I have sat under four pastors since I was born again. My first pastor was a good man, but his wife had held a torch for her high school sweetheart for the entire time of their marriage, even through four children and middle-age. I had just came to Christ under his ministry at a community church. I didn’t know nothing about Christianity, but I knew that he was the image I thought a Christian should be in a man, a father, and pastor. Unfortunately, through that trial he could not keep his wife. Despite stepping down from the pastorate, and trying numerous other ways to accommodate her, they divorced. That does not take away necessarily from his influence in my mind, and he holds a special place for preaching the simplicity of the gospel that led me to the Lord. Unfortunately it did not end ideally.
The second Pastor I sat under was a good man, but he was more of a teacher than a preacher. I was a carnal Christian when I began attempting to re-engage or reset my faith underneath him, and maybe my discernment-meter needed some adjustment, but he did not reach my heart, and I continued to flounder spiritually under his leadership. It was at that time, though, that he retired and the church began to look for a new man. I was not a member, and didn’t have any clue about how that process worked, but waited curiously to see what would happen. That curiosity paid dividends spiritually….
The third man was a young man out of Hyles Anderson. It was under his ministry that God reached me and I began to grow in earnest. It was then that I was baptized after rejecting that command for 10 years post-salvation. He was energetic, funny, and charismatic, and the church began to grow. It had been near life support when I first came, but under his leadership, families were reached, ministries were started, and lives were changed. Unfortunately, after only three years, he left for greener pastures, and in due time his marriage also was derailed as he and his wife divorced, and then he remarried. The last I was aware he was trying to repackage his life and was working at a para-church organization.
The pastor that I have had for the last 20 years now, and the one who is getting ready to retire in September, has given the most stability and security to my Christian faith. When he came to our church, he had been trained in the Hyles Anderson mode. He was a middle-age man called to the ministry later in life, and realized by common sense and grace that that militant style could not be matched or forced on to the independent fundamental Baptist church that he came to pastor, so he kept most of those “standards” on the back-burner, and did not press them onto the sheep.
He had been in mid-level management when he surrendered to preach and pastor. He had much greater earning potential in the secular arena, so his sacrifice, materially speaking, was great. He was even told by others that he had the skills and ability to pastor churches much larger than ours and was occasionally wooed by such opportunities. He is a very principled man, and told me that in response to that enticement, he said “ doesn’t small churches deserve to be pastored properly too?” I’m glad that he felt that way. Throughout his ministry, he has done whatever it took to continue shepherding. That included becoming bivocational when times in the church got hard, and faithfully ministering through the pandemic. Through the years not only did he shy away from some of the legalistic and militant baggage of Hyles, but his preaching became even much more Bible centered and grace oriented (and it was good from the beginning, balanced).
About three or four years ago he started experiencing some breathing issues that was unexplainable. He looked like the picture of fitness for a man in his 60s. He had been shot through the heart as a young man before he was saved (an absolutely amazing testimony, which I’m leaving out here due to time constraints, lol), and he feared that some of the health issues that stemmed from that was catching up to him. After a period of about a year and a half of testing at high quality medical institutions, they could not determine exactly what the problem was, except that he was going to need a major open-heart surgery to replace the tricuspid valve. He also experienced the same kind of AFib problems you had recently abcaines, and got a pacemaker to assist with that. He fought through all that while continuing to pastor. Many other people would have retired in order to concentrate on their health, and the last chapter of their life, but not him, he was anything but a quitter. I could write so much more about my respect for him, and even though our church never grew to huge numbers, he faithfully toiled and shepherded those who needed a pastor. Scriptures exhort Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful, and he has been that in spades. God bless good and faithful pastors, especially those of small flocks.
