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 "Remembering"
Emphasis for August 2010
August
is an interesting month for me, personally.
We have a nephew that is a pastor in East Texas. In one of his
newsletters, he remembered the churches where he served as a young
pastor. He got me to thinking about those churches that suffered
under my preaching as a young pastor. How I can sympathize with
them.
The time I was graduating from Howard Payne College (now
University), I accepted the invitation to become pastor of the
Providence Baptist Church outside Hamilton, Texas. That church had a
wonderful attitude. They felt that God had called them to give young
preachers a place to begin their ministry. Dewey Sellers and his
wife Lillian became like our second set of parents. Clarence and
Tipp Upham were right there with Dewey and Lillian. Both Dewey and
Clarence were the deacons in the church. It was farming and ranching
community.
I can only imagine how weak and superficial those sermons were.
However, I believe the church would have been surprised if I had
preached lake a Billy Graham. They never complained. During those
first years in seminary, I received enough spiritual food that I
could pass on to the church.
During the last months of my seminary time, Bobbie¡¦s father, a long
time pastor and a man I greatly respected, had a serious heart
attack. He was serving as pastor of the First Baptist Church in
Medina, Texas. They invited me to fill in as a ¡§substitute¡¨ pastor
until he recovered. The church was in the ¡§Hill Country¡¨ of Texas,
an area for great ranching. Once again, the people were so warm and
encouraging. Once again, we had substitute parents. By this time, we
had two children. They ¡§adopted¡¨ our children as their own. We have
many wonderful memories of the good people of that church. We still
have dear friends that we occasionally visit.
When Bobbie¡¦s father returned to the pulpit, we accepted the
invitation to become pastor of a small church on the northeast side
of San Antonio, Texas. The former pastor was the original founder.
He was a real ¡§handyman.¡¨ He, almost single-handed, constructed the
building and many of the furnishings. He even invented a direct
water heater for the baptistry. He was a very short man, but knew
other speakers and pastors would be taller. Therefore, he designed a
pulpit what could be for short preachers and raised for taller
preachers. Pure genius!
He moved into retirement and so the church invited me, still just a
¡§kid preacher.¡¨ My first Sunday as pastor, Mary Ridgely, teacher of
the small children in Sunday school, asked 5 year-old Richard Byrd,
to close their class time in prayer. Mrs. Ridgley later told me
about Richard¡¦s prayer, ¡§Dear God, let the people brag on Pastor
West the same way that they brag on Pastor Jansen.¡¨ Richard is now
head of surgery for a major hospital in Abilene, Texas.
I¡¦ll call this to a close so that you will not be too bored. Let me
conclude for now that God began blessing us ¡V far beyond what we
deserved ¡V long before we begin to serve on the mission field.
Bobbie and I stand amazed at the goodness and unending love or our
heavenly Father.
Our prayer for you is that you will make yourself available to God
so that He can fill your life with His love and blessings.
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