STAYING POWER

Steve Van Winkle  |  Fellowship Baptist Church  |  Bozeman, MT.

What a week.

I shot a nice whitetail buck on a Field and Stream postcard Monday...I watched our Fall Festival swell to 501 people...this morning we had numerous visitors, both first time and repeat...and, we moved into our new house yesterday.

I hesitate to say all this, because I am not the kind that typically wants to broadcast blessings and windfalls in the presence of those who may be feeling the barbs of cursing and the poverty of faithfulness. But, usually, seminal moments evoke various thoughts, and I can't help but jot them down.

For the last several months, many people in our church have labored tirelessly to see that I and my family of five were able to move out of the 16X80 mobile home we had lived in for 7 years and into a house. Our church has plenty of carpenters, along with one plumber, one dirt man, one electrician and one real estate agent. We could build a small city with the expertise and equipment in our church.

In a conspiracy that makes Watergate look like nursery school, these dear people funded over 3000 dollars out of their pockets and countless hours of professional labor to build us a 2400 square foot house. In Bozeman, "starter homes" begin at 120,000.00 and resemble a box of saltines. But these people have given us a spacious home for starter home prices.

I have never lived in a house that I or anyone in my family owned. We were always moving. In High School alone, I moved four times to four different houses in the same town- Always looking for lower rent or staying a step ahead of eviction. When I think of "going home", I really have no particular place in mind, because there never has been a place to call home- people yes, place, no. There is no "homestead" in my history. I'm not sure if I can adjust to having such a permanent place to live.

It is no credit to me, obviously. It is a credit to the Lord and to the people He has in this church. in thinking about it (and I have thought a lot), the only thing I can think of that I "did" was stay. I stayed in this beaten up church in a "frontier town"when the Interstate looked like a long legged woman in fish net stockings crooking a finger my way. But, I stayed when I wanted desperately to leave, and, in staying, God used His people to be a blessing to us.

I wonder if it isn't the same for everyone who "stays". I have now discovered that "staying" is a word not found in most of our Concordances. I really don't know how high a number I would reach if I started counting how many guys I know who stay. Stay when they want to leave; stay when "opportunities" call; stay when greener grass tickles their feet; stay when every impulse says run. And, trust me, I'm not one to preach on staying power. My initial response to most every problem and scenario is to leave. I have vagabond genes. But I imagine in the testimonies of all the people who have stayed through it all, a regret would be a rare find.

But for nagging convictions and nipsy friends, I might not have been in this box-laden room this evening. And that's not really the point, is it? The point is what is established over time that cannot be contrived by the modern day circuit riders. Things like compassion, effectiveness and fruitfulness and blessing. Things like being there when a child is born or a new mother is scared. Things like knowing the unstable sub-strata in the lives of people who are guarded by nature. Things like being the first called in both tragedy and blessing, and things like being perceived as an anchor in people's lives instead of an ornament. The connections that are established with people on a level that they would never expose if they thought the preacher was just passing through is the root of all gratification in the ministry.

I would never have known it if I hadn't stayed.

Every now and then, I get the feeling of incredible privilege, which leads to the inevitable feeling of incredible hucksterism. These people, seeing I am here for them and at God's pleasure open up to me in a way that is sobering. They trust me. I wouldn't. They talk to me. I wouldn't. They open up to me. I wouldn't. They compliment me. I wouldn't. They love me. I wouldn't.

For everything they do, I wouldn't, because I know me. And that's not saying there is hypocrisy, just honesty. Honesty that, in the bowels of a heavily quiet evening remind me of the frail person beneath the suit. Honesty reminds me that I should constantly ask myself, "Why me?" and wonder in silence and awe. Honesty is the pill of humility in the medicine cabinet of pomp.

But for all the things that I am or am not, one thing I have done is stay. In a particularly blustery period in our church where we had come through a long tunnel only to emerge into darkness, and I was taking the shots everyone reading this has experienced, I told our people on a Sunday morning, that could have broken this church to pieces, that for all I was falsely accused of and all I was rightly accused of, one thing should be put in the balance to counter them: I had stayed when I wanted to leave. I told them it would have been easier on me had I just left, and that of all the mistakes I made and of all the slander I had endured, there was one thing the talk couldn't spin and the dissatisfaction couldn't shade...I stayed.

So did they.

And staying is what births an incredible, indescribable relationship that is at once both humbling and gratifying. Thinking about it all...thinking about the crossroads untaken and the sidetracks left behind, I think I've learned one thing: The payoff for staying isn't the house...

It's the love that built the house.

Maybe my kids will have both the place and the people to come to when they "come home".