My first official meeting with Dr. Garry L. Landreth (he insisted I call him Garry) did not go quite as I had expected. Indeed, our interaction on that unforgettable day left a relational imprint that still echoes in my heart.
Garry entered my office quietly and confidently to join me and another GAP ministry staff member to discuss his communications class. As he sat down in a chair, I took my seat across from him at my desk. However, a casual shift in the meeting occurred as he made an unmistakable observation. It was not a chaotic moment, nor even a contentious one, but a deliberate pivot all the same.
In his direct and respectful manner, Garry pointed out that a wall existed between him and me as I sat behind my desk and he and the other staff member across from me. The details of the conversation elude me now, but I felt a gentle conviction, and I was prompted to move my chair around my desk in an unassuming response.
I asked him how my new position, free of any obstruction, helped us get to know each other better. He smiled and agreed that our meeting was now moving in the right direction.
Garry Landreth exhibited a unique quality that day that not only built relational trust but also secured my admiration and respect. He was truly interested in building relational connections in every setting. Since then, Garry continued to teach me through his deliberate and selfless manner. His penetrating questions, circumspect observations, and carefully placed comments shaped me as a man, a pastor, and a friend.
Indeed, Garry L. Landreth was many things to many people, and I will highlight three: Garry was a master educator, profoundly deliberate, and thoroughly selfless. These were not conceptual principles, but everyday lived realities in a man who loved well.
Educator
Garry’s credentials, experience, research, publications, awards, and more speak for themselves. His teaching career in higher education began at the University of North Texas (UNT) in 1967, following his 1966 doctorate. In 1988, he founded the UNT Center for Play Therapy, which grew into the world’s largest play therapy research and training program.
He would go on to write more than 150 journal articles, four editions of his book on Play Therapy, and develop a Play Therapy model (CPRT) that received a Parent Education Best Practices Award, among other things. Garry was a true educator.
But what does educate mean? It is interesting to look at the basic composition of the word “educate”. It means “to lead out,” “bring up (children), to train,”* taken from the combined Latin words: e- (from) and ducere (to lead). Putting this together, educate means to lead out by training unto maturity.
Garry embodied this type of education; he was not interested in mere information transfer, but life transformation. He led those within his relational proximity to maturity. But he did not do this haphazardly or wistfully. No, Garry was deliberate because he was a leader.
Deliberate
Being deliberate is more than mere intentionality. Indeed, one who expresses the quality of being deliberate has a keen eye not only for what presents itself but also for where it should go. In other words, it is easy to point out a problem and likely even the solution. A child can do this. The person who focuses not only sees the problem and the solution but also guides you along the path to get there.
There is one distinct time Garry intentionally shaped the GAP ministry where I serve. Once again, at a meeting with Garry in my office, he asked a simple yet deliberate question: “What if the culture of GAP was characterized by identifying and sharing the positive character qualities seen in others–like a person panning for gold in a river, constantly looking for the gold in others?”
Not only did Garry identify that we were not currently patterned like a person identifying gold, but he also cast vision for us to get there. This was more groundbreaking than our first meeting, where he pointed out the implicit relational barrier I had inadvertently created by sitting behind my desk. Undoubtedly, years later, countless character qualities have not only been identified in the lives of others in the GAP ministry and beyond but also named, with the intent of building others up and encouraging them.
An obvious question arises at this point: “What motivates such a person to educate and be so deliberate in his interactions and relationships?” Simple answer: He cannot be selfish. Garry was not characterized as such. Instead, quite the opposite; Garry was selfless.
Selfless
To be selfless means you have to love something or someone more than you love your own way, desires, or control. Everyone struggles with this at some level, and no one is perfectly selfless, a title and quality reserved only for Jesus Christ. However, some people have demonstrated selflessness more than others. That was Garry.
Garry demonstrated selflessness in everyday moments, whether in the church foyer, between classes, at lunch, in a meeting, or beyond. He listened with sharp and sensitive focus. He asked questions that prompted deeper consideration. He carefully commented on patterns he was seeing in you or effects things were having on you, producing particular outcomes. He pointed out positive character qualities in you and shared how things might make you feel at that moment.
One day, while Garry and I were having lunch at Rosa’s, he identified something in me that no one else had before. As I was sharing my thoughts, he asked questions and made observations until he concluded with a statement, then followed up with a question to confirm his thoughts. In that moment, Garry entered my world, plumbed the depths of my trouble, and showed me the splinter that had been festering inside me for some time.
What enabled Garry to reach into my situation so carefully? He was selfless. And he was selfless because he was full of love. Garry loved people. Garry entered their worlds, met them where they were, and lovingly and selflessly sought to bring them to realize a better version of what they might become. His love extends through me and so many others who have had the privilege to learn from him.
Conclusion
Garry Landreth was a good man. He was an accomplished educator; a wisely intentional friend who was selfless because he was a leader who loved people well. But, more important than all of those incredible attributes and many more, Garry was first a humble follower of Christ.
You see, Garry understood the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and knew that his life was not his own. He had been bought with the price of Christ’s blood on the cross. Astoundingly, Jesus Christ, the perfect educator, intentional, and selfless man, stood between the Holy Creator-God and us, taking the penalty of our sin, so that we might, by grace through faith, be reconciled to God. Indeed, Christ’s life and ministry offer us not only an example to follow, but the power to engage.
Garry’s powerful influence was not conjured, manufactured, or purchased; it was a living testimony to a man surrendered to God, deploying his faculties and strength to empower, uplift, train, equip, and help others reach their fullest potential.
Indeed, Garry’s life and work were his ministry, pointing our eyes beyond ourselves and even him to Christ.
One of his famous lines was, “The most important thing is not what you DID, but what you DO after what you DID.” Garry moved us beyond ourselves to others. He turned our eyes away from self-pity to resourcefulness. Carefully, he turned my eyes from myself to the One who alone can save and heal. He turned my eyes to Jesus Christ.
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” Isaiah 45:22.