“Mr. Finney’s Challenge” [Reflections On Book Powerlines by Leona Frances Choy - Chapter 6 - #1/25]

In eighteen fifty, thereabouts,
A guy named Finney Gospel touts
To those around – one asks point-blank,
“How would you Yankee-clergy rank?”

“Not bad ”, he says, “they’re trained up well;
They know a lot ’bout heaven, hell;
But in the main, they’re short on ways
To share the Gospel so it pays –

“In lives redeemed from swampy land;
Then too, they do not understand
How they might so adapt the means
Used by the world to share; it seems –

“They’re not so good at sharing what
They know themselves – they’re in a rut;
Some Holy Spirit they could use
To share, so Spirit folks can choose.”

So, reading that, I ask myself,
So how ’bout me, here on this shelf –
Am I now short of ways that pay?
Can I adapt some worldly way?

For me, that’s not the problem-set;
For me it’s “body-life” – to get
The others interacting here
In Westman – that to me is clear.

Not all must be creative types;
One method works to share the light;
I wholesale concepts, ways, and means;
Or could, if asked by them, it seems.

But I could use the gifts they’ve got –
Fair trade, exchange – that saves a lot
Of trouble, inefficiency –
If we in body-life could be.

Thanks Lord for this.

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