Yesterday, I got the news that an old friend had passed away. Chester Henry was the first Pastor that I worked for after graduating from BBC. My time working for him was short and tumultuous, but I learned some very needed lessons while serving under him.
During the first semester of my senior year at BBC, Ken McCormick, Pastor of Tri-Cty Baptist Church in Gladstone, OR, came to speak in chapel. He issued a call for students to consider the Great Northwest of our own country as a mission field. During that service, I felt that God was calling me to the state of Washington to start a church. Over the next few months, as graduation approached, I looked for contacts up there that might be able to help me get started. My dad called one day and told me that a man who had pastored in Wisconsin for a while was now in Spokane, WA and might know of opportunities in that area of the country. I really didn't know Brother Henry. I had seen him at camp, but had little contact with him, but I wrote him a letter asking if he knew of any churches in the region who were looking for someone in the areas of youth or Christian school ministry. His response was that there were very few churches in that area that were big enough to have staff, but that his church had a Christian school and might be needing someone in the fall. I took that as a very positive response, but when March and April and May passed without further word, I began to lose hope that anything would come of it. I graduated from BBC and moved to Crane, MO, where I had served as Youth Director of Crane Bible Baptist Church during my Junior and Senior years at BBC. The summer flew past with no news. Then during the last few days of July, Brother Henry called and said that if I could get packed up, spend a week in Lewisville, Texas for administrators training and be in Spokane in two weeks, I had the job.
Get this! I was 20 years old and single and I had been hired as the Principal and High School Learning Center Supervisor at Baptist Temple Christian School aaannnddd Youth Director at Inland Empire Baptist Temple. But armed with my BBC diploma and my ACE Administrator's Training Certificate, I hit the road in my beat up '72 Malibu sure that I was ready for anything that life could throw at me.
1700 miles later, I showed up on the doorstep of IEBT and dove head first into Chester Henry's philosophy of ministry. We worked seven days a week for the first three months I was there. I found that his expectations were high and that he didn't believe in handing out a lot of praise. Looking back, I probably hadn't earned much. I struggled with the dual roles of authoritative administrator through the week and counselor and confidant on the weekends. Those that I was so desperately trying to get close to as their Youth Director, I was having to discipline and motivate as their teacher and principal. It is a difficult job, at best, but when you are just a couple of years older than the kids that you are trying to reach and teach, it is very close to impossible.
Add to it my inate desire to be liked by everyone that I come in contact with, and you have a formula for disaster. By late January of 1981, it was evident to both Brother Henry and me that I wasn't the man for the job. I had lost control of my classroom and the youth department was floundering. I felt like a failure, so I walked into Brother Henry's office and told him that I would resign, effective at the end of the school year. He was gracious and suggested that since the problem was fueled by my dual role, he could assign the Youth Department to a young couple in the church and I could concentrate on my duties with the school.
The change, although gradual was like night and day. My effectiveness with my students improved and I started a bus route with a friend of mine so that I was still actively serving in the church. God blessed our efforts and we built that bus route from 0 to 56 in only three months.
In the end, if I hadn't already tendered my resignation, I probably would have stayed. I look back on my time in Spokane as my "back side of the desert" experience. Although it was pretty tough, there are memories and friendships that I made there that I dearly treasure.
Just recently, I came across Brother Henry's daughter on Facebook. I told her that I would love to get in contact with him again. I would have liked to thank him for giving me the opportunity to serve in Spokane. I would have thanked him for the philosophy of hard work and self-discipline that he instilled in me. And I would have apologized for any problems that my immaturity may have caused him as my Pastor. But his death this week has robbed me of that opportunity.
This is just one more example of the importance of not allowing your words of love and gratitude to go unspoken. In just a few weeks, it will have been 30 years since I left Inland Empire. The church and the school are no longer in existence. But the mark that they made on my life and ministry have followed me every step of the way.
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