God has used in extraordinary ways. . . . This unique book is designed to help guide you into the grace and truth found in Jesus Christ that was modeled by this tiny giant of the faith, Henrietta Mears. The ripple effects of Mears’s life and teachings are still being felt around the world today.

—Mike Constantz, Pastor, Global PEACE Plan, Saddleback Church

If Jesus has launched a mission of worldwide transformation in light of God’s revealed word, Henrietta Mears is a model to follow both in her content but also in her methods and her character. Van Boven’s sharing of Henrietta Mears’s story reminds and inspires one of the value and impact a single life can have.

—Lucky Arnold, retired Senior Pastor of forty years, First Presbyterian Church of North Palm Beach, Florida

"A Little Drop of Love is relentless. It is a slow burn, always circling the central tenet of Mears’s life—her intimate relationship with her Savior and passion to draw others into the adventure. It reminds of a different era in word and thought—a time I’m hungry for in this day of relativism and distraction."

—Gary Stanley, professor, author, curriculum writer, world traveler, song and dance man

God has called most of us to serve in a secondary roles, in hidden places, and yet biographies and histories tend to focus on the primary, public players. Andrea Van Boven’s spiritual biography of Henrietta Mears shows us how we ourselves can be a force for kingdom influence from behind the scenes. Hopefully, it can help us re-evaluate the relative importance in God’s sight of this type of ministry of hidden influence for good. What a blessing to have this example of a true mother in the faith.

—Jonathan Friz, Founder, 10 Days of Prayer

If you are a follower of Jesus, your life has probably been influenced by Henrietta Mears. If you have attended Sunday school, or a Christian camp, or participated in a campus ministry, listened to Billy Graham, if you have been discipled by a Spirit-filled believer, if you have gone on a mission trip, or read a Christian book, her life has likely touched yours. Miss Mears understood she was discipling the next generation of leaders for God’s kingdom. Andrea Van Boven will introduce you to this capable, fun-loving, people-loving, visionary, passionate woman who is still helping to spread the good news of God’s love to the world, generations later.

—Judy Douglass, author of When You Love a Prodigal: 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness

Courtesy of Azusa Pacific University Special Collections

A Little Drop of Love

Henrietta Mears, How She Helped Change a Generation and You Can Too

Andrea Van Boven

foreword by Garth M. Rosell

A Little Drop of Love

Henrietta Mears, How She Helped Change a Generation and You Can Too

Copyright © 2020 Andrea Van Boven. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978–1-7252–7948-3

hardcover isbn: 978–1-7252–7949-0

ebook isbn: 978–1-7252–7950-6

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 12/01/20

I dedicate this book to my now grown children, Kathryn and Alex, who were resilient as I did the initial research for this book. And also, to their generation, who are in line to lead the world. May they take up the mantle, To know Christ and to make Him known.

Everyone is dying for a drop of love.

—Henrietta C. Mears

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I Henrietta C. Mears Background and Personal Development

Chapter 1: Her Setting and Life Foundation

Chapter 2: Henrietta’s Early Years

Chapter 3: Transition

Part II Hitting Her Stride

Chapter 4: Sunday School Is Big Business

Chapter 5: The College Department

Chapter 6: Teaching

Chapter 7: Forest Home

Chapter 8: Intimacy with God and Prayer

Chapter 9: Fellowship of the Burning Heart

Chapter 10: The Hollywood Christian Group

Part III Reflections and Conclusion

Chapter 11: Overcoming Obstacles

Chapter 12: Lessons Learned and Legacy Left

Part IV Application of Life Lessons

Appendix

Bibliography

Foreword

Henrietta Mears is one of the most fascinating, influential, and understudied women in Christian history. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1890, she graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1913 and rose to prominence as the director of Christian Education at the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, California. During her thirty-five-year career at Hollywood Press, as it was then known, she became the teacher and mentor for an entire generation of evangelical leaders like Louis Evans Jr. (former pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.), Bill and Vonette Bright (founders of Campus Crusade for Christ), Jim Rayburn (founder of Young Life), Bob Munger (former pastor at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle), and evangelist Billy Graham.

I doubt, remarked Billy Graham, if any other woman outside of my wife and mother has had such a marked influence in my life. She is certainly one of the greatest Christians I have ever known. There is simply no way to exaggerate her effectiveness as a teacher, communicator, and inspirer, commented former United States Senate Chaplain Richard C. Halverson. There is not an area of my life that her influence has not touched with great significance. Many others, as readers of Andrea Van Boven’s delightful, winsome, and deeply researched study will discover, have echoed the same sentiments.

Andrea Van Boven, moreover, is in my estimation the ideal person to tell Henrietta Mears’s story. Although she writes as a practitioner, she has studied Henrietta Mears like a scholar. Visits to archives, numerous conversations with colleagues in youth ministry, and interviews with people whose lives were deeply touched by Henrietta Mears’s ministry give Andrea’s work a maturity of judgment that brings the subject to life once again. With years of student ministry experience of her own, she provides an insider’s perspective and a savvy set of questions to the study of the woman so many of her generation simply called the Teacher. The result is a relevant, readable and inspiring account of a remarkable woman who has so much to teach us all.

Indeed, I am convinced that A Little Drop of Love is the perfect book to inspire, inform, and encourage a whole new generation of young women and men—much as the Teacher’s actual life and ministry inspired the author’s. I think you will agree!

Dr. Garth M. Rosell

Senior Research Professor of Church History

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

Preface

Henrietta Mears is my grandmother, not literally, but spiritually. I came to faith through a personal encounter with the living God when I was sixteen. Even though I was in church, I was not sure exactly what happened, except that I had seen Christ and believed that he is who the Bible says he is. I did not share my experience for a long time, but I did have an immediate hunger to read the Bible and be with others who did.

As a sophomore at Indiana University, I became involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, now called CRU. The founders of CRU, Bill and Vonette Bright, were discipled by Henrietta Mears and lived with her for the first ten years of CRU’s existence. The spiritual and organizational DNA of Mears’s ministry was transferred to CRU through them. Their heart’s desire was to win people to Christ, build them in their faith, and send them to the world. If you are still following the lineage, Bill and Vonette Bright are Henrietta Mears’s spiritual children.

The movement of CRU raised me from a spiritual baby to a spiritual adult. Since the Brights were alive and leading CRU for my first twenty years on staff, that makes Henrietta Mears my spiritual grandmother. I joined the staff of CRU and served with them for thirty-two years, and I still occasionally work alongside them. Confirmed by my years of research and experience, it is safe to say that the spiritual education and training I received bears the marks of Teacher, as her students loved to call her.

One of the verses that guided her ministry was 2 Tim 2:2 (NLT). You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others. The Brights faithfully learned this principle and put it into practice. By the grace of God, I am one of the many faithful people in the broad family that have been marked by Henrietta Mears.

Nearly halfway through those three-plus decades on staff, I enrolled in Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and was required to write a thesis. I had no idea what, or who, my subject matter might be, but I prayed regularly for two years that I would know it when I see it. While reading Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefield’s Daughters of the Church for a class, I turned the page and Henrietta Mears was the next topic. It was as if my heart jumped halfway out of my chest. I knew it when I saw it! Henrietta Mears was the answer to my prayer for my thesis topic. That was the spring of 1996.

When Prof. Garth Rosell accepted to supervise my thesis, he encouraged me to go to the archives in California, to Teacher’s church, and to conduct interviews with people who knew her well who were still alive in the mid-90s. I ran with it all. In October of 1996, I went west. Once at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, there were still church staff who had worked with Mears and were delighted to be interviewed. They gave me free reign of their knowledge, experiences, and resources. A trip to the Mears Archives, which was housed in the Gospel Light Publishers facility in Ventura at that time, allowed me four full days to go through everything they had. The CEO, Bill Greigh Jr., granted me a long interview. He was Teacher’s cousin and her travel assistant for most of the last thirteen years of her life, as well as her business partner in the founding of Regal Publishers.

I found all of the research and especially the interviews motivating, even inspiring. Everyone interviewed made their love for Teacher evident, and they loved taking me down memory lane with them. The many months of research and writing made me feel as if I had lived with Teacher for a year.

The people who were close to her proved to be transformed. But to a person, they conveyed that it was her love for Jesus Christ, his love for them, and the power of the Holy Spirit that marked them. Henrietta Mears helped lead them deeper into their personal relationships with Christ. To know Christ and to make Him known is what God called her to do. That is the motto she held to, and that is what she did.

My hope and prayer are that you will meet the Henrietta C. Mears whom I and so many others came to love. There is only one Henrietta Mears. There is only one you. May her life inspire you to be the best you God intended from before the beginning of time (Ps 139).

Acknowledgments

Why are acknowledgments such a challenge? In part, it is because I am so grateful for all the help and encouragement I have received over the twenty-four years it has taken to birth this publication. That is a long time to remember the many people who have contributed. I know I will forget people, but I hope anyone who is forgotten will know that the oversight is completely unintentional. So here goes.

Let me begin with my children. Seminary began for our family when we moved back from West Africa to the cold Northeast. These first- and third-graders went through culture shock, just like their parents did, and saw their first snow when they were six and eight. With all four family members in school, Kathryn and Alex learned to do their chores, and they found friends to play with on the Gordon–Conwell campus. The things I have learned from them throughout their lifetimes has made this a deeper and richer work. I am eternally grateful to God for both of you, Kathryn and Alex.

I have been fortunate to have many readers and many conversations about this endeavor with people who had never heard of Henrietta Mears before. A few stand out. Kyle Singerman has become a faithful intercessor who helped me gain a better understanding of the younger people’s mindset in several ways. Daly Kay Reback encouraged me greatly to continue towards publication. Over lunch, when she had just finished reading a pre-application draft, she told me that she had immediately reorganized the Sunday school program she was running at the time to implement elements of what she had learned. Over prayer and a discussion of the application sections of this book, Courtney Reid helped me form the grid explaining some of the collaboration between people and God that is essential for us to Know God and to make him known for the Kingdom of God to expand. 

Another group of people who helped improve this effort tremendously were the many readers who took the time and energy to edit the drafts over the years. Each one brought helpful comments and lots of red ink. An old friend at seminary used to hand me a paper with a red pen and say, Bleed on this for me, please. Each one of these has added some of their blood to the effort. May Abba reward them beyond anything I can offer. I hope I have them all. Anne Yeager, a former professional editor, offered several helpful comments. Joyce Calagero, an education professor, also offered a lot of red ink and helped me think through how I was communicating. Fran Craig, a dear friend, prayer partner, and former copyeditor, graciously marked it up to a better polish. Lisa Leach worked on an earlier draft and gave especially important and constructive style critique. Wendy Dixon went over it with a fine-tooth comb that again refined my trajectory. She also planted the seed that resulted in the writing of the application section.

None of this could have happened without the primary source research. In the fall of 1996, the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood welcomed me with open arms. The interviews and recourses they provided were excellent. The Bill Greigh Jr. family has been very warm and welcoming to me. Originally, the Mears Archives were housed at Gospel Light Publications in Ventura, California. My four days in the archives made me feel like a kid in a candy shop. I left with a wonderful interview and a treasure trove to work from for my thesis. Jane Greigh, Bill’s daughter, did a tremendous job of listing and packaging the entire archives in preparation to ship it all to Azusa Pacific University. She graciously took my calls and guided me there.

The Henrietta C. Mears Archives is now permanently part of the Azusa Pacific University Special Collections. Ken Otto is the head of Special Collections. He personally helped me collect and copy many of the photos in the book. Elizabeth Leahy is the curator specific to Henrietta Mears. Liz has been wonderful, helping me get what I needed despite the fact that much of the archive was still in wrapped boxes off-campus when I was able to visit. In the last days before