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| I am pictured with some students helping me evangelize at the county fair. This was taken a couple years after the events in this story. |
The reason this post is entitled as a "legend" is a bit misleading. It is actually a completely true story. But my friends and I have had so much fun reliving the craziness of it over the years that it has become "legendary" in our minds. For this reason, I speak of The Legend of Thom!
His name was Thom. I'm sure he pronounced it as Tom, short for Thomas. However, when we remember the events of that day, my friends and I call him Thom--with the soft T-H sound, as in think or throw. There is a reason for this too, later on in the story! Bear with me.
It was 2003. I was teaching an evangelism class in Riverside, California. One Saturday, we had an opportunity to share the gospel at the Riverside County Fair out in Indio (note: Riverside County is huge. Our city of Riverside is the county seat, but the fair was over an hour's drive east, out into the desert. As such, it was not a part of my regular ministry area).
The man who was in the process of becoming the ministry director in that area was named Thom. He had sounded very devoted over the phone, and seemed enthusiastic that I was bringing a group out to serve. I prayed for the children we would reach with the gospel.
My group consisted of four of us that day. All four of us were single then, but are all married now. These were, my sister Barbara, one of my summer missionaries Heather, my friend Edith, and myself. It was a fun day, four young women going on a little trip to serve. We laughed and had easy conversation. It was going to be a great day, we could tell!
We arrived, and met Thom in person. He looked a little quizzically at us, as if something did not please him. He separated us. Barbara and Heather were put directly working with him at a booth near the fair entrance. Thom hung around, criticizing every move they made. Heather had her purse draped over her shoulder. "Give me that!" Thom grabbed it off of her. "It's in the way!" He threw her purse under the table. Barbara and Heather exchanged looks. As they began evangelizing with the wordless book, Thom would correct their efforts. Barbara shared with a small sized Wordless book (instead of one of the larger ones), and Thom said, "Don't use that Mickey Mouse one! Use this!" Barbara looked at him, puzzled at his abruptness. He scowled, "Don't give me that dark look!" His efforts to correct them hindered them from being able to get the message across to kids. "Let's pray he leaves," Heather whispered when he was busy talking with someone else. Quietly, the two of them asked God to remove this man who was hurting the ministry so badly. Heather was and still is a woman of amazing faith. She once prayed for my car, and God fixed it instantly. In this case, Thom left them almost instantly, and the two of them had a wonderful few hours sharing Christ with kids...
Unfortunately, Heather should have prayed more specifically. Maybe prayed that he would go for a ride on the Ferris Wheel and get stuck at the top for a while. But she just prayed he would leave, and he left--to go harass Edith and me.
You see, while all this was happening to them, Edith and I were sent to work at a booth with a puppet show going. Puppet show? Yes! Even though our ministry had nothing to do with puppets, Thom had gotten puppeteers to do a little show that presented the gospel, after which Edith and I were supposed to follow it up with the wordless book.
The puppet show was silly at best, disturbing at worst. Our ministry shares the wordless book basically like this: We start with the gold page, which stands for heaven--from here we talk about God, His love, and holiness. Then we turn to the dark page, which stands for sin. It is not called the black page. Black is a color, with neither good nor bad connotations. The Bible never refers to black in negative terms. But God does speak in His word of sin being darkness (unable to see or find our way to God), and that is why it is called the dark page. It's not the color, but the condition. This is very important, especially in that a misunderstanding could seem racist. From this point, we move on to the red page, where we talk about the Person and work of Jesus Christ (red being for His shed blood). The clean page (not white page, though it is pure and white) is where we give children an opportunity to receive Christ as Savior. The Green page is last, where we talk about spiritual growth. This is an overview. We use scriptures for every page, always opening our Bibles. So...
This puppet show was set to a cassette tape Thom and prerecorded. He had these silly puppets talking about the wordless book. They refer to the dark page and black, even emphasizing it. The BLACK page. As if to prove a point. I was alarmed by this. Thom was very new to this ministry, so perhaps he didn't know it was supposed to be called dark, not black. His gospel presentation on the tape was very inadequate, so after it was over, Edith or I (we took turns) gave an in-depth message. Children responded to this, and some truly came to a saving faith in Christ that day. It was especially meaningful for Edith and she shared Acts 16:31 with some children. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. These kids prayed to receive the Lord that day. It was wonderful. Edith was beaming at what God had done...and then a shadow passed over us. We looked up to see Thom approaching us.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"I just shared the Wordless book and those three kids got saved," Edith told him.
"No, no, no!" Thom glowered at her. "You should never, never, never open your Bible when you witness! What were you thinking?"
I was very perplexed. Why wouldn't a Christian open his or her Bible in order to share the gospel? The Bible is our authority. And why was he so adamant? I had graduated from the Children's Ministries Institute, our ministry's training school. If I may say so, I was something of an expert on this method of evangelism, and I had trained the others. What was he talking about?
"Let me show you how it's done," he said arrogantly. "Watch. You'll learn something."
The next group of kids was entering our area. "Can we hear the story?" a little girl asked.
"I'm not telling it just for you!" Thom shot at her. "I want at least twelve kids in here first!"
This led to a ten minute wait for more kids to come. A few of the original kids had to leave. When we finally had twelve children, Thom began his magic. "We start with this green page," he began.
Green page? That's supposed to be last. Why talk about spiritual growth when we haven't covered the gospel? Oh, but I found out Thom doesn't apply the green page to spiritual growth.
"This green page stands for God's green earth." He made his fingers walk across the page. The children looked perplexed.
Thom turned the page. . "But this BLACK page reminds us that sin destroys God's green earth. Sin is death and hell!"
A few of the kids looked frightened. At least they were spellbound.
Thom continued. "This red page means Jesus died on the cross. And the white page means you ask him in. Let's all do that right now." Here he prayed a generic sinner's prayer. A few of the kids bowed with him, but not all. After he finished he said, "Now you're all Christians."
I couldn't believe this. He hadn't even really explained the gospel in-depth enough for someone to understand how to make a decision for Christ. He had not mentioned faith or repentance, or used one scripture verse. His "God's green earth" thing almost sounded like a new brand of organic vegetables. After the kids filed out, he said, "Let's see that was twelve kids. Let's round it to the nearest ten." He was writing on a clipboard.
Why round it out when you knew it was exactly twelve. I shrugged. "The nearest ten would be ten. Are you writing that you shared with ten?"
He looked shocked. "Of course not. I'm writing twenty!"
Twenty? Edith and I looked at each other, not knowing what to say. I have always been taught to get exact numbers when possible, but if I didn't have them, to give a conservative estimate. This was downright lying.
"That's why you never use a Bible," he said to Edith, as if his little presentation were a continuation of their conversation.
"Sir, we always use the Bible," I told him.
"Then you've received improper training." Just like that. I was mad!
It was then my turn to share as a new group of kids gathered. I was very nervous that Thom was watching like a hawk. I didn't want him to interrupt the gospel message and prevent the true message from going out.
"Hi Janelle!"
I was startled to see two boys I taught in Sunday school run in to join the other, assembled children. Great. They knew the right way that I usually did it, and now would hear Thom correcting me and doing it the butchered way.
"Hi boys," I tried to smile as they ran up to hug me before being seated.
"Hey Janelle!" another voice called. I looked up and saw my good friends, Paul and Loni, the boys' grandparents. "We decided to bring the boys out to the county fair today. We already saw Barbara at the front."
Thom immediately began a conversation with my friends. I was sort of glad, because if he was so engaged with them, he wouldn't bother me. Of course, it annoyed me that he was basically sweet-talking them after he'd been so rude to us. But oh well. I shared the gospel without any ill effects. A girl in the group prayed to receive Christ.
I wrote on the clipboard that I had shared with seven kids and one had received Christ. Thom frowned at me. "Write ten! And write that they all received Christ!"
"But there were only seven--"
"We're estimating!" he said as if I were an idiot.
"But if we know the amount, shouldn't we be exact?"
"I'm the director here! And soon, everyone will do it my way!" I wouldn't have been surprised if maniacal laughter had followed this grandiose statement...but it didn't. Just his self-satisfied smirk.
"I disagree with you, but since you're in charge of this event, I'll do what you ask for right now,"
"Thank you," He spit it out. His tone was curiously lacking in gratitude. I suppose he figured this was the best he'd get.
When we left that day, he put his face very close to mine and hissed, "Correction and rebuke are the way of life. You don't need to mind me."
I didn't say a word. I took my volunteers and left. On the way home, I learned Barbara and Heather's story. I knew this wasn't right, and this power-crazed man shouldn't be in our ministry. I called my boss, Mr. Dunkerley, when I got home, He asked me to write a letter, documenting everything that happened, and send an copy to him and a copy to the state director of our ministry. So I did...
Later that week, Edith and I were talking about what had happened with Thom. Mr. Dunkerley overheard us and said, "Tom? Who's that?"
"You know," I said, "The man at the fair I wrote about in that letter."
"Tom? I thought his name was Thom."
And that is how he came to be pronounced phonetically!
Our state director confronted Thom for his rudeness. Apparently, the local ministry committee in his area had really been complaining already, and the state director hadn't taken it as seriously. My letter gave their concerns credibility. For this, I earned the respect of that committee, and I went back to do ministry at the fair every year until I left California.
Thom never ended up taking over the ministry in that chapter. The day he was confronted, he told everyone, "Fifteen-thousand kids came to our booth at the fair and every one of them got saved!" Not a realistic statistic at all. After being confronted, he frowned at me and demanded to talk with me privately. I stepped outside with him, all the time worrying that he was getting rid of the witnesses,
"I want to apologize if I offended you and your friends. You know, Fred Rogers [of the famed Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood television show] died recently, and I realize I need to be more like Mr. Rogers."
That was the last time I ever spoke with Thom. I shared with everyone that he had apologized.
"What did he say when he apologized?" Heather asked incredulously.
"He said he needs to learn to be nice like Mr. Rogers."
This led to everyone cracking up.
"So," Heather said when she could talk again, "he didn't apologize because God convicted him to be more like Christ. He wants to be more like Mr. Rogers. Does he wear a 'What Would Mr. R. Do' bracelet?" We all laughed again.
In the following years when we would go evangelize at the fair, we had indirect run-ins with Thom. He set up a booth of his own, and tried to compete with us. He would send his friends and even his sons over to tell us how his booth was having more people saved in it. What can I say to this? What the Apostle Paul said in Philippians, when some preached Christ out of envy toward him. But Paul didn't care about their motive, as long as the gospel was preached. I tried to make this my attitude. More than anything, I was kind of amused by it all.
So, all these years later, we still remember Thom. Whatever his motive, I hope God is blessing the truth he teaches.
His name was Thom. I'm sure he pronounced it as Tom, short for Thomas. However, when we remember the events of that day, my friends and I call him Thom--with the soft T-H sound, as in think or throw. There is a reason for this too, later on in the story! Bear with me.
It was 2003. I was teaching an evangelism class in Riverside, California. One Saturday, we had an opportunity to share the gospel at the Riverside County Fair out in Indio (note: Riverside County is huge. Our city of Riverside is the county seat, but the fair was over an hour's drive east, out into the desert. As such, it was not a part of my regular ministry area).
The man who was in the process of becoming the ministry director in that area was named Thom. He had sounded very devoted over the phone, and seemed enthusiastic that I was bringing a group out to serve. I prayed for the children we would reach with the gospel.
My group consisted of four of us that day. All four of us were single then, but are all married now. These were, my sister Barbara, one of my summer missionaries Heather, my friend Edith, and myself. It was a fun day, four young women going on a little trip to serve. We laughed and had easy conversation. It was going to be a great day, we could tell!
We arrived, and met Thom in person. He looked a little quizzically at us, as if something did not please him. He separated us. Barbara and Heather were put directly working with him at a booth near the fair entrance. Thom hung around, criticizing every move they made. Heather had her purse draped over her shoulder. "Give me that!" Thom grabbed it off of her. "It's in the way!" He threw her purse under the table. Barbara and Heather exchanged looks. As they began evangelizing with the wordless book, Thom would correct their efforts. Barbara shared with a small sized Wordless book (instead of one of the larger ones), and Thom said, "Don't use that Mickey Mouse one! Use this!" Barbara looked at him, puzzled at his abruptness. He scowled, "Don't give me that dark look!" His efforts to correct them hindered them from being able to get the message across to kids. "Let's pray he leaves," Heather whispered when he was busy talking with someone else. Quietly, the two of them asked God to remove this man who was hurting the ministry so badly. Heather was and still is a woman of amazing faith. She once prayed for my car, and God fixed it instantly. In this case, Thom left them almost instantly, and the two of them had a wonderful few hours sharing Christ with kids...
Unfortunately, Heather should have prayed more specifically. Maybe prayed that he would go for a ride on the Ferris Wheel and get stuck at the top for a while. But she just prayed he would leave, and he left--to go harass Edith and me.
You see, while all this was happening to them, Edith and I were sent to work at a booth with a puppet show going. Puppet show? Yes! Even though our ministry had nothing to do with puppets, Thom had gotten puppeteers to do a little show that presented the gospel, after which Edith and I were supposed to follow it up with the wordless book.
The puppet show was silly at best, disturbing at worst. Our ministry shares the wordless book basically like this: We start with the gold page, which stands for heaven--from here we talk about God, His love, and holiness. Then we turn to the dark page, which stands for sin. It is not called the black page. Black is a color, with neither good nor bad connotations. The Bible never refers to black in negative terms. But God does speak in His word of sin being darkness (unable to see or find our way to God), and that is why it is called the dark page. It's not the color, but the condition. This is very important, especially in that a misunderstanding could seem racist. From this point, we move on to the red page, where we talk about the Person and work of Jesus Christ (red being for His shed blood). The clean page (not white page, though it is pure and white) is where we give children an opportunity to receive Christ as Savior. The Green page is last, where we talk about spiritual growth. This is an overview. We use scriptures for every page, always opening our Bibles. So...
This puppet show was set to a cassette tape Thom and prerecorded. He had these silly puppets talking about the wordless book. They refer to the dark page and black, even emphasizing it. The BLACK page. As if to prove a point. I was alarmed by this. Thom was very new to this ministry, so perhaps he didn't know it was supposed to be called dark, not black. His gospel presentation on the tape was very inadequate, so after it was over, Edith or I (we took turns) gave an in-depth message. Children responded to this, and some truly came to a saving faith in Christ that day. It was especially meaningful for Edith and she shared Acts 16:31 with some children. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. These kids prayed to receive the Lord that day. It was wonderful. Edith was beaming at what God had done...and then a shadow passed over us. We looked up to see Thom approaching us.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"I just shared the Wordless book and those three kids got saved," Edith told him.
"No, no, no!" Thom glowered at her. "You should never, never, never open your Bible when you witness! What were you thinking?"
I was very perplexed. Why wouldn't a Christian open his or her Bible in order to share the gospel? The Bible is our authority. And why was he so adamant? I had graduated from the Children's Ministries Institute, our ministry's training school. If I may say so, I was something of an expert on this method of evangelism, and I had trained the others. What was he talking about?
"Let me show you how it's done," he said arrogantly. "Watch. You'll learn something."
The next group of kids was entering our area. "Can we hear the story?" a little girl asked.
"I'm not telling it just for you!" Thom shot at her. "I want at least twelve kids in here first!"
This led to a ten minute wait for more kids to come. A few of the original kids had to leave. When we finally had twelve children, Thom began his magic. "We start with this green page," he began.
Green page? That's supposed to be last. Why talk about spiritual growth when we haven't covered the gospel? Oh, but I found out Thom doesn't apply the green page to spiritual growth.
"This green page stands for God's green earth." He made his fingers walk across the page. The children looked perplexed.
Thom turned the page. . "But this BLACK page reminds us that sin destroys God's green earth. Sin is death and hell!"
A few of the kids looked frightened. At least they were spellbound.
Thom continued. "This red page means Jesus died on the cross. And the white page means you ask him in. Let's all do that right now." Here he prayed a generic sinner's prayer. A few of the kids bowed with him, but not all. After he finished he said, "Now you're all Christians."
I couldn't believe this. He hadn't even really explained the gospel in-depth enough for someone to understand how to make a decision for Christ. He had not mentioned faith or repentance, or used one scripture verse. His "God's green earth" thing almost sounded like a new brand of organic vegetables. After the kids filed out, he said, "Let's see that was twelve kids. Let's round it to the nearest ten." He was writing on a clipboard.
Why round it out when you knew it was exactly twelve. I shrugged. "The nearest ten would be ten. Are you writing that you shared with ten?"
He looked shocked. "Of course not. I'm writing twenty!"
Twenty? Edith and I looked at each other, not knowing what to say. I have always been taught to get exact numbers when possible, but if I didn't have them, to give a conservative estimate. This was downright lying.
"That's why you never use a Bible," he said to Edith, as if his little presentation were a continuation of their conversation.
"Sir, we always use the Bible," I told him.
"Then you've received improper training." Just like that. I was mad!
It was then my turn to share as a new group of kids gathered. I was very nervous that Thom was watching like a hawk. I didn't want him to interrupt the gospel message and prevent the true message from going out.
"Hi Janelle!"
I was startled to see two boys I taught in Sunday school run in to join the other, assembled children. Great. They knew the right way that I usually did it, and now would hear Thom correcting me and doing it the butchered way.
"Hi boys," I tried to smile as they ran up to hug me before being seated.
"Hey Janelle!" another voice called. I looked up and saw my good friends, Paul and Loni, the boys' grandparents. "We decided to bring the boys out to the county fair today. We already saw Barbara at the front."
Thom immediately began a conversation with my friends. I was sort of glad, because if he was so engaged with them, he wouldn't bother me. Of course, it annoyed me that he was basically sweet-talking them after he'd been so rude to us. But oh well. I shared the gospel without any ill effects. A girl in the group prayed to receive Christ.
I wrote on the clipboard that I had shared with seven kids and one had received Christ. Thom frowned at me. "Write ten! And write that they all received Christ!"
"But there were only seven--"
"We're estimating!" he said as if I were an idiot.
"But if we know the amount, shouldn't we be exact?"
"I'm the director here! And soon, everyone will do it my way!" I wouldn't have been surprised if maniacal laughter had followed this grandiose statement...but it didn't. Just his self-satisfied smirk.
"I disagree with you, but since you're in charge of this event, I'll do what you ask for right now,"
"Thank you," He spit it out. His tone was curiously lacking in gratitude. I suppose he figured this was the best he'd get.
When we left that day, he put his face very close to mine and hissed, "Correction and rebuke are the way of life. You don't need to mind me."
I didn't say a word. I took my volunteers and left. On the way home, I learned Barbara and Heather's story. I knew this wasn't right, and this power-crazed man shouldn't be in our ministry. I called my boss, Mr. Dunkerley, when I got home, He asked me to write a letter, documenting everything that happened, and send an copy to him and a copy to the state director of our ministry. So I did...
Later that week, Edith and I were talking about what had happened with Thom. Mr. Dunkerley overheard us and said, "Tom? Who's that?"
"You know," I said, "The man at the fair I wrote about in that letter."
"Tom? I thought his name was Thom."
And that is how he came to be pronounced phonetically!
Our state director confronted Thom for his rudeness. Apparently, the local ministry committee in his area had really been complaining already, and the state director hadn't taken it as seriously. My letter gave their concerns credibility. For this, I earned the respect of that committee, and I went back to do ministry at the fair every year until I left California.
Thom never ended up taking over the ministry in that chapter. The day he was confronted, he told everyone, "Fifteen-thousand kids came to our booth at the fair and every one of them got saved!" Not a realistic statistic at all. After being confronted, he frowned at me and demanded to talk with me privately. I stepped outside with him, all the time worrying that he was getting rid of the witnesses,
"I want to apologize if I offended you and your friends. You know, Fred Rogers [of the famed Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood television show] died recently, and I realize I need to be more like Mr. Rogers."
That was the last time I ever spoke with Thom. I shared with everyone that he had apologized.
"What did he say when he apologized?" Heather asked incredulously.
"He said he needs to learn to be nice like Mr. Rogers."
This led to everyone cracking up.
"So," Heather said when she could talk again, "he didn't apologize because God convicted him to be more like Christ. He wants to be more like Mr. Rogers. Does he wear a 'What Would Mr. R. Do' bracelet?" We all laughed again.
In the following years when we would go evangelize at the fair, we had indirect run-ins with Thom. He set up a booth of his own, and tried to compete with us. He would send his friends and even his sons over to tell us how his booth was having more people saved in it. What can I say to this? What the Apostle Paul said in Philippians, when some preached Christ out of envy toward him. But Paul didn't care about their motive, as long as the gospel was preached. I tried to make this my attitude. More than anything, I was kind of amused by it all.
So, all these years later, we still remember Thom. Whatever his motive, I hope God is blessing the truth he teaches.
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