When a class assembles for recitation purposes its members present themselves with all kinds of mental attitudes and mind content.  The various groups of a Mutual class may have been engaged in all sorts of activities just before entering their classroom.  One group may have been discussing politics; another may have been engaged in a game of ball; a third may have been practicing as a quartette; and still a fourth may have been busy at office work.  Facing such a collection of groups stands a teacher who for an hour or more has dismissed all temporal matters, and has been pondering the spiritual significance of prayer.  Evidently there is a great mental chasm between them.  Their coming together and thinking on common ground involves the Point of Contact.  There must be contact if an influence for good is to be exerted.  Either the teacher must succeed in bringing the boys to where he is “in thought,” or he must go to “where they are.”

Teachers in Bible lessons all too frequently hurry off into the Holy Land, going back some two thousand years, and leaving their pupils in Utah and in the here and the present.  No wonder that pupils say of such a teacher, “We don’t ‘get’ him.”  To proceed without preparing the minds of pupils for the message and discussion of the lesson is like planting seed without having first plowed and prepared the ground.

In the Bible lesson, it would be easy to bridge over from the interests of today to those of Bible days.  Suppose our lesson is on Joseph who was sold into Egypt.  Instead of proceeding at once with a statement as to the parentage of Joseph, etc., we might well center the interests of these various-minded boys on a current observation of today—­a wonderfully fine harvest field of grain.  They have all seen that.  Make a striking observation relative to the grain, or put a question that will lead them to do that for you.  Having raised an issue, you continue by inquiring whether or not the same conditions have prevailed elsewhere and at other times.  Did they prevail in the days of Israel?  The step then to the story of Joseph’s dream, etc., is an easy one.

This illustration, though simple and more or less crude, indicates that to establish a point of contact, we must reach out to where the pupil now is, and lead easily and naturally to where you would have him go.  Surely we cannot presume that he has already traveled the same intellectual road that we have gone over.

Suppose we face a group of adolescent boys to teach them a lesson on the importance of their attending church.  If we proceed with a preachment on their duties and obligations, we are quite certain to lose their interest.  Boys do not like to be preached at.

We know, however, that they are interested in automobiles.  By starting out with some vital observation or question out of the automobile world, we may count on their attention.  Following the discussion thus raised, we might then inquire the purpose of the garages that we find along all public highways.  We could dwell upon the significance of repairs in maintaining the efficiency of cars.  Now we are prepared for the query, Is it not essential that we have spiritual garages for the souls of men, garages where supplies and repairs may be had?