by Alan Sears
Chapter Eight
KEITH GENTRY WAS waiting for Pat Preston when he stepped into the church study that morning. Pat’s stomach dropped like an elevator slipping several floors. Forcing a smile, Pat entered his office and removed his suit coat, hanging it on a walnut coat rack made by one of his church members, and took a seat behind his desk. Pat liked to have a large object between him and his chairman of the deacons.
“I’m sorry, Keith, I must have forgotten our meeting.”
Gentry worked up a smile and it seemed to pain him. “I’m not on the schedule. I thought I’d just stop by and say hi.”
You never stop by just to say hi. “That’s nice of you. Would you like some coffee… oh, I see Ava has brought you some.” As if she had read his mind, Ava appeared with a coffee mug filled with Pat’s favorite brew. She set it down and left without speaking. She held less love for Gentry than Pat did. Pat took a sip of his coffee.
“She makes a strong cup, Preacher.” Gentry was a thick man, with a thick neck, and a very thick skin. He needed a hat and bootheels to reach five foot eight. If humans were machines, then Gentry was a bulldozer. For forty-two years, he’d worked for the highway department of Tennessee and had just taken an early retirement. He spoke plainly and often, without regard to how his words landed in the ears of others. Still, somewhere in his barrel chest beat a pretty-good heart.
“That’s my fault. I like African coffee and some of that can be a tad strong.”
“I prefer a good American cup o’ Joe, myself. Don’t have much use for the fancy foreign beans. Maxwell House has always worked for me.”
“Technically, deacon, all coffee is foreign.”
“Why did you do it?”
Pat tilted his head. “Why did I switch to African coffee?”
“Don’t be cute, Pastor. You know what I mean. The funeral. Why did you do it?”
“Ah. You mean Pastor Benson’s funeral.”
“Right, although I don’t think he deserves the title ‘pastor’ after what he did.”
“I performed the service because his wife needed and deserved to have someone officiate at her husband’s burial.”
Gentry sipped his coffee without taking his eyes off Pat. “I’m a little surprised that you didn’t run it past me and the other deacons.”
“Why would I do that? You know we do a lot of funerals. Do you really want me to call every time someone asks me to do a service?”
“That wasn’t just any funeral.”
Pat sighed and pulled his coffee cup closer. “What’s on your mind, Keith?”
“God has given us a great church here and we need to be good stewards and protect it.”
Pat felt his ire reaching a boil. “I think the church can survive a funeral.”
“There were reporters there. It was all over the news. Your name and the good name of the church were plastered all over the radio and television news.”
“I saw the reports. It will all blow over in a week.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Burying a cop killer is bad for our reputation.”
Pat closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. “Our reputation?”
“Of course. We have a good reputation in this community and all of Nashville. Because of our television ministry, we’re known throughout the world. We can’t afford this kind of scandal.”
Pat wanted to bite his lip but feared biting through it. “How about our reputation with God? I don’t think I heard you mention that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do, Keith, and that’s the problem. My concern is that this church does as Jesus wants it to do. Benson’s wife came to me for help and I gave it. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“That right there is what keeps me up all night. You’re a good preacher, but you sometimes come up short on the wisdom side of things.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know me, I don’t try to offend anyone, but I do tell it like it is.”
Pat rubbed his eyes and wondered if he heard correctly. “So you would have sent Mrs. Benson, a sister in Christ, away. You would have said, “Sorry, Mrs. Benson, we’re not going to help you.’”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been that crass, but yeah, that’s what I would have done.”
Pat pushed back from the desk and stood. “Keith, the day this church becomes more concerned about its image than about its mission is the day it stops being a church.” He paused. “Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”
Gentry set his cup on Pat’s desk and stood. “I see you’re not much in the mood for talking. Still, I had to come by and tell you to be careful. You need advice on these things. You should have come to me and the deacons first.”
“Thank you for coming by, Keith.”
Pat walked to the door and waited for his chairman of the deacons to leave. As soon as the man crossed into the outer office, Pat closed the door. Ten minutes later he was finally able to sit down.
FROM THE FIRST day he arrived at Rogers Memorial Church, Pastor Pat Preston made a huge impression on the Christian community, not only in Nashville but far afield. Within three months of his inaugural sermon, his voice was being broadcast on radio and television stations across the country. The network of stations had been established by Pat’s predecessor Pastor Bill Richards. The responses from the shows, however, soon outstripped even the most popular of Pastor Richards’ sermons. Before long, Pat was receiving requests for speaking engagements from every corner of the country. And within two years he was considered one of the leading voices of the church in America.
By the middle of his third year at the church, Pat and Becky had a two-year-old son, Luke, and an eleven-month-old daughter, Phoebe. It was apparent to the congregation that Pastor Pat was taking Rogers Memorial Church to a new level. In less than four years the church had grown from just over 4,500 to more than 10,000 members, with an average weekly attendance of 6,000 worshipers. That pattern continued even during Pat’s leave of absence to work on a doctorate at Oxford.
The opportunity to study at Oxford came unexpectedly. During his third year at Rogers Memorial, one of the best-known Christian philanthropists in the country invited Pat to fly to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a meeting. The elderly gentleman, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said he had been aware of Pat’s love for Christ ever since he heard him speak at a Young Life conference many years earlier. He had gone to that event as a sponsor, but had been watching Pat ever since. He read a paper Pat had written while at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and then got a copy of his senior thesis from Princeton. When he read the document he decided to help Pat take the next step of his education.
The old gentleman told Pat he had a long-time connection with Oxford University in England, dating back to his own undergraduate study there a half-century earlier. Over the years, he had sponsored the studies of several promising young scholars, both in America and Britain, and helped at least one young man complete a doctorate at Keble College, Oxford. He wanted to do the same for Pat.
“I never considered going to Oxford. What would I study? Would I get to decide that, or would someone else?”
“Basically, you decide. You will have to find a tutor who shares your area of academic interest, which I presume to be theology, but with your academic credentials and my financial support, I imagine you can do whatever you like.”
It didn’t take Pat long to make up his mind. “I would want to work on the writings of C. S. Lewis.”
“Excellent. I was hoping you would say that.”
“Then, I’d be more than honored,” Pat said, “to accept your generous offer.”
“Splendid. Then it’s settled. I propose we make a call early tomorrow morning to my good friend on the faculty of theology, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
Pat had already done so much reading and study on the life and work of Lewis that he was able to complete his readings and examinations in
less time than expected. He wrote a dissertation and successfully defended it. In less than two years, with a substantial portion of the work done from his home in Tennessee, Pat earned his PhD, or as they called it at Oxford, a DPhil. He spent one full term and part of another in Oxford and returned with his family for the robing and graduation ceremonies.
He had his picture taken in full regalia with his tutor on the lawn of Liddon Quad, standing next to the elegant Gothic Revival chapel. He never had the photo framed and hung on his office wall. He kept it instead in a nightstand by his bed. On rare occasions, he took it out as a reminder of God’s provision when he least expected it.
The new credential would have added to Pat’s prestige, had he used it, but he decided not to put the letters “DPhil” on his business cards or stationery, nor did he use it as part of his official title. Instead, he asked everyone to refer to him as they always had, as “Pastor Pat.” Nevertheless, the study and travel in the United Kingdom had left a mark on him, adding a new level of security in the faith and a greater passion for sharing the gospel.
Except for those wonderful but all-too-rare hours of discussion and debate in his tutor’s rooms at Keble College, Pat had to battle his way through the Oxford experience. He discovered that in much of Britain, the Christian faith is all but dead. Less than 3 percent of the people there attend a Christian church.
The Muslim population, at nearly 10 percent of the nation, was very active in the local mosques. A sizable percentage of Britons might still claim to be Christian, but he saw little evidence of faith in their lives. Furthermore, Pat’s professors and fellow theology students generally agreed that religion was little more than a convenient myth—a moral fable or emotional crutch. At best, it offered a set of organizing principles for a comfortable life—sort of like an old pair of shoes.
On top of everything, his work on Lewis eventually had to be watered down in order to survive the review process. He never compromised on the essentials, but he did cut portions of his paper where he had explained Lewis’ view of “salvation through Christ alone” as the only logical way of responding to the gospel. He had originally quoted Lewis’s statement in which he said: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell.” But he had to cut that.
On returning home to America with Becky and the children, after all the celebrations were over, Pat made up his mind to “fight the good fight” as the apostle Paul had called Timothy to do. He was determined to do what he could to keep his country from the depths of apostasy and hopelessness that many formerly Christian nations in Europe were enduring. Over time his sermons, speeches, articles, and radio and TV broadcasts became more impassioned, focusing on the claim that “either Christ is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all” and the fundamental truth that “Jesus is the only way to God.” He believed that Christ’s teachings ought to influence every aspect of the culture.
Over time he developed a personal motto: Preach Jesus in word; preach Jesus in action.
