A Voice from the Past

 

Some things are worth keeping. I came across one such item several weeks ago. It is an old cassette tape of my ordination service that I had forgotten I had - old as in over forty years ago. If it was worth recording then, surely, I thought, it must be worth listening to now. The problem is that cassette tapes are old technology, and unless it is buried more deeply than the tape was, I no longer own a cassette tape player.

 

Though the format may be outdated, I was pretty sure that the message wouldn't be, so I found someone with the equipment and knowledge to digitize the recording and entrusted the cassette to him. What I got back in addition to a cassette that I couldn't play was a downloadable .mp3 computer file of voices from the past with a message as fitting for me now as it was then.

 

Charles Wickman, who at the time was senior pastor of the Walnut Creek (CA) Evangelical Free Church, had agreed to bring the ordination message on relatively short notice, filling in for a district superintendent that had ended up in hospital. Listening to him in 1979, I found his words both encouraging and challenging as I looked ahead to the unseen and unknown pastoral adventures that the Lord had ahead for me. And now as I listen again, I can attest that his words are every bit as encouraging and challenging to me today as they were over forty years ago as I hear them this time with the added perspective of having lived through years of pastoral ministry. Chuck would go on to become a strong encourager of pastors, particularly pastors at risk. I don't know where he is or what he is doing these days, but if he's still around, I expect he is still encouraging, and if I could, I would tell him thank you again for a message that helped to shape me. 

He began his message with a powerful reminder of the source of ministry.  There is a word, he said, that scripture uses to describe God's creation of man and his universe out of nothing. That same word, he continued, is used in Galatians 4 to describe the virgin birth of Jesus. It is used in Ephesians 2 to describe the conversion of one who has been born again. And it is the same word the apostle Paul uses to describe himself as one who was made a minister. Neither church nor denomination makes a minister, he reminded us; we only recognize what God has already done. It is the Lord himself who makes a minister. (That, by the way, is a good thing to remember the next time you see your pastor.)

Chuck ended his message the same way he began with the sobering and powerful personal reminder to me that with all that it took for the Lord to create the universe and to convert a sinner, he had made me a minister. In between was a helpful exposition of seven key concepts of ministry, but that's another post. It is enough for today to be reminded that whether I am looking back through the joys and frustrations of ministry or looking forward to whatever may lie ahead, it is the Lord who out of nothing made Malcolm a minister. And I'm joyfully thankful that He did.