Selling Bears

Gummi Bears, anyone? That’s the question which drove Hans Riegel’s life. Mr. Riegel took over the family business in the 1950’s and used the post-WW II boom in Germany to expand upon his father’s kitchen creation, a brown bear-shaped chewy candy.  Mr. Riegel recently died, and his death prompted a newspaper remembrance in which he was quoted as saying: “I love children; they are my customers. I have to be informed about what they want to nibble, what they think, the language they speak.” (WSJ, 10/16/23) Mr. Riegel turned what he learned from children into a multi-billion dollar company that has 6000 people involved in making 100,000 Gummi Bears a day in 15 locations around the world. His success was built on understanding what children (who would become adults) like to eat for a treat.  Yet, of course, what he also needed to do was get the parents to make the purchase for their children. His wisdom, it seems, was in creating a product which met a child’s desire and satisfied the parents that Gummi Bears were a good choice for the treat portion of their children’s diet. But it all begins with the children: understanding what they nibble, think and speak.

Perhaps you have heard this comment by modern parents of young children: “I am going to let my children decide about their religion when they grow up.”  I was recently speaking with a prospective parent who told me that her problem with that philosophy was that it reflected a viewpoint which says “whether and what a child should believe about God is less important than a decision about what a child should eat.” Brilliant.  Should parents not be as concerned about whether their children will grow up with an affection for “bread and wine” as they do with a love for Gummi Bears? Certainly we need to discover what children spiritually “nibble, think and speak.”  But, first we need to reach the children, and that means persuading today’s parents that their children really do (or should) want to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” We need to persuade parents that the gift of God which comes wrapped in children’s bodies carries with it a duty to incorporate their children into God’s community from their infancy.

Paul admonished Timothy to recall the lessons of Scripture learned from infancy (2 Timothy 3:14).  Learning the truth of God’s love is a lesson intended for children, right? Then,

why is it so much easier to sell Gummi Bears than it is to give away Bread and Wine?