Smells start each fall with pumpkin-spice lattes, fresh-baked apple pies at Thanksgiving, and we’re now in homes filled with the scent of fresh-baked cookies from the oven. Each year seems to have something new to taste, like corn pudding with cotton candy topping. The visuals are unbelievable at this time of year, too. My favorite is a decked-out Christmas tree and brightly-wrapped gifts that go under them. Music from years gone by can emotionally move us. We’ll look forward to hugs during family gatherings and hearing family stories.
This sensory list has a purpose. We each experience the world around us through our five senses. The stuff we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste are gateways to our minds—and ultimately to our hearts. The more senses that are engaged, the more effective that a Gospel communicator can become. And, boy howdy, does the Christmas season reach into our lives – for good that touches the face of God at times and the not-so-good temptations of our base selves glorifying greed, envy, guilt, and regret.
Brain theorists say that emotions etch memories. Emotional situations cause our adrenal glands to secrete peptides that hang around in our blood streams for hours, if not days. Feelings turn events and even information into memorable experiences. Think about your first kiss, the puppy you got on Christmas morning, winning a race, brewing your favorite blend of coffee, or even acing a test. Those peptides can also attack us when we relive abuse, isolation, dysfunction, and hate.
Just as Christmas evokes emotions and triggers our senses, a good disciple-maker should be comfortable helping people interact with things that makes them think, cope, and be nurtured toward maturity. Each experience should lead to new behaviors that honor the Lord.
Growing as a disciple of Jesus means more than “sitting and getting,” whether it be by staring at ink on paper or just being lectured to in a class. Hearing is what most church members do well. If you look at Paul’s words that “faith comes by hearing,” (Romans 10:17), you’ll need to understand that the hearing was to be done in a way that required action.
Truth-tellers today must look at an audience’s preference and how quickly that truth, especially biblical truth, can be carried to others. Will it only touch the hearing input? What about the other senses? And that’s what intrigues me most about conveying Bible truths in Bible stories. The telling might involve small group members staging an impromptu skit, crafting the story into a poem, or using markers to draw a picture from the story’s climax. Today’s next generations compose a communications force that is personally engaged in embracing what is genuine and foregoing the slick, the formatted, and the scheduled delivery. They thrive on “real.”
So, this year how about decorating sugar cookies with characters from the story of Jesus’ birth instead of Santa, snowmen, and the reindeer? What if some of your gifts under the tree this year were Bibles? Singing “holiday classics” from Bing and Burl is okay, but what about those carols that carry the Gospel? And, when you have the family gathered, instead of telling how you slid off the road in an ice storm you tell how you came to faith in Christ, changing your life forever.
What is God asking you to do this year? Will you hear and respond?
-Mark Snowden directs the Cincinnati Area Baptist Association and runs a ministry helping churches master orality methods to convey God’s Word. Contact him at SnowdenMinistries@gmail.com
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