A Great Mentor Turns 80

Today, in Niagara Falls, Canada Friends and Colleagues will join Pastor Ken Kennedy to celebrate his 80^th Birthday. I wish I could be there.

Ken was one of the Pastors in the Community of Churches among which I grew up. I also saw him as the sort of Preacher and Leader I’d like to be. He spoke well. His demeanor was unaffected. He was charismatic but not pushy. It was easy for him to laugh. And he took us kids seriously. Despite the long list of achievements he could boast of he chose to live the moments with consistent integrity, humbly. Though our paths meandered through different regions and I rarely talked with him personally Ken influenced my life significantly. He was among the Leaders who placed their hands on me and commissioned me when I was ordained. Recently, thanks to the Internet, we’ve had the opportunity to communicate more frequently. I especially enjoyed a conversation we had during a Conference in Toronto, Canada in May. Ken is still the inspiring man I remember. And I’m thrilled to see his passion hasn’t waned.

One of my memories of Ken illustrates how genuine and free he really is.

We were at Family Camp. This Summer Camp was a convergence of Christ-followers from all over Western Ontario in Canada. It was, for these Churches, the highlight of the year. People enjoyed being together and looked forward to the challenging preaching, inspiring music, and, particularly the time after each evening Meeting when people were dramatically touched by the Spirit of God. This was a Celebration! And joy filled the Meeting Place we called “the Tabernacle.”

On this particular night Ken was the MC for the “Altar Service.” People who’d been renewed by God’s spirit would tell their story, or, as we would say, “give their testimony.” This night many people had come and knelt at the “altar” – wood benches set end –to-end across the front of the Tabernacle on a lower level wood platform. A woman who’d “dropped in” that night from the neighborhood near the campground was moved by the goings on and came to turn her life over to Jesus. As people were coming to the front after they’d prayed to “give their testimony,” she came and stood in the line waiting to come to the mic and tell her “story.” Ken would guide each speaker and even, at times, interact with them as they spoke. When this woman’s opportunity came she stepped to the mic. She was quite animated; almost giddy over the emotional experience of “letting go and letting God” intervene in her troubled life. She was full of joy. She looked at Ken and asked, “May I tell a funny story?” Ken was noticeably hesitant. He held his mic by his side for a moment, not responding. She went on. “It’s on the Scotch!” It was apparent that this was not helpful to Ken who was trying to decide what to do with such an unusual turn of events. Of course the Scotch, at least in those days, were known for their exceptional frugality. Some would even say they were “tight with their money.” But they could also be the swashbuckling type; fast living bar hounds and the like. Where was this woman going? Ken took a “leap of faith,” and nodded his approval. This is what she said.

“A Scotchman and his Wife were out for a Sunday afternoon drive. An hour or so into the drive the Wife turned to her Husband and told him she had to go to the bathroom. He was a little perturbed but began looking for a Service Station that might have a “loo.” Finding one that appeared to have facilities that would be clean he pulled in. His Wife walked into the Office. Moments later she returned to the car obviously troubled. “It’s a ‘pay toilet,’” she said. “I’ll need a dime.” “Oh, my Dear!” her Husband said. “Can you wait a bit?” “Let’s drive on a piece! I hate to spend the money if we don’t have to.” “Well, don’t drive long!” She urged. They drove a while and came on another Station. Again she walked in. Once more she returned troubled; but now more so. And, again, her Husband insisted on looking for “free relief.” She did not like it but agreed. They went on and before long found another Service Station. As you might guess she found that this Station, too, required payment for use of their facilities. But now there’d be no negation. She returned to the car. “Give me a dime!” she demanded. “But Dear!” “No but Dear! Give me a dime!” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the dime. He handed it to her. As she reached for it he pulled it back. With that he said, imploringly, “Honey! Before you put this in the slot, PLEASE! be sure you don’t just have ‘gas!’”

An awkward silence fell over the Tabernacle. All eyes were on Ken. What would he do? Would he laugh? Would he reprimand what some would consider inappropriate? Would he turn to the next person in line and invite them to take their turn? No … he dropped his hands to his side bent forward a bit and smiled broadly, chuckling simultaneously. With that the crowd burst into laughter and a newborn Child of the King went laughing to her seat knowing she was welcome!

From that day on I understood how crucial it is to not “take ourselves too seriously!”

Ken, thanks! You’ve been an invaluable “Role Model,” and I love you for it.

Jim Denison

The Crown of Adversity

Christ was despised on earth by men, and in His greatest need, amid insults, was abandoned by those who knew Him and by friends: and you dare to complain of anyone? Christ had His adversaries and slanderers; and you wish to have everyone as friends and benefactors?

Whence will your patience win its crown if it has encountered nothing of adversity?

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis

No Matter How Wrong Things Seem to Be All is Right With God and His World

Bill Wilson, held by many to be “the most influential person in the development of Alcoholics Anonymous,” had gone on a three-day binge and was hospitalized. Ebby Thatcher, a friend who’d had a “religious experience” and was sober visited him in the hospital. At Wilson’s request Thatcher repeated to him the formula which had led to his conversion. “Realize you’re licked, admit it, and get willing to turn your life over to the care of God.”

Wilson fell into a deep depression after his friend left. He describes the crisis point in that depression. “I still gagged badly on the notion of a Power greater than myself, but finally, just

for the moment, the last vestige of my proud obstinacy was crushed. All at once I found myself crying out, ‘If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything; anything!’

Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It seemed to me, in the mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay on a bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness. All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, ‘So this is the God of the preachers!’ A great peace stole over me and I thought, ‘No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are all right. Things are all right with God and His world.’”

Wilson never took another drink!

From Tim Stafford, The Hidden Gospel of the 12 Steps, Christianity Today: July 22, 1991.

Lord is It I?

“As murder storywriters assume, and as most of us learn in experience, we have in us the capacities for fury, fear, envy, greed, conceit, callousness, and hate which, given the right provocation, could make killers out of us all – baby-batterers or Bluebeards, professional thugs or amateur hit men. G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown explained his method of detection by saying, ‘You see, it was I who killed all those people’ – in the sense that he looked within himself to find the mentality that would produce the crime he was investigating, and did in fact discover it there.

Chesterton lets him moralize: ‘No man’s really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might

be; till he’s realized exactly how much right he has to all this snobbery, and sneering and talking about criminals, as if they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away … till he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat.’

Brown, though fictitious, states fact. When the fathomless wells of rage and hatred in the normal human heart are tapped, the results are fearful. ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Only restraining and renewing grace enables anyone to keep the sixth commandment.” – Ed. “or any of the commandments for that matter.”

J. I. Packer, I Want to be A Christian

Listening ...

During these days of Lent and reflecting on the Suffering of Our Lord one of the critical disciplines that will deepen our understanding of Christ’s Journey to our cross is “listening.”

Several years ago I read the following insights into this often neglected Spiritual Discipline.

The first is from Experiencing Prayer: Three Settings, by Mark Lind. Lind writes, “During the Depression a young man saw an ad in the newspaper for a telegraph operator. He hurried to the building and room listed in the ad. When he got there the room was jammed with applicants. They young man was crestfallen. As he stood there wondering what to do he heard a steady flow of dots and dashes over the heavy drone of conversation. Suddenly, the young man’s eyes lit up. He dashed over to a door marked ‘Private,’ turned the door knob, and went inside. In a few minutes he came out smiling. He had the job. The employer told the rest of the applicants that they could leave.

As you might imagine there was an angry outcry from the group. ‘We demand an explanation,’ someone shouted. ‘This young man comes in late, bucks the line, and you hire him.’ The employer paused a moment, and then said: 'You have your explanation. All you have to do is listen to the dots and dashes.' Everyone stopped and listened. They couldn’t believe what they heard. Over and over the dots and dashes repeated the same message they’d been repeating for an hour: ‘If you hear this, come in. The job is yours. If you hear this come in. The job is yours.’”

The second insight is from As for Me and My House, by Walter Wangerin, Jr. “At the beginning of his reign, King Solomon prayed for one superior gift from God. Not wealth, not long life, but something far more valuable – he asked for ‘an understanding heart,’ which may be translated, a hearing heart. He asked, we say, for wisdom. But the genius of wisdom … is the ability to open a room in one’s heart for the talk – and so for the presence – of another. Wisdom is none other than the ability to listen.”