SUCCESS??

"Well done, good and faithful servant... enter thou into the joy of thy lord."  (from Matthew 25:23)

There's a sort of humorous communication which happens at the barber shop each time I get a haircut.  When one of the barbers finishes the haircut, I smile and enthusiastically announce "Success!" and the barbers chuckle!

But what is success - really?  This has been a very reflective few days for me.  My missionary daughter Amy was Ordained to the Assemblies of God ministry this past Sunday night.  I'm very proud of Amy and her husband David, and all of the wonderful works they do in Papua New Guinea.  Ironically I was Ordained in May of 1985 just five days before Amy was born!  As my late father used to ask, "Where does the time go?"  

Speaking of my father and mother, they were very "old school" in so many ways!  My father especially was the epitome of practical and sensible.  He had to endure the frustration of having a firstborn son who not only was not good at sports and had no mechanical ability, but also was in many respects an idealistic dreamer.  My idealistic dreamer stuff really frustrated both of my parents.  When I "got saved" as a teenager my mother (who was a devout Catholic) told me I was "too religious"!  My father just kind of shook his head regarding his Bible-studying and unrealistic son.

After I got out of Bible College and became a credentialed minister, I so wanted them to see me become "successful".  I wanted them to see that I was more than an idealistic and crazy dreamer.  One of the facts of my life that saddens me is they never really did experience me being "successful".  I pastored a small, struggling church where things constantly went wrong.  They loved my wife and they loved their grandchildren.  But "Bobby" was still this guy chasing dreams like the character Ray in Field of Dreams.

The church's closing by the Assemblies of God in 2010, and the embarrassment and criticism I endured because of that closure honestly still bother me.  One of my ecclesiastical superiors told me at the time that I "was in the wrong seat on the bus" and I was "not lead pastor material".  I hate that term lead pastor.  I deliberately never use it.  I first heard it during the the mid-1990s.  Today in church circles you hear it all the time.  The term began with evangelical organizations, but now even the most theologically liberal churches use the terms lead minister and lead pastor.  I wish the Assemblies of God would give that term "lead pastor" a decent burial!  We've all got ideas about what a "leader" is supposed to be like.  At the Ordination service on Sunday night, Superintendent Nick Fatato presented a number of principles based on the books of First and Second Timothy.  Those bible books are among the Pastoral Epistles.  Paul was writing to the young man Timothy to encourage and mentor him.  Timothy was sent to do pastoral ministry in the church at Ephesus which was a very tough church to pastor!  Timothy was young, somewhat inexperienced, timid, a nervous person with stomach issues, and had largely grown up under the spiritual tutelage of his mother and grandmother.  Now, think about this:  If he was applying for Ordination today, would he be Ordained without hesitation?  If he were being considered to be the "lead pastor" (I need to get a grip after using that term!) of a challenging and difficult church, would our modern Presbyters and leaders in the Assemblies of God be for that or against that?  Would they say he was "getting into the wrong seat on the bus"?  Yet, God called Timothy!  Actually, I think today's officials might have accepted him because he came with such a strong recommendation from the Apostle Paul!  In the late 1950s God sent a skinny young preacher from rural Pennsylvania to reach the tough teenage and young adult street gang members of New York City!  True story - At the time some Assemblies of God officials wanted to "remove his credentials" but one Presbyter stopped that.  That skinny young guy was David Wilkerson and we know the miraculous story of The Cross and the Switchblade.

Several decades ago an Assemblies of God pastor and his wife told me they believed I have a "Forerunner's Anointing".  They gave me material about what that meant.  They encouraged me and believed in me.  (That couple were Bob and Donna Harris who pastored in Clinton, Mass.)  They were right!  I was in many respects an "Elijah" to my daughter Amy who is in many ways my "Elisha".  If you don't know the story of Elijah and Elisha it's all in First and Second Kings in the Bible.  People with a Forerunner's Anointing precede the way for someone who will have a far greater ministry.  Elijah took on the 450 prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel and they were defeated.  Yet, just a short time later Elijah became very depressed and told God he did not want to live.  John the Baptist is a powerful example of a man with a Forerunner's Anointing, as he "prepared the way" for Jesus' earthly ministry.  People with a Forerunner's Anointing will do great and mighty exploits for God.  Yet, they're also prone to doubt, depression, and despair.  In Matthew chapter 11, John the Baptist who had been imprisoned sent messengers to Jesus asking if He was really the Messiah.  Considering he saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove and heard the voice of God the Father announcing who Jesus was; well, you'd think he wouldn't have to ask Jesus such a foolish question.  Again, it all goes with the Forerunner's Anointing.  Would any of you want to tell Elijah or John the Baptist they were "in the wrong seat on the bus"?

There was a great woman of God who died in 2014.  She was a public figure.  I don't want to "drag her name through the mud" or write anything which would be hurtful to her surviving four sons, so I will just use her initials:  A.K.A.  

A.K.A. was an evangelical Christian motivational speaker and inspirational author.  She was very "big" in the 1970s.  Her books are great.  Her speeches were great.  She helped, inspired, and motivated countless numbers of Christians.  During the 1970s she was a spectacular success.  In the early 1980s she married a farmer who has been described as her "exact opposite".  They tried to have kids, but for some reason she was not able to get pregnant.  They ultimately adopted four sons, getting each kid as an infant.  A.K.A. and her husband (for whatever reasons) had a very bad marriage.  The farm failed.  They faced financial ruin.  He got cancer and died.  There was no life insurance.  She was left with four teenage boys.  She went through some tough stuff with at least two of the boys.  Life was very hard.  And a couple of years prior to his death, she'd been admitted for over a week to a detox center due to addiction to prescription medicines.  I wonder if A.K.A. had a Fourunner's Anointing?  Like Elijah and John the Baptist she won great spiritual victories and walked with God, and like them, and me, she sometimes got into a very bad place.

Online I found her blog!  Specifically I found an entry from 2009.  She poured out her heart writing about the difficulties she'd had raising her sons, but bringing it all around to praising God for His faithfulness and encouraging her readers who were going through tough times that things were going to be OK!  Boy, did I relate to her!  Five years after she wrote that blog post, she died of cancer, penniless.  Tell me, do you think she was a success or was she a failure?  We do have female pastors in the Assemblies of God.  Was she "lead pastor material"?

I've presented some "tough stuff" in this piece.  Lest anyone misunderstand, I'm actually in a very good place today!  Like A.K.A.  I've been in some tough places!  But like A.K.A.  (and Elijah and John)  I have experienced profound spiritual victories that I did not deserve but that God brought!  Like A.K.A.  I sit here writing a blog and hoping someone reads and becomes blessed, motivated, and inspired by what I'm writing!

Who or what is a "Success"?  It's the person to whom the Lord will say these words:

"Well done, good and faithful servant... enter thou into the joy of thy lord."

THE WORST EXPERIENCE AND WORST WEEKEND OF MY LIFE

"For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them:  but they understood not."  (Acts 7:25)

I expect this one to surprise every reader.  I wish I could offer a fabulous prize to anyone who could guess what the worst experience and worst weekend of my life was.  I can't.  But I'm not worried about it because even if there were five hundred guesses, no one could ever figure it out.  There have been many horrific experiences of my life.  My brother's death in 1983 was shocking and terrible.  Each of my parents' deaths were "awful" as the late Don Imus used to say.  As a little kid I got conned by a peer into handling an emergency fire box and pulling a false alarm.  I got caught.  That was horrible.  In fact, one time when I spoke to the elementary school kids at New Covenant Christian School Chapel I told that story!  Maybe if you'd really like to hear it, I'll tell it another time.  When the church I'd pastored for twenty-three years was closed and in many ways I was discredited and embarrassed, that was bad.  But none of the things I've mentioned in this paragraph are what I'm revealing here and today.

This "worst experience" happened in early February of 2014.  It's about the death of a good friend.  I wish I could tell you his name and I wish I could tell you all the details of my relationship with him.  Before you finish reading this post, you'll understand why I can't.  I have to give my friend a made-up name.  So I'll call him Derek Sanderson.  No, my friend was not a hockey player!  I just pulled that name out of the air!  Derek Sanderson was a very successful and fairly well known evangelical Christian pastor in the Boston area in the 1980s.  He wasn't famous like Jimmy Swaggart, but he was a lot more well known than Bob Baril!  My relationship with him in the '80s was, well challenging and difficult, honestly.  We were very different personalities.  I tended to have a poor self-image and lack confidence.  He honestly had kind of a Donald Trump persona - without the profanity, that is!

In the 1990s, things went very askew in his life.  He walked away from pastoring.  He walked away from his family.  He essentially walked away from God.  He established a whole new and different life for himself in a distant state.  Ultimately, he was convicted of committing a serious federal crime and spent a couple years in a federal prison.

I was not in touch with Derek Sanderson during all that stuff.  In fact I was not in touch with him at all for probably at least ten years.  Early in the 2000s, he reappeared in Massachusetts.  He was working at a secular job.  He mostly was keeping a very low profile - which for him was quite a radical change.  I was very surprised when I received an invitation from him to a very special event - I think this was sometime in 2001.  In fact, I think it was just a few weeks after "Nine Eleven"!  The special event was a coffee and desserts reception at a Boston area church at which he publicly apologized for his sins which had taken place over the previous decade.  He wept as he spoke.  Some people thought it was all a fake, but I'm convinced it was very genuine.  He said he had repented to God and come back to God but that he felt he had to tell all the people he'd hurt how sorry he was and ask for their forgiveness.  He got mine (and my wife's) that night.

From time to time during the years following that reception we'd politely talk but I did not become close to him until 2009.  That was when things went sour in my life.  It was just a few months before the church was closed.  It was during a time when I was facing a lot of intense criticism about my ministry and my personality.  At one point, I became suicidal.  I posted something on the internet that I should never have posted.  Derek Sanderson called me.  I could tell he was very concerned and very worried about me.  This was not the arrogant "Donald Trump style" Derek Sanderson of the 1980s.  Rather, this was a man that following imprisonment and catastrophic personal failure in his own life, had genuine empathy for me, and dare I say - genuine love for me.  He told me to call him anytime.  If I was ever in personal crisis, he'd be there for me.  Whatever he could do for me, he'd do that.  There were times after that when I'd call Derek Sanderson and he'd listen.  He never "talked down" to me (as he'd done to me and many others during the 1980s).  He spoke to me the way a caring father would speak to a beloved and troubled son.   I honestly believe he saved my life.  You know, the Christian musical group Sidewalk Prophets has a song called Save My Life.  There's a line in that song that says:  "Maybe God is calling you tonight, to tell me something that would save my life!"  Derek Sanderson did that for me!  I'm feeling emotional as I write this.

I visited him at his small apartment one afternoon in November of 2013.  He was in poor health.  He was weak.  His heart was very bad.  He'd been given a scary medical diagnosis.  That was the last time I actually saw him.  I phoned him several times after that, asking if I could come and visit.  He told me he was honestly much too weak but he thanked me for calling.  In January of 2014 he was admitted to a hospital.  In late January that year he died.

What really bothered me was many people did not like him.  Derek used to say "Christians are the only ones who shoot their wounded".  Some Christians loved and forgave Derek, as I did.  But many considered him a phony and a criminal.  They wanted nothing to do with him.  I was determined to set the record straight about Derek Sanderson!  I wrote a blog post - on this very blog - about Derek Sanderson.  I wrote frankly about his personal failures and imprisonment.  But I also highlighted and emphasized what a wonderful senior citizen he'd become.  I wrote glowingly about the truly new man he'd become.  I was totally open about how this dear brother had saved my life!  I can't tell you how great I felt on the day I hit "Publish" and that post went onto the internet.

I did hear from a number of people.  What was gratifying was the number of folks who said they'd had a very bad opinion of Derek Sanderson until they read my blog post.  Person after person after person changed their minds about Derek Sanderson.  People who would have celebrated his death now mourned and sorrowed.  I desperately wanted to promote publicly what a great and wonderful man Derek had become - and that he should never be remembered for the criminal he had been, but for the saint he became.

I wondered if I'd hear from Derek's family.  His funeral service was scheduled for a Sunday afternoon at a funeral home.  Specifically, they scheduled visiting hours (I think) from 2 to 4 to be immediately followed by a funeral service.  I wondered if I'd hear from the family, and if they'd ask me to speak briefly at the funeral.  I excitedly felt that would happen!

A few hours after my post went public, my cell phone rang.  It was Derek Sanderson Junior calling.  He sounded solemn and slightly angry.

"I understand you put something on your blog about my father's death,"  he said, "and now my sister and I are fielding calls from friends we attended high school with.  They're asking why they never knew my father went to prison and walked away from God.  I want you to take that piece down!"

I felt like a safe had fallen thirteen stories then landed on me and killed me!

I was shaking as I meekly told him I'd take the piece down and hung up.

That was the worst experience of my life.  I seriously considered not attending the funeral because I did not want to face the family.  I did attend, however.

On the Saturday night before the funeral I was committed to "emcee" a special prayer service in Marlboro, Mass. which was held at an Assemblies of God church but included people from many church congregations.  I know "emcee" (also known as "Master of Ceremonies") may seem like a weird term for leading a prayer service, but that's in fact what it was.  I'm usually very good at doing something like that.  I don't have many talents or abilities, but public speaking and vocal leadership are right up my alley!  I mentioned that Christian school earlier.  One time that school had a talent show and I was Master of Ceremonies.  I did a great job!  On the Saturday night of the weekend of Derek Sanderson's funeral, I did the worst public speaking job of my life!  It was terrible!   I wasn't focused.  I wasn't speaking well.  I wasn't leading well.  Mentally, I wasn't there!  I wonder if anybody thought I was drunk!  Later a guy who'd been involved in planning the service and who'd been very disappointed in me that night asked "Why couldn't you just have put on your game face?" when I'd nervously explained I was grieving the death of a friend.

At the visiting hours on Sunday some folks angrily asked me "Did the family ask you to take that piece down?"  Listen, people were mad at the family.  Their actions backfired.  I was honest and told people the family asked me to take it down.  I remember one guy asking me if I could still give him a hard copy of what I wrote.  I'd been so tempted to save a hard copy so I'd be able to just pass out copies of what I'd written.  But I didn't.  Today I wish I had a copy of it, but I don't.  And you can't find it online - it's gone.

In retrospect I think that maybe if I'd have just used Derek Sanderson's initials and not his name I could have "gotten away with" that being online and the family not really being upset.  At the time, I talked to a personal friend who is also a licensed counselor.  My counselor friend told me "Some families have secrets".  

Some do.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I'm not sure why I chose to write this today ... maybe because it was in January of 2014 that Derek was hospitalized and died.

You know what?  I kind of hope the family reads this.