In the spring and summer of 1984, I was in a pretty low place in many ways. The previous April took me in the opposite direction. The small church in western Illinois (I referred to in last week’s article) had called me to be their pastor, and I dove in with both feet, excited for the opportunity, ready to “make my mark in the world.”
Within a month of our arrival, we learned we were expecting our first child. First ministry, first real home together, first child. A good deal of excitement…hope…promise.
Eleven months and three weeks after assuming that pastoral role, I left it. I’ll not burden the reader with all the gory details. Suffice it to say that a seasoned pastor in whom I confided remarked, “In my 40 years of ministry, I haven’t seen the challenges you’ve had in your first year of the pastorate!”
To give just a taste….
- In one church meeting, a guy stood up and threatened to attack me.
- Knowing the inner-church conflict, one man in the church insisted he lend me a shotgun to keep near my bed at night.
- Etc., etc., ad nauseum…
While some good things happened in those months, the tension and conflict, especially with the church leaders, made the situation unbearable. And not just for me. My wife suffered, too. Just going to church made her nauseous—and not because of morning sickness, either.
…so we loaded a small truck with all our belongings…
I resigned with no place to go, so we loaded a small truck with all our belongings, put most in storage, and the (now) three of us moved in with my parents for an open-ended stay.
We went from a fairly decent three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home to the spare bedroom next to my parents’ room. We’d try to sleep through the snoring next door. And, with the crib a foot from the side of our bed, the oft-crying baby didn’t help either.
Before our move, I had what I thought was one decent prospect for a new ministry at a church located about 45 minutes east of Memphis, Tennessee. We got a little bit settled at my folks, then took an interview trip to Tennessee.
Didn’t go so well.
While driving through the town where the church was located, I noticed that most people out and about were black. But when I got up to speak on Sunday morning, I saw a sea of white faces.
Frankly, I wasn’t totally surprised. We stayed with an older couple in the church, and at dinner the night before, our hostess looked out the window and noticed a black man walking down the road.
“Oh look,” she drawled, “there’s our n_________! He does our gardening.”
My heart sank. These were not my kind of people.
So on Sunday afternoon when I met with the church leaders, I asked about the disparity between the demographics of the community and of the church.
“Why do you suppose there aren’t any black people in the congregation?” I asked naively.
“They got their own churches. Don’t need to be comin’ here!” One elder churchman replied.
A bit stunned, I countered, “Well, what if a family came some Sunday morning? Would they be welcomed?”
Same guy: “Nope! We figure they’d be up to no good!”
The nodding heads made it unanimous.
Even if they had unanimously called me to be their pastor, there was no way. They didn’t. Wasn’t even simple majority!
Nevertheless, driving along I-57 heading back to northern Indiana the next day, I battled discouragement and looming despair.
“Now what?” I wondered.
The five-month-old baby was howling in the back seat, needing lunch. Mom got her out of her car seat to meet the pressing need.
A few minutes later, flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror.
“Now what?” I wondered.
The officer informed me of a simple fact I already knew. My Illinois license plate had expired a couple of weeks earlier. I explained our predicament…had recently moved to Indiana temporarily…weren’t sure where we would land….
Thankfully, he merely exhorted me to get new tags when we get back to Indiana. But he also rebuked us for nursing the baby. Said we should’ve pulled off on the shoulder before getting her out of her car seat.
“Oh, like that would be really safe!” I thought as another 18-wheeler sped by. Thought, but knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
Now I was discouraged, a bit despairing, and rattled.
Shortly after returning to Indiana, with no other reasonable employment prospects, I began looking for some kind of work. And soon found a job working with a local Servicemaster franchise—mostly cleaning carpets at first, but eventually got paid a little more to do the painting in restoration projects.
I didn’t wallow this way constantly, but more than once while dragging the cleaning equipment into someone’s house, I muttered to myself, “Hmph! Four years of college, 2 years of graduate school to clean carpets! I’ve got a Master’s Degree, for crying out loud!”
Discouraged…despairing…feeling like a failure.
The summer dragged by. September brought with it no new leads.
Until one afternoon.
The pastor of a church thirty minutes away called. He explained, “I’m in need of an assistant pastor, and someone gave me your name. Would you be interested in meeting?”
Vaughn Sprunger, I learned, had been the pastor of Community Baptist Church since the 1960s, a sizable congregation on the south side of South Bend. He needed an assistant who could handle the youth ministry of nearly 100 7th-12th graders, oversee the AWANA program and bus ministry, organize the visitation/outreach ministry, and help him as he needed.
Our first meeting, with our wives present, was for lunch at a restaurant close to the church. Then on to the church, we got a tour of the facilities. The whole time, of course, he was “interviewing” me. He heard all about the debacle that was my first pastorate.
After a couple of hours together, we were sitting in the front pews of the auditorium and he asked me, “So, do you think you would be interested in moving forward with coming here?”
Had he asked me that 18 months earlier, I would’ve replied with great confidence, “Of course! When could I start?!”
But my halting response betrayed my state of mind:
“Well, I am, but I’m not sure I could handle it.”
His reply indicates why I remain grateful for the man to this day.
“Well, Bryan, I know you can.”
Three weeks later I was introduced to the congregation as the new assistant pastor. And thus began four mostly wonderful years of healing and growing and learning and developing.
Dr. Sprunger’s approach toward me and my position was selfless.
“You’re not going to be here forever,” he once told me. “You’re pastor material. I’m going to help prepare you for that.”
And so I became his “Timothy”;
he, my “Paul.”
He gave me responsibilities that stretched me. He allowed me several opportunities to speak to the congregation of more than 600. He taught me principles of administration. He brought me in on difficult pastoral decisions. He showed me how to handle ministry heartache. Gave me books to read. Modeled humility, contentment, and love for his people and place. Counseled me in thorny situations, both professional and personal.
Oh, sure, I disagreed with him on some things. He was 30+ years older than I, so that’s to be expected. But I always deferred, respected his perspective, and often kept my disagreement to myself. Looking back on those points of quibbling, though, time reveals he was right far more than I.
We served together for four years until our family (now of 4) moved to Tennessee—the opposite end of the state from Memphis!—to assume another difficult and challenging pastorate (fortunately not a racism problem!). But because of all that Dr. Sprunger invested in my life, I was far more prepared for what lay ahead.
In fact, almost 40 years later, I still benefit from his investment.
Thank you, Pastor Sprunger!
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