I was nineteen. Ambitious. Big plans. It was a chilly day in Tennessee. Not cold like I was used to growing up, but still, in the hills eighty five miles from my college, it was chilly. The congregation at the small store front church I had just preached at had voted at the end of the service to call m as their new Youth Pastor. Of the twenty five or so there, ten were youth. All this was really good for two reasons. First, it would earn me credits at school. And second, it was just the first step in what I knew was going to be an epic career. As I said, I was ambitious. I had big plans. I was going to pastor a BIG church! I was going to be on radio and maybe even TV! I was going to speak at conferences around the country! I was going to bring the Gospel to those worldly, state run universities! I was going to attain high academic acclaim! I was going to write! I was going to teach! It was going to be an incredible career! Where I was going to find time for all these things was another story. But as I walked out of that little church that brisk morning, nothing seemed impossible.

The date was October 5, 1975. Forty eight years ago today.

Every year on October 5, I review the year past. Now, however, given my place in life, I am thinking about the whole ministry. All of it. I am drawing some startling conclusions.

I did pastor that big church. Not as big as I had thought back then. But still. We baptized several times a year. Twice we baptized seventeen in two separate services. The church was dying when we went there and it grew and grew and grew. I did do a little radio, but through the world wide web we put the Word out a lot farther than just radio or TV could. I spoke at several conferences and only quit doing so when I realized how much time preparing and then presenting those talks were taking away from my church. I did get to speak at Kent State University several times, but I was not welcomed with open arms! If you sit down with a book by some well known Christian writer, you would find that my academic credentials are equal or exceed his or hers. (How many of you actually know I am Dr. Larry Wade?) I have written. The blog, numerus magazine articles, newsletter articles going back to 1987. A group in Illinois took three hundred pages from articles I had written and made them into a book. I think my mother read it, but that was it. However, a good portion of my doctoral dissertation found its way into a college text book. I even found time to teach night classes at a Bible institute. So, in a way, I managed to accomplish all those goals. 

And I never think about those things. I really don't. 

Looking back, the things that click in my mind are the quiet things. The things some would consider mundane. But as the years passed, I realized that these were the important things. Holding and rocking a baby whose organs were on the outside and rocking him for the last time. Holding a little girl and looking into her eyes and watching her die. Stopping a volleyball game our church was involved in and complaining to the ref that the bright gym lights reflecting off the other pastor's head was blinding our players. Working with our Youth to clean up the yards of out elderly and doing odd jobs around the house. Over the weekend Marsha was in the hospital. My son and I were headed for the cafeteria and we came to a juncture where I was uncertain witch way to turn. "Come on, Dad. You've been here before." "Son, you have no idea how many hospitals I have been in over the years. They all blend together." Once at Hospice House in Cleveland, one of our people had just passed. I had gone out of the room to let the family have some time. I slumped down into a chair to collect myself. A lady came by pushing a cart with fresh baked chocolate chip cookies for the patients. She stopped at me and reached into a box and pulled out a cookie. With a smile but with a sad face she said, "I keep a few extra for tired preachers." It was a great cookie.

The point is success in ministry is not based on how well someone preaches or the churches they build or the or the books they write or any of that stuff. Success in ministry has to do with the people you minister to and your faithfulness to the Word of God. Turning away from temptation and being the same in private as you are at church. It is sitting with an elderly person and hearing the same story for the tenth time, but knowing it is OK because you are keeping them company. Sitting on a sofa drinking a cup of coffee and talking with someone while their pet sheep nuzzles you. Ministry is meeting each crisis with steadfast resolve, walking the family through and then going home and weeping. And ministry is holding a newborn baby and feeling the pride of the new Mom and Dad. And before that, sitting in your office and having the young husband and wife come in and telling you they were pregnant before they told anyone else. Ministry is fun, it is joyful, it is painful, and ministry is immensely sad. I have always felt that the big name guys will get to the end and feel like they have missed something. And they have. They have missed the people.

Another thing ministry is, it is fast. Forty eight years. It just seems like yesterday that....well, I won't bore you with stories. Those are for me, anyway. God has given me a memory that holds onto those things. Let me just say this; the readership of my blog has gone up of late. Many I have never pastored. But for those of you whom I have had the honor of ministering to over these last almost five decades, I want to say thank you. You have made my life so rich, so diverse, so meaningful. If my life were a book, it would be in the final pages. But it has been a really good book. 

Thank you all.