35 years later and he's still taking me to school.

While there, I met a woman named Margaret Cobb who knew my pastor when he first started his ministry in San Diego county… even before he planted the church that would become the only church he would ever pastor. She knew him while he sang at a tabernacle in San Diego, having just moved from the mid-west, singing in a gospel quartet. When I began to tell a story about one of the hymns we were singing, and that I could still hear his voice in my head singing the words to "Look and Live!," her eyes lit up. She knew who I was talking about even before I mentioned his name. Later we talked and shared stories, and it got me thinking about how much my life as a Christ Follower, and as a pastor, has been shaped and influenced by this man.

Just recently I saw an article in the San Diego Union how Skyline Church in San Diego is opening their new sanctuary in Rancho San Diego. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/24/megachurch-completes-12-million-sanctuary/

They moved from their original location in Spring Valley about 20 years ago, and have labored to build a Sanctuary on this property that whole time. It's been a long and tortuous struggle for the church to get this building built. They've had all kinds of difficult dealings with the city, county and state over endangered species, new roads, and new freeways. They've figuratively and literally moved a mountain to develop their property and create a ministry space for their church and the community they are planted in.

I started attending Skyline when they were just finishing up their old "new" sanctuary in their previous location in Spring Valley. In the mid 70's, it was a sweeping roofline of a church, with very stylish orange carpet and pews, a new sound system, a slanted floor line, and a motorized Projector Screen! (which I found out later that some members thought this was sacrilegious!) I started attending not because I was interested the Christianity, but interested in a girl. Her name was Robin, but that's a whole different story.

The pastor of Skyline at that time was named Orval Charles Butcher. OCB, as we called him in the youth group, was about 5'2" tall on the outside, but inside he was a giant. I attended for the final 5 years of Pastor Butcher's ministry, and it's amazing to me now, all these years later, how much I learned about how to be a pastor during those years. In those few years I learned what a healthy church should look like, how a pastor responds to leadership issues, handles staff, frustrated members, preaches sermons, shapes the vision and feel of a church, and a host of other issues.

I didn't realize I was learning these things while it was going on. Not even close. Frankly, I remember sitting in the worship services, experiencing the life and fellowship of the church, and not understanding a whole lot of what was happening and being said and taught around me. I was a brand new Christian, and a rough around the edges one at that. But as I look back, my own experiences in ministry have brought insights into what was happening in that church over three decades ago, and by the results I can lift the veil a bit and see what OCB was doing behind the scenes.

Back then Skyline was, as I suppose it is now, a warm, loving, accepting, family church. The motto on the sign in front of the church was, "A Christ - Centered Family Church." I started attending and found a place where people loved and accepted me, regardless of the fact that I was and continued to be a mess for a number of years. The thing I remember most about the church at that time, it was a safe place, where I felt accepted and loved. I also was challenged to grow up, and grow in my faith. But I was in a new place of safety in my life, and that meant the world to me. Long before I would work through my own Father issues, and my problems with authority and history of abuse, I saw modeled in the leadership of this church what a man of God should be. That image was followed and carried out in different levels of success and failure in the lives of the people around him, and the people in the church.

As the story goes, back in the day, Pastor Butcher was a young man preparing for ministry at Wheaton College with another man who would become a significant leader in the church, Billy Graham. Billy wanted Pastor Butcher to come with him after college and start an evangelistic ministry, leading the worship and directing the choir, and hopefully reaching the masses for the Lord. Pastor Butcher turned him down saying, "No Billy, I can't, I'm called to plant a church in Spring Valley California." Billy's second choice? George Beverly Shea.

When Pastor Butcher planted Skyline, it was the largest church plant in the Wesleyan Denomination history, in fact, it was the largest church in the denomination on it's very first Sunday in existence. They did some things that would be considered forward thinking and revolutionary in it's day. Canvasing, telephone calling, passing out flyers in parking lots and shopping malls, man on the street interviews and even what we would now call focus groups. All back in the mid 50's. This highly successful church launch prompted a quick visit from denominational headquarters. They wanted to come find out what was going on and how a holiness church could be over 150 people. Holiness churches were never over 100 people. The prevailing thought was the doctrine of the church, the evidence of people living a holy life, would prevent significant numerical growth because by it's nature it called for people to change the way they lived. Skyline would go on to grow to over 3000 members and be an influence for good and healthy change in the community it was planted in.

OCB had a huge singing voice, a powerful tenor who could croon like Crosby or overpower you like Pavarotti. I remember sitting there in my early days at the church listening to him and thinking, "how can that much sound come out of that small a body?!" A young singer myself, I went to school on him with questions about breath control, phrasing, vibrato, support, diaphragm control, tone placement and music selections. He introduced me to hymns. These wonderful creations of theology and story telling we don't see much in the church anymore. I didn't appreciate them then, I miss them now.

So, what did I learn from OCB.

1. Your influence in life goes far beyond the time you actually spend with people.

It's been over three decades since I heard Pastor Butcher preach a sermon, over two decades since I saw him in a post office after he "retired" and we chatted, over a decade since I received a ministry update letter from him, and a year since he passed away. I can't count how many times I've been in a situation that required my leadership skills to guide me where I haven't wondered, "I wonder what Pastor Butcher would do in this situation?" I can look back and see the changes and transformations he made. In my five years with him as my pastor, we made three leadership changes in the youth ministry. Personally traumatic at the time, but looking back on it now, necessary for the health and welfare of the youth of the church.

2. Who you really are is more important that what you say.

I can't remember one thing Pastor Butcher preached. Not even one. I can't remember any of the points, the application portions, the scriptures, nothing. For five years he preached the word into me. For the life of me I can't seem to remember anything he said for 35 - 45 minutes every Sunday morning during those very formative years in my life as a Christ Follower.

I CAN remember how he lived. How he prayed for me when my father and I would fight. When my nose got broken or when my front tooth was chipped he would find me and speak a word of encouragement. Not much, not long, but significant to me. Later on he would begin to give me some of his time, as busy as he was, and just listen to my stories… knowing all the while it wasn't about what I was saying at the moment, but about wanting to connect to some kind of normalcy in life. I remember how he once stopped and helped a stranded female motorist in a rainstorm, and was so worried about what people would think about him being in a car alone with a woman not his wife he felt compelled to explain himself to the congregation the next Sunday. I remember how he listened to me talk about my relationship with Jesus, and guided me towards ministry long before anyone else saw it in me. He modeled for me that ministry is about relationships… and relationships take time… and time with people equals personal self worth to many of them. It's a ministry of presence. Just being there makes a huge difference.

3. Don't be afraid to make radical changes, to think and do things people might not understand, or to be considered a revolutionary or even a nutcase to achieve your goals.

What Pastor Butcher did in ministry back then would be thought of as tame now. But in context of what was going on in the community, the radical shifts in society that were taking place in the 60's and 70's, and the way that the church in general wasn't responding to those changes… Skyline was on the cutting edge of ministry. Huge musical extravaganzas and outrageous outreach events were the norm. I remember one time in youth group, an announcement needed to be made and the attention of 200 teens was needed to make it. (Imagine trying to herd 200 cats into one direction and you can understand the problem.)

Pastor Butcher had his youth pastor bring a shotgun and fire blanks into the air… THAT got our attention. That would probably get me put in jail now. Years before, the youth group was having a "friend day" contest, encouraging everyone in the church to bring a friend even Sunday for a month. The contest promised a gift for the teen that brought the most friends in the month. The gift was a set of Crown Pens and that teen would be crowned "King or Queen of Skyline." Not a really exciting gift. Pastor Butcher called his youth pastor in and asked him, "what does a teen really want?" The youth pastor said, "A car, but we can't do that!" OCB said, "why not, give them a car!" As the story goes, the youth minister blinked twice, gulped once, and said, "OK!" Hundreds of teens came to church for the very first time, launching a teen ministry that would change the life of thousands of people over the years, and sending dozens into the ministry. And… somebody actually won a new car. That one ministry event shaped that youth pastor for life, and set the DNA of that church for decades.

4. How you leave a ministry is just as important as what you do while you're there.

Looking back on it now, I can see that when Pastor Butcher retired, he did his best to set up the new guy. Some young buck named John Maxwell who had a few things to say about leadership. Pastor Butcher positioned the church for growth, knowing that it needed change, and that he wasn't the man to do it anymore. He prepared the way, softening up the ground, speaking of the qualities and strengths of the new pastor that was coming, helping him build cache even before he got there. In fact, I just realized while writing this, he must have changed the whole process of how that denominational church called it's next pastor. Usually, when a pastor leaves a church, there is an interim time between pastorates. A time for the last pastor to be gone, for the church to grieve, and the new pastor to come in after a season. The general rule of thumb is 1 month of time for every year the previous pastor was at the church. Skyline didn't experience this, their transition was fairly short. Short enough that Pastor Butcher was able to proclaim his acceptance of the new pastor before he left and also his encouragement to the congregation. He left Skyline not only telling them their best days were ahead of them, he really believed it.

Pastor Butcher passed away last year. Gayle and I went to the memorial service. It was more of a reunion than a funeral. hundreds were there, hundreds more wanted to be but were all over the world. We laughed, we cried, we sang, we told stories upon stories on end, we hugged everyone we could, and we reconnected with old friends. OCB would have loved it.

35 years later and he's still taking me to school.

The real question is... What am I teaching those who are following me?