Easter and Legacy: A Tribute to My Dad

If my math is correct, tomorrow marks the 35th Easter in a row during which my dad will preach a sermon(s). It is also his last Easter sermon at the church I still call "my home church" -- the church where I met my bride and learned to pray and serve with men twice my age.

It is likely that my dad is experiencing a world of mixed emotions tonight as he does his final walk through his selected Easter text. I am sure Satan would want him to be filled with doubts and a litany of "shoulda, coulda, wish-I-wouldas."

But Satan is a liar, and Easter is the proof.

Satan slithers into the Garden and urges us to believe God is withholding the good life from us. The Son of God leaves behind the good life, willingly goes to the cross to give us His righteousness, and is raised again to give us His life.

Over the last 35 years, my dad has served the church in remarkable ways. His name will never be mentioned from the platform at the SBC, but I suspect He will have more than enough crowns to lay at Jesus' feet.

Though my dad's last Easter sermon as a lead pastor comes tomorrow, his legacy, to the extent he has pointed people to Jesus, endures forever. And, he has done so remarkably well.  As my dad nears this final sermon, I would like to remind him (and us) that Easter is not merely our only hope but also our certain hope. I hope to encourage him with four ways he has lived out the resurrection life and proven to me and to many who love him that Christ is risen!

1. My father has embraced the counterintuitive wisdom of God, the humility of our Savior. After 35 years of ministry, it sometimes amazes me how few people realize my father is an incredibly brilliant man. My dad is smarter than most men I know - including many PhDs. If you doubt this, I defy you beat him in a game of Trivial Pursuit or to beat his GRE score from an exam taken when he was 40 years of age. Most know him as the happy and highly-gregarious encourager God has gifted him to be, but few realize he is also wicked smart.

This is by design. Somewhere along the way, my dad must have decided he would rather be who God has made him to be in Christ and allow sophisticated people to underestimate and malign him than to limit his overall effectiveness in the Kingdom of God by insisting people also know him as "smart."

In Christ, my dad learned humility. He learned the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor 1:25), and he was just "foolish" enough to trust the message of the cross more than his intellect. He learned to prefer brokenness to brilliance. More than any methodology or strategy, this convictional approach to leading and pastoring is the "secret sauce" to my father's success in ministry.

2. My dad genuinely loves people with the self-sacrificing love of God. For all of his interests in "church growth," I have never known him to treat one person -- not one -- as "just a number." Methods and approaches come and go, but none can replace genuine love for "all the flock" (Acts 20:28).

The role of the pastor as one who feeds the flock by being with the flock is one my father takes seriously. The nearness of Christ to His people is to be communicated by the nearness of the undershepherd to the local flock. My dad understands this and considers the responsibilities of being a "pastor" to be a divine privilege. Consider these examples.

• One of my earliest memories of my dad is of him counseling a family whose 14-year-old daughter was killed in a vicious car accident. I became weary of him being gone so much, so he took me with him. I am so glad he did. I saw my dad bring the healing hope of the resurrection to an awful situation. To my 8-year-old eyes, it seemed like my dad had actually become Jesus. Everyone he saw and everyone he touched seemed to be healed of their heartache. I don't remember what he said, but I will never forget the unmistakable transformation on their faces.
• I saw my father leave family vacations early to lead families through the grieving process and to preach the funeral.
• I saw my father loan cars to struggling church members on numerous occasions.
• I saw my dad, early in ministry, preach every Sunday, run the youth ministry, plan and drive the bus for all church events, and essentially work for 70+ hours/week -- not because he was a workaholic, but because he was desperate to help people know Jesus even when there was no one else to share the load.
• I saw my father drive for hours to share the gospel with a church member's lost father.
• I saw my dad share the gospel with a drug addict, stick with him through relapses, give him hope by offering him a job painting our house, and then take him to Charlottesville routinely during the last months of his life. My dad could have delegated this. Many leadership gurus would say he should have. The gospel said otherwise.

3. My dad refused to let the world rob the church of confidence in the Scriptures which reveal to us the Risen Lord Jesus Christ as the only hope of salvation for all peoples. Every good preacher will readily admit some sermons and some Sundays are better than others. Sometimes, things just do not go as planned. But, you will not find in 35 years of material one instance in which my dad preaches another gospel. You will never hear him preach salvation by works or reduce the gospel to only the "nice" saying of Jesus. Quite the contrary, you will always get a robust defense of the faith once-and-for-all delivered to the saints and an exhortation to trust and honor Jesus in all things no matter the cost.

4. My dad is always willing to do whatever it takes to honor Christ. For years, a large sign in the sanctuary at Green Ridge Baptist read, "Whatever it takes." That's my dad. Whatever it takes to be faithful to his calling. . . whatever it takes to point people to Jesus. . . whatever it takes to show people the indescribable love of God in Christ . . . whatever it takes to keep the people of God pursuing their Risen King.

My dad's ministry has been characterized by doing whatever it takes, and he is doing it again now. It cannot be easy to transition to a new day of ministry, but dad perceives that is what God would have him to do for the good of His church. Once more, dad is laying down his life in order that others might know that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Once more, dad is doing whatever it takes to point people to Jesus, trusting that Easter makes all the difference.

Dad, I love you. Christ is risen.

Successful Fundraising Means Raising the Right Money

In the previous posts, we have seen that successful fundraising demands a culture which consistently seeks and creates opportunities to further fulfill the mission through the involvement of qualified prospects. But, a culture which prizes private giving and wholeheartedly engages prospective donors are not all that is required.

The right sort of gifts are also needed.

Yes, successful fundraising obviously requires the acquisition of gifts, but gifts are not enough. Truly successful fundraising is fueled not merely by gifts but the right sort of gifts.

Raising the right sort of gifts means securing gifts that align both with the donor's heart and the institution's mission. Because securing any gift can prove challenging, the temptation for the fundraiser who consistently faces the pressure to "beat last year" is to simply accept a gift and trust the institution will "find a way to make it work" even when the purpose is not well-suited to the organization or the donor wishes to place unreasonable/unworkable restrictions on the gift. This is unwise, and organizations should commend fundraisers who demonstrate a consistent conscientiousness in this regard -- even when it means forfeiting a gift.

Gifts which are not the right sort of gifts are those which divert from the institution's mission or create financial and administrative burdens that exceed the benefit of the gift. A good example in higher education is a scholarship which comes with so many restrictions that it can seldom be used. If a donor's desire is to help students, a scholarship agreement must be written broadly enough to ensure students will consistently meet the scholarship criteria. It is the fundraiser's job to help a donor understand how to structure a gift for maximum impact. Good stewardship demands nothing less.

In other words, gifts of equal amounts do not necessarily have an equal impact, and some gifts can be impact-diluting or even impact-diverting over the long term. The conscientious fundraiser understands this and seeks gifts the organization can deploy in a way that consistently fulfills the mission and honors both God and the giver.

This does not mean gifts to fund new buildings or new initiatives should be avoided. It simply means the true costs involved should be calculated and included as a part of the overall strategy. For example, the addition of a new building comes with new recurring expenses for cleaning, power, water, climate control, information technologies, and maintenance. A new academic program often comes with new expectations for the availability of library resources. Good gifts come when good questions are asked and answered from the inception of any new initiative.

Both donors and institutions often fall prey to the ills of "chronological snobbery" wherein "newer" is simply assumed to be better. To be sure, newer can be better but only to the extent that "the newer" better deploys and extends that which is timeless -- the mission of the organization.

If the organization's mission is the right mission, and the organization has demonstrated a consistent ability to fulfill that mission, what is needed is not new, trendy, or innovative. What is needed is significantly greater support for that which is tested, tried, and true.

This means, in the case of gospel-centered institutions functioning with high-levels of financial and confessional integrity and accountability, unrestricted gifts are absolutely vital and wise because they have the greatest potential for impacting eternity over the long term. Such gifts provide an opportunity for the organization to quickly overcome unforeseen challenges and seize new opportunities in an ever-changing world to deliver the sort of Kingdom-extending impact the donor desires and God delights to give.

Raising the right sort of money is challenging primarily because it requires time and intentionality in building personal relationships predicated on trust. But, the time is worth the effort because it results in mission-focused, mission-extending gifts which make maximal impact.

Successful fundraising then means raising enough of the right money. And the right money is that which:

1) Directly supports the institution in fulfilling her mission, and

2) Does not come with unreasonable restrictions, and

3) Is large enough to deliver the anticipated outcome(s), and

4) Does not add new institutional costs without a plan to cover them.

What do you think about these criteria? What would you add?