Archive: God Beckons ‘Come Near to Minister to Me’

by Steve | Mar 4, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: God Beckons ‘Come Near to Minister to Me’

If the Lord is to be lord worship must have priority in our lives. The first commandment of Jesus is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The divine priority is worship first, service second. Our lives are to be punctuated with praise, thanksgiving and adoration. Service flows out of worship. Service as a substitute for worship is idolatry. Activity may become the enemy of adoration.

God declared that the primary function of the Levitical priests was to “come near to Me to minister to Me” (Ezek.44:15). For the Old Testament priesthood, ministry to Him was to precede all other work. And that is no less true of the universal priesthood of the New Testament. One grave temptation we all face is to run around answering calls to service without ministering to the Lord Himself.

A striking feature of worship in the Bible is that people gathered in what we could call only a “holy expectancy.” They believed they would actually hear the Kol Yahweh, the voice of God. When Moses went into the tabernacle he knew he was entering the presence of God. The same was true of the early church. It was not surprising to them that the building in which they met shook with the power of God. It had happened before (Acts 2:2; 4:31). When some dropped dead and others were raised from the dead by the word of the Lord the people knew that God was in their midst (Acts 5:1-11; 9:36-43; 20:7-10). As those early believers gathered, they were keenly aware that the veil had been ripped in two and, like Moses and Aaron, they were entering the Holy of Holies. No intermediaries were needed. They were coming into the awful, glorious, gracious presence of the living God They gathered with anticipation knowing that Christ was present among them and would teach them and touch them with His living power.

How do we cultivate this holy expectancy? It begins in us as we enter the Shechinah of the heart. While living out the demands of our days we are filled with inward worship and adoration. We work and play and eat and sleep, yet we are listening, ever listening, to our Teacher. The writings of Frank Laubach are filled with this sense of living under the shadow of the Almighty. “Of all today’s miracles the greatest is this: to know that I find Thee best when I work listening. … Thank Thee, too, that the habit of constant conversation grows easier each day. I really do believe all thought can be conversations with Thee.”[1]

Brother Lawrence knew the same reality. Because he experienced the presence of God in the kitchen, he knew he would meet God in the Mass as well. He wrote, “I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the Presence of God.” Those who have once tasted the Shechinah of God in daily experience can never again live satisfied without “practicing the Presence of God.”[2]

Catching the vision from Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach, I recently dedicated one year to learning how to live with a perpetual openness to Jesus as my present Teacher. I sought to allow Him to move through every action—these fingers as I wrote, this voice as I spoke. My desire was to punctuate each minute with inward whisperings of adoration, praise and thanksgiving. Often I failed for hours, even days, at a time. But each time I came back and tried again.

That year did many things for me, but the one I shall mention here is that it greatly heightened my sense of expectancy in public worship. After all, He had graciously spoken to me in dozens of little ways throughout the week; He will certainly speak to me here as well. In addition, I found it increasingly easier to distinguish His voice from the blare and circumstances of life.

When more than one or two come into public worship with a holy expectancy it can change the atmosphere of a room. People who enter harried and distracted are drawn quickly into a sense of the silent presence. Hearts and minds are lifted upward. The air becomes charged with expectancy.

Here is a practical handle to put on this idea: Live throughout the week as an heir of the kingdom, listening for His voice, obeying His word. Since you have heard His voice throughout the week you know that you will hear His voice as you gather for public worship. Enter the service 10 minutes early. Lift your heart in adoration to the King of Glory. Contemplate His majesty, glory and tenderness as revealed in Jesus Christ. Picture the marvelous vision that Isaiah had of the Lord “high and lifted up” or the magnificent revelation that John had of Christ with eyes “like a flame of fire” and a voice “like the sound of many waters” (Isa 6; Rev.1). Invite the Real Presence to be manifest; fill the room with Light.

Next, lift into the light of Christ the pastor and persons with particular responsibilities. Imagine the Shechinah of God’s radiance surrounding him or her. Inwardly release them to speak the truth boldly in the power of the Lord.

By now people are beginning to enter. Glance around until your eyes catch those who need your intercessory work. Lift them into His presence. Imagine the burden tumbling from their shoulders as it did from Pilgrim’s in Bunyan’s allegory. Hold them as a special intention throughout the service. If only a few in each congregation would do this, it would deepen the worship experience of all.

This article is excerpted from Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, copyright 1978, Harper & Row, San Francisco, California. Used by permission.

[1] Frank C. Laubach, Learning the Vocabulary of God (Nashville: The Upper Room Publishing Co., 1956), pp. 22-23.

[2] Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Nashville: The Upper Room Publishing Co., 1950), p. 32.

Archive: Can Somebody Find a Way to Clone This Guy?

by Steve | Mar 3, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: Can Somebody Find a Way to Clone This Guy?

By Dierdra DeVries Moran

If we had more people like Gus Gustafson, the Church would have fewer problems.

“I’ll be a preacher! I’ll be a boy preacher! Why, I’ll start right now!” said a teenaged Gus Gustafson, the man they now call Mr. UM Layman in north Georgia. He wanted to drop out of high school and go to Bible school when he met the Lord at 15. “How can I get this good news out to more people?” he wondered. He didn’t expect a call to be a layman.

That’s okay, though. He didn’t expect to get pneumonia one Christmas either, and that was probably one of the best things that has happened to the United Methodist Church in recent years.

“I was getting up at midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock …. It was a horrifying experience for me. One of those nights I just prayed, ‘Lord, if I have to wake up, help me to turn this to something worthwhile. Let me turn it to You some way.”

Apparently, God had been waiting for just such a request. Gus would make notes each time he woke up, and when he’d begin to wear out, he’d just push away the pencil and paper and go back to sleep. Out of those wee hours Discover God’s Call, the organization for laypeople searching for God’s call on their lives, was born.

It all began on a farm in Nebraska years ago. Gus’ parents were committed Christians with one heart’s desire: to lead each of their six children to Jesus Christ. “It still makes my backbone tingle when I try to repeat it,” says Gus about the day he met the Lord. He was sitting in the rear of his church cutting up with a group of boys when the Swedish evangelist who was preaching pointed his finger at them and said “Young men, stop that noise back there and hear what God has to say to you. This may be your last chance.” When the invitation came Gus crawled over the other boys’ knees and went to the altar. “That’s where I met the Lord, and it was the real thing.” His voice cracks as he repeats, “It was the real thing.”

After an energetic attempt at going into the ministry Gus settled down to hear the still, small voice of God tell him, “I want you to serve me in everyday life—where the temptations are the toughest.”

And face tough temptations he did. Gus signed on with a national advertising agency (and a group of partying coworkers) as a copywriter. “I stayed away from their cocktail parties,” he said, “and was just trying to learn to survive.” Next, Gus joined the army. He served overseas for some years and came out with five battle stars. Upon returning to the states Gus embarked on a long career selling prefabricated houses, first for a large company in Toledo, then in Mississippi, then in Alabama and finally in Georgia. It was there that he and his wife, Estelle, opened their own business. About 15 years later he sold his company, and it was then, when most men would spend their well-earned retirement days on the golf course, that Gus really began to take off.

‘The day I got the check [for the sale of his company] I went home and started writing a book, I Was Called to Be A Layman.”

A short time later Gus remembered the notes he had made while suffering from pneumonia and shared them with a few friends. “This is just what our church needs!” said an excited Charles Kinder, head of the Foundation for Evangelism. Gus’ friend Ross Freeman (then secretary of the Southeastern Jurisdiction) confirmed it: “You need to go back and have more pneumonia!”

He was probably, as always, wearing a bow tie and an enormous smile when, a few weeks later at a Discipleship Celebration weekend at his church, Gus felt the Lord tug at his heart. ‘The Lord has spoken to me,” Gus told a roomful of people. “I’m going to do what it’s going to take to do it.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Just ask Gus.

“It’s been one miracle after another,” he says. Discover God’s Call is “setting revival fires all over the place.” When asked what his dream for the organization is, Gus quickly responds “One sentence. To bring renewal to the United Methodist Church.” You wait for him to say more, but he means it. Next question.

Gus rattles off story after story of what God has done in the lives of people who have attended the Discover retreats. For example, a woman quite critical of her church’s Sunday school program went to a Discover God’s Call weekend and returned to her church with a call to be a teacher. The Sunday school (as well as the church) hasn’t stopped growing.

A skycap in a black church in Atlanta went to a Discover God’s Call weekend and received a call to do a lay witness mission in his church (unheard-of in black churches in that area). The church’s attendance (mostly professionals—CPAs, upper-level management, etc.) has doubled. Gus emphasizes, “And here’s this skycap leading the church!”

That’s what happens, Gus says. “When the Lord takes hold of someone and they have a call, it’s amazing what they can do. It’s amazing.”

The program is sponsored by the Foundation for Evangelism and done in consultation with the General Board of Discipleship. The Discover God’s Call experience starts at home, where, for 26 days, the “discoverers” spend 30 minutes each day with the resources provided by the program (including a search book, Gus’ book I Was Called to Be A Layman, and the Bible). At the end of those 26 days the discoverers meet for a weekend retreat. There they meet as a group and later break off into smaller “search groups” of four people and one leader. The discoverers also spend time alone meditating on what the Lord is saying to them. By the end of the weekend each person will know what God’s call on his or her life is.

The plan is lay renewal. “You can’t pick up a book on renewal that doesn’t say the same thing,” says Gus. “Renewal has to come from the laity.

“The Lord has called us,” says Gus. “He’s put us on stage. Discover God’s Call is one of the things that God has put into the United Methodist Church today for bringing renewal. It’s powerful. In it are the seeds for renewal.” Gus and his wife, Estelle, have been married for 47 years. “She has worked right alongside of me,” he says, “and she’s my best critic.”

Gus has been the national director for Discover God’s Call, and Estelle has been the treasurer and registrar. They will soon be handing the baton to Chuck and Fern Davis of Wheaton, Illinois. He and Estelle will spend a good deal of their time doing fundraising for Discover God’s Call. (The ministry is financed entirely by donations.)

One of the keys to Gus’ success is prayer. Through it Gus found God, received his call to be a layman (though he had dreamed of being a preacher), authored several books, raised four children and founded Discover God’s Call. (Not to mention the little “day-to-days” that Gus regularly brings to the Lord on his knees.) Others notice Gus’ dependence on prayer: “He takes prayer seriously,” says one UM pastor. “He often calls me with an idea, and it’s usually an idea that has come out of a time of prayer.”

The other key to Gus’ success is his love for people. “He’s Mr. Warmth,” said our photographer after having spent an evening with Gus and Estelle. For a few shots Gus donned a bow tie and told Greg, “My bow tie is my trademark.” But even when he’s not wearing a bow tie, he is wearing an ear-to-ear smile. That’s probably more truly his trademark.

“If there were more big-hearted people like Gus in the UM Church, we would have no more problems,” said an active UM layman. With a gleam in his eye he continued, “Could somebody find a way to clone this guy?”

Discover God’s Call has seen people from 19 different states participate. Of course, Gus hopes that one day the program will reach into all 50 states. “Our 1000th person will go through in our next retreat,” says Gus excitedly. “I praise the Lord that He has gotten Discover God’s Call started. It’s powerful, and we haven’t even seen the full dimensions of it yet.”

Maybe not, but it’s easy to see the dimensions of what God can do with a man willing to answer when He calls. Just take a look at Gus Gustafson.

Dierdra D. Moran is assistant editor of Good News

Archive: How We Can Overcome Our Private Misery

by Steve | Mar 2, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: How We Can Overcome Our Private Misery

By J. I. Packer

‘It belongs to true Easter faith to take to our own hurts the healing of the Emmaus Road’

On Friday afternoon they took Him down from the cross as dead as a man can be. On Sunday afternoon He walked most of the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two of His disciples. He had broken through the death barrier and was alive and well once more on planet Earth. For 40 days before withdrawing to the glory where He now lives and reigns He appeared to those who had been His followers and friends. Why? Because He loved them and wanted them to have the joy of seeing Him alive; because He had to explain to them His saving achievement and their roles as witnesses to Him; and, last but not least, because some of them were in emotional and spiritual distress and needed the therapy that was uniquely His. All this is reflected in the Emmaus Road story (Luke 24:13-35).

Who were the patients to whom the Great Physician ministered there? One was Cleopas (v.18). The other, not named by Luke, lived with Cleopas, and it is natural to guess (though not possible to prove) that it was Mary, wife of “Clopas” (John 19:25) and mother of James (Mark 15:40) who was at the cross when Jesus died. (In that case Cleopas was Alphaeus, James’ father.) I shall assume that it was husband and wife trudging home that day. They went slowly (most people do on a long walk), and they were sharing perplexity and pain at Jesus’ death. Their spirits were low. They thought they had lost their beloved Master forever; they felt that the bottom had fallen out of their world. They were in the shock of a bereavement experience and hurting badly.

Now picture the scene: Up from behind comes a stranger, walking faster, and he falls into step beside them. Naturally they stop discussing their private misery, and there is silence. When we know that grief is written all over our faces, we avoid looking at other people because we do not want anyone to look at us, and I imagine this couple swiveling their heads and never facing their traveling companion at all. Certainly, “their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him” (v.16), so that had anyone asked them, “Is Jesus with you?” the reply would have been, “Don’t be silly, He’s dead, we’ve lost Him, we hoped He was the One to redeem Israel, but clearly He wasn’t; we shan’t see Him again—and nothing makes sense anymore.”

Stop! Look! Listen! Here is a perfect instance of a kind of spiritual perplexity which (I dare to affirm) every child of God experiences sooner or later. Be warned: It can be appallingly painful, and if you are not prepared to meet it, it can embitter you, maim you emotionally and to a great extent destroy you—which, be it said, is Satan’s goal every time. What happens is that you find yourself feeling that God plays cat and mouse with you. Having lifted you up by giving you hope, He now throws you down by destroying it. What He gave you to lean on He suddenly takes away, and down you go. Your feelings say that He is playing games with you; that He must be a heartless ogre after all. So you feel broken in pieces, and no wonder.

Examples are easy to find. Here is a Christian worker, maybe a layperson, maybe a minister, who takes on a task (pastoring a church, leading a class, starting a new work) confident that God has called, and who expects therefore to see blessing and fruit. But all that comes is disappointment and frustration. Things go wrong, people act perversely, opposition grows, one is let down by one’s colleagues, the field of ministry becomes a disaster area. Or here are a couple who marry in the Lord to serve Him together, who dedicate their home, wealth and, in due course, children to Him, and yet find nothing but trouble—health trouble, money trouble, trouble with relatives and in-laws, and maybe (the bitterest thing of all) trouble with their own offspring. What hurts Christian parents more than seeing the children whom they tried to raise for God say no to Christianity? But do not say that these things never happen to truly faithful folk; you know perfectly well they do. And when they do the pain is increased by the feeling that God has turned against you and is actively destroying the hopes that He Himself once gave you.

Some 30 years ago a clergyman’s daughter was attracted to a young man. She was a Christian; he was not. She did as Christian girls should do at such times; she held back and prayed. He was converted, and they married. Soon the man, who was quite a prosperous farmer, felt called to sell out and train for the pastorate. Hardly had his ministry begun, however, when he died painfully of cancer, leaving his widow with a small son and no money. Today she has a ministry to individuals which, without that experience, she never would have had; yet over and over she has had to fight feelings which say God played games with me; He gave me hopes and dashed them; He’s cruel; He’s vile. I expect she will be fighting that battle till she dies. These things happen, and they hurt.

See it in Scripture. Teenager Joseph is given dreams of being head of the clan. Furious, his brothers sell him into slavery to make sure this never happens. Joseph is doing well in Egypt as right-hand man of a leading soldier-politician. The lady of the house, perhaps feeling neglected by her husband as wives of soldiers and politicians sometimes do, wants to take Joseph to bed with her. Joseph says no, and this put-down from a mere slave turns the lady’s lust to hate (never a hard transition) so that she lies about him, and suddenly he finds himself languishing in prison, discredited and forgotten.

There he stays for some years, a model convict we are told, but with no prospects and with nothing to think about save the dreams of greatness that God once gave him. “Until what [God] had said came to pass the word of the Lord tested him” (Ps. 105:19). “Tested him”—yes, and how! Can we doubt that Joseph in prison had constantly to fight the feeling that the God who gave him hopes was now hard at work destroying them? Can we suppose that he found it easy to trust God and stay calm and sweet?

The heartbreaking perplexity of God-given hopes apparently wrecked by God-ordained circumstances is a reality for many Christians today and will be the experience of more tomorrow—just as it was for Joseph and for the Emmaus disciples. Back to their story now, to watch the Great Physician at work with them.

Good physicians show their quality first by skill in diagnosis. They do not just palliate symptoms, but go to the root of the trouble and deal with that. What did Jesus see as the root cause of this couple’s distress? His dealing with them shows that His diagnosis was of unbelief caused by two things.

First, they were too upset—too upset, that is, to think straight. It was beyond them to put two and two together. They had slid down the slippery slope from disappointment to distress, through distress to despair, and through despair into what we call depression, that commonest of 20th-century diseases, for which one in every four North Americans has to be treated medically at some point in life. If you have ever experienced depression or sought to help its victims, you will know that folk in depression are marvelously resourceful in finding reasons for not taking comfort, encouragement or hope from anything you say to them. They know you mean well, but they defy your efforts; they twist everything into further reasons why they should be gloomy and hopeless (“It’s all right for you, but it’s different for me,” and so on). They are resolved to hear everything as bad news. That is exactly what we find here in Cleopas’ narrative concerning the empty tomb. (It has to be Cleopas at this point; Mary would not be talking to a strange man, and the story is told in a male manner.)

“It is now the third day since this happened,” says Cleopas. “Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and [surprise! surprise!] found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see” (vv.21-24). (Implication: There’s nothing in this wild talk of His being alive; someone must have desecrated the tomb and stolen the body, so as to deny it a decent burial.) Thus, Cleopas announces the empty tomb as more bad news.

Yet over and over before His passion Jesus had foretold not only His death but His rising on the third day (Luke 9:22; 18:33; Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19). Straight thinking about the empty tomb, in light of these predictions, would have made their hearts leap. “He said He would rise; now the tomb’s empty; He’s done it, He’s done it, He’s done it!” But both were too upset to think straight.

This was due to the root cause of their unbelief which Jesus also diagnosed, namely the fact that they were too ignorant—too ignorant, that is, of Scripture. “O foolish ones”—Jesus’ tone is compassionate, not contemptuous: “O you dear silly souls” would get the nuance— “and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (vv.25-26). Jesus spent maybe two hours showing them from Scripture (memorized) that it was in fact necessary. That shows how He saw their fundamental need.

As ignorance of Scripture was the basic trouble on the Emmaus Road, so it often is with us. Christians who do not know their Bible get needlessly perplexed and hurt because they do not know how to make scriptural sense of what happens to them. These two disciples could not make sense of Jesus’ cross. Many do not know the Bible well enough to make sense of their own crosses. The result is a degree of bewilderment and consequent distress that might have been avoided.

Diagnosing them thus, Jesus did three things to heal this couple’s souls. First, He did what all counselors must do: He asked questions, got them to talk, established a relationship, and so made them receptive to what He had to say. His opening gambit (“Tell me, what were you talking about?” v.17) drew from Cleopas only rudeness (“Don’t tell me you don’t know!” v.18). Hurting folk often act that way, externalizing their misery by biting your head off. But Jesus was unruffled; He knew what was going on inside Cleopas and persisted with His question (“Do I know? You tell me, anyway; let me hear it from your own lips”). Had they declined to share their trouble, Jesus could not have helped them. But when they poured out their hearts to Him, healing began.

Then, second, Jesus explained Scripture— “opened” it, to use their word (v. 32)—as it bore on their perplexity and pain. He showed them that what had been puzzling them, the death of the One they thought would redeem them, in the sense of ending the Roman occupation, had actually been prophesied centuries before as God’s way of redeeming in the sense of ending the burden and bondage of sin. He must have gone over Isaiah 53, where the servant who dies for sins in verses 1-9 appears alive, triumphant and reigning in verses 10-12; He produced many passages which pictured God’s Messiah traveling to the crown via the cross and kept them in a state of dawning comprehension and mounting excitement (their hearts “burned,” v.32) till they reached home. Thus, healing proceeded.

The principle here is that the most healing thing in the world to a troubled soul is to find that the heartbreak which produces feelings of isolation, hopelessness and hatred of all cheerful cackle is actually dealt with in the Bible, and in a way that shows it making sense after all in terms of a loving, divine purpose. And you can be quite certain that the Bible, God’s handbook for living, has something to say about every life problem involving God’s ways that we shall ever meet. So if you are hurting because of what you feel God has done to you, and you do not find Scripture speaking to your condition, it is not that the Bible now fails you but only that, like these disciples, you do not know it well enough. Ask wiser Christians to open Scripture to you in relation to your pain, and I guarantee that you will find that to be so. (To borrow a phrase from Ellery Queen—challenge to the reader!)

Finally, Jesus revealed His presence. “Stay with us,” they had said to Him on reaching Emmaus. (What a blessing for them that they were given to hospitality! What they would have missed had they not been!) At the table they asked Him to give thanks, and as He did so and gave them bread “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (v.31). Whether recognition was triggered by seeing nail prints in His hands or by remembering the identical voice and action at the feeding of the five thousand or four thousand, as some have wondered, we do not know; nor does it matter. Now, as then, Jesus’ ways of making His presence known are mysteries of divine illumination about which you can rarely say more than that as something was said, seen, read or remembered—it happened. So it was here; and thus healing was completed.

To be sure, the moment they recognized Him He vanished. Yet plainly they knew that He was with them still. Otherwise, would they have risen from the table in their weariness and hurried back to Jerusalem through the night to share their news? Sensible Palestinians did not walk lonely country roads at night, fearing thugs and muggers (that was why Cleopas and Mary urged the stranger to stay with them in the first place). But it is evident that they counted on their Lord’s protecting presence as they went about His business. “Stay with us,” they had said, and inwardly they knew He was doing just that. Thus, their broken hearts were mended, and their sorrow replaced by joy.

Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, is the same today as yesterday, and it belongs to true Easter faith to take to our own hurts the healing of the Emmaus Road. How? First, by telling Jesus our trouble, as He invites us to do each day. He remains a good listener, with what the hymn calls “a fellow feeling for our pains”; and only as we lay aside prayerless resentment and self-pity and open our hearts to Him will we know His help. Second, by letting Him minister to us from Scripture, relating that which gives us pain to God’s purpose of saving love. This will regularly mean looking to the Lord’s human agents in ministry as well as private Bible study. Third, by asking Him to assure us that as we go through what feels like fire and flood, He goes with us and will stay with us till the road ends. That prayer He will always answer.

“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb.4:15-16, NIV). So wrote an apostolic man long ago to ill-treated, distracted and depressed believers. The Emmaus Road story urges us to do as he says—and it also shows us how.

J. I. Packer is a British theologian and well-known author. This article is reprinted from Christianity Today, copyright 1981. Used by permission.

Archive: The Barefoot Storyteller

by Steve | Mar 1, 1990 | Archive - 1990

Archive: The Barefoot Storyteller

By Sara L. Anderson

The storyteller paces across the stage on bare feet in apparel appropriate for a Christmas-pageant shepherd or a modem Bedouin. A cherubic grin and mischievous twinkle in his eyes punctuate a significant part of his tale.

Earlier he had introduced himself to the contemporary crowd as “James the brother of Jesus” in Yiddish accents akin to those of Billy Crystal’s “uncle” in the new Diet Pepsi commercials.

“Can you imagine having a brother who never did anything wrong?” he asks his listeners. Like a time traveler adapting to a centuries-new environment James retells his Brother’s parables, incorporating enough 20th-century expressions to bring humor and understanding to modem audiences.

An approved evangelist in the Northwest Texas Conference since 1981, Putnam mixes drama, preaching and music in his unique ministry, making him a sort of UM Garrison Keillor. In the guise of James, Putnam tells the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son to help people know what God is like. The evangelist shows his audience that God is like a good, searching shepherd, and we “need a shepherd real bad.” He is like the woman diligently looking for a lost coin which rolled away through carelessness. He is like the loving father running down the road—coat flying in the breeze, sandals kicking up dust—to embrace a rebellious son (“Gag me with a camel, for sure”) who’s decided a good Jew shouldn’t be slopping hogs and wants to come home. He is Someone people can begin to relate to through the down-to-earth quality of the story.

In a typical, four-day meeting at a local church, Putnam, who is also the president of the National Association of United Methodist Evangelists (NAUME) will begin the Sunday morning session with a drama to break the ice. If the church doesn’t react well to James or Gideon or Moses or other character sketches, the evangelist shifts more toward preaching and music. Usually, he’ll offer two dramas in the course of a revival.

Often the music, much of it written by Putnam himself, and the storytelling touch nerves in people not usually reached by a sermon.

Several years ago Putnam returned to a church in Tulsa where he had held services two years previously. A man stood up to testify that, after hearing “James the brother of Jesus” tell the story of the prodigal, God delivered him from alcoholism. He hadn’t touched a drop in two years.

It is rare that an itinerant evangelist hears such stories, because he or she is not in a particular area long enough to note the results of his or her ministry in individual churches. Putnam, however, doesn’t find that frustrating. “I know there’s fruit because God promises that His Word won’t return void,” he says. “Some of it is fruit where I was there to put the last little bit of water on it. Someone had planted it years and years ago, it was coming to the place where it was mature, and I was there at the right time.” Putnam has not only seen people come to Christ and be renewed in their faith through his presentations, but he has also encouraged Sunday school teachers and pastors to instruct both children and adults through drama. Some have asked for transcripts of his character sketches to use in their churches.

Although Putnam has been an evangelist for nearly nine years, he started out as a local church pastor after graduating from Asbury Theological Seminary in 1978.

During his three years in the pastorate, he began receiving outside invitations to preach and perform his music. ” I stumbled into drama,” he says, mostly through using it as a tool in children’s summer camps after becoming hooked on theatrics in college. (“Someone said I had too much ham in me to be Jewish.”) Then a friend asked Putnam to a revival in his church, on one condition: “I won’t let you come unless you promise to do a drama.”

“I was stuck,” Putnam says, chuckling. “I did it with fear and trembling, but it was wonderfully well received. We discovered you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy drama.”

As for the music, he holds his bachelor’s degree in it and has been performing his own compositions since 1978. In the pastorate he began using music to lead into a sermon or incorporated it into the message as an illustration. “People are hungry for alive worship,” he says. “I carry a lot of electronic keyboards with me, and we use contemporary choruses and some upbeat rhythms in the old hymns—we see a positive response.”

Putnam has recorded six different albums on a national label, and his recordings have been played on more than 750 Christian radio stations, some cuts hitting the top 20 in some cities. His songs reflect deep human needs and tensions—a father having spent so much time pursuing success that he didn’t take time to play with his children (“I Regret”); a believer struggling to follow God (“All My Heart”); a person rejoicing in God’s forgiveness (“Yes”). Putman also wrote the theme song for the UM Section on Evangelism’s new campaign, Vision 2000.

How he has time to be creative is amazing, since a typical year’s schedule includes 35 major bookings (revivals, camp meetings and camps); 20 concerts or one-day events; retreats, conferences and UM annual conferences. He is completely booked for 1990, and the calendar for spring of ’91 is nearly filled as well.

While most of Putnam’s ministry has been located in Texas and surrounding states, invitations have come from points farther east and south. “There’s a great demand for this type of ministry,” says Putnam, who does a number of free concerts in prisons and for children’s homes.

NAUME ranks as a high priority for the Texas evangelist (see related story), and much of the rest of his time is consumed with fund raising, which Putnam says is probably the least-favorite part of his ministry.

“It takes a lot of money to keep an itinerant ministry going,” he says. “Offerings in churches only provide one third to one half of what we need. Most of the rest comes from people who have experienced the ministry and send monthly donations.” The ministry employs one part-time secretary. The rest of the work is taken care of by the Putnam family: wife, Felicia, and sons James, 17, Philip, 15 and Timothy, 12, who travel with Putnam 10 weeks out of the year. James will be traveling with his father more this year and will host the Bible Bowl for children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

Life for the Putnams is hectic, to say the least, which could lead to exhaustion and discouragement. But vision can be a source of energy. “What keeps me going is the sense of call, that this is where God has asked me to invest my life,” Putnam says with quiet enthusiasm. “I can’t stop.”

Sara L. Anderson is the associate editor of Good News.