CYBERCOLUMN by John Duncan: Twenty years in one place

Posted: 5/25/07

CYBER COLUMN:
Twenty years in one place

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thumbing through an old Bible. It is a wide-margin brown calf-skin Cambridge Bible. Old, yellowed tape lines the Bible with notes, quotes and a date written in the front on a leafy page—July, 1984. I bought it as a seminary student and paid $70 for it when I worked at a Christian bookstore.

For years when I used that Bible to read, to study and to preach, I would write notes in the margin, tape quotes and pen notes in the front and back.

In the margin of James 1:4 (“But let patience have her perfect work”), I scribbled in green ink “upomone,” a Greek word meaning that in Christ we can joyfully “stay under the load” of life. In the back, I wrote a list of 30 traits of human nature, from worry to restlessness to anger to loneliness to pride. Human nature clothes us all. Walt Whitman poetically penned, “Agonies are one of my changes of garments.” In another, I jotted down a thought: “The melody in our hearts often speaks of the master of our lives.”

Interesting quotes are taped inside the Bible: Of visitation, George Buttrick said there are three rules, “You’ve got to do it; you’ve got to do it; you’ve got to do it.” Of speech, the Greek sage Publius once said, “I have often regretted my speech but never my silence.” Of life, George Truett once said, “We are to learn that life is a school with many teachers.” Numerous quotes fill the pages, but one I often refer to is by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A preacher, long since gone on to be with the Lord, handed pages to me one day with a mysterious, wry smile. “Make sure you read this,” he garbled. What does the quote say? The quote is long, but ends with these words:  “The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.” I knew the man, a pastor, preacher, who wanted to send me two messages: (1) be thankful for what God gives, his church, his people, his blessings, his hardships; (2) Grace prompts gratitude and increases fellowship with God in light and in the shadows of life.

I have for exactly 20 years, by the time you read this, been privileged to serve and pastor the same church, Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas. I have lived through the normal stuff—the joy of baptisms and weddings and of good church reports and of people joining the church and laughter and of people inviting Christ into their lives against all hope and the thrill of a roller coaster ride of church growth and its celebrative moments as well as the exhaustion of euphoria in its midst. Laughter has not been absent from our church, neither joy. After all, one child announced that he just knew I was THE real John the Baptist. Another sketched a picture of me preaching one Sunday. I was holding the Bible in one hand, gesturing with another, smiling while my hair waved in the wind. The pulpit seemed small and my eyes looked big. The little girl showed it to her mother after church one Sunday. She pointed to me and to the caption beneath exclaiming, “This is what Brother John does!” The caption read, “Blah, blah, BLAH, blah, blah, BLAH!” Laughter has arrived in chariots of fire with joy chained to the parade behind.

I have also had loads dumped on me, felt the pressure of such, and dumped stuff myself. In the first country church I pastored, white, wooden with no air conditioner on a hot Texas summer, and an outhouse to boot, I preached my 19-year-old heart out one Sunday, ranting and raving on Romans 12. My first sermon was, low and behold, all of 12 minutes. On this day, though, I brought home the preaching bacon at a boiling, fire-breathing 45 minutes, nearly ruining my voice along the way. Only eight people showed up, but I gave it to them good, probably because the other four regulars had not showed up. Mr. Parks, an eightysomething farmer-rancher who liked to chew on tooth picks while smiling, said afterward, “Preacher, when just a few cows show up, I don’t dump the whole load.” We laughed, but I thought about what he said all the way home and for days. I decided he loved his pastor and he was being funny, not rude. But along the way, I have experienced the deep and dark because of words not spoken in love and harsh things that sometimes people say around the church. One guy, almost 20 years ago, told me I would never make it in the ministry because I was too soft, whatever that means. Another told me I could not preach. And a few have given me, as one lady said, “a piece of my mind,” and it left me reeling to pick up the pieces, whatever that means.

At times, it seems that I have been in the belly of a whale like Jonah twisted in seaweed and vomit, have wept like Jeremiah on days when no converts came, have asked God to touch my tongue with Isaiah’s fire, have longed for Malachi’s refiner’s fire to zap a few people, have sloshed water out of boat in the storm with Jesus’ disciples, stood at the Mountain of Transfiguration-joy and celebrated God’s work, rejoiced at the Jordan River during baptisms, cried like a baby at Lazarus-like funerals full of emotion and family dynamics (“Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died!”) and I have waited anxiously for God’s miraculous work in hospital rooms after snake bites, ship wrecks and Roman beatings, not to mention cancer, heart surgeries and broken arms. Life is never dull. And I believe in the midst of all the bad news, the gospel has always been good news. It’s what keeps me going and what I look forward to every day, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Anyway, here I am 20 years later, thumbing through my old Bible, simply giving thanks to the Lord for his blessing of 20 years in one place, the mercy and misery of it, the happiness and struggle of it, and the peace and chaos of it, with mercy and happiness and peace in the grace of it all far outweighing the rest, and God’s light overpowering the shadows.

I thank the Lord and the people of Lakeside for the privilege of serving as pastor and for the blessing of God. I see faces—like the elderly, long-departed Dorothy Hand, church member and neighbor who lived next door in those cracker-box-sized apartments, who in darkness of the early years had the vision to hold my hand and look to the heavens and declare, “God is going to do something great in that church!” I did not feel great, but believed her and together we believed in God. I see Ruth Stewart, who modeled “the music of our hearts often speaks of the master of our lives” and was also playing the organ, a melodious song,  one Sunday night, “Set My Soul Afire, Lord!,” when the organ caught on fire. Watch what you sing for, but know that encouragement moves mountains, and Ruth delivered it like a song, and it makes a huge difference in a person’s life. I see Riley Robeson, charter member and a godly deacon who served on the pulpit committee 20 years ago, now an octogenarian in and out of the hospital and residing mostly in a nursing home; I see his faithfulness to the Lord that inspires me to this day. I see Sam Clemons and Jerry Carlisle, quiet as church mice, reserved, but full of wisdom and the ones who helped me achieve my dream of further education in Cambridge, England. I see a host of other faces, young and old with stories and words too numerous to be printed here, people to whom I am eternally grateful. And I see the face of Christ, glowing like the radiant sun, dripping with the thorn-crowned brow of love and pouring out his grace on me daily like a Texas rain shower that waters the bluebonnets and makes them rich in color and lovely in their Texas dwelling places.

Thanks, Lakeside Baptist Church, for 20 years of serving Christ together. I anticipate God’s future work in the vision, the faithfulness and the dream of serving the Lord. I thank also staff members and friends and family and a cloud of witnesses too numerous to name.

And so, here I am, 20 years later. What have I learned? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Pray long. Work hard. Honor the word. Love Jesus. Care for people. Watch what you sing for. Keep the good news good. Take care of the things the Lord asks you to take care of, and let him take care of you. Look to Christ. Be thankful, always. Try not to dump the whole load on people all at once! But find the grace of God on the journey of life. Or to quote Henri Nouwen, taped in my Bible, “Lord, give me the courage to be a dove in a world so full of serpents.”

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines. You can respond to his column by e-mailing him at jduncan@lakesidebc.org.