Pastor Bob

I was saddened to hear via someone's Facebook post that a former pastor of mine passed away recently. Pastor Bob Vander Schaaf (December 16, 1919 - January 6, 2011) was the pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Fulton, Illinois, the church of my youth and the church my parents still attend. According to his obituary, Pastor Bob only pastored two churches, the first for nine years, and then Trinity for fifteen, having entered ministry later in life.

I have only a handful of vivid memories of his ministry during my childhood. My family started attending Trinity when I was either four or five, and Pastor Bob retired when I was thirteen or fourteen. Being in my forties, I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast this morning, let alone retain memories from thirty-five years ago.

But one such memory was of one warm Sunday morning worship service. It was during what we called the "long prayer" when I heard some agitated whispering going on nearby. Soon those whispers grew to include more, until it was clear something more exciting than the prayer was going on. (Of course, in my youth, I thought there was always something more exciting going on than the prayers.) Opening my eyes, I noticed fellow pew-sitters were pointing to something up in the air. Looking up, I saw that a bat had made its way from the attic into the sanctuary (or the "worship center" for all you trendy people out there) and was darting to and fro, with occasional swoops down close to congregants' heads. Soon it was clear that no one but Pastor Bob was really praying, as we were all watching this bat fly frantically around the sanctuary. Maybe he didn't like long prayers, either.

This was obviously of much delight to young boys like me. How Pastor Bob continued praying with all that obvious shuffling going on is beyond me. But he labored on. It was close to the end of the prayer when a brave parishioner, during another of the bat's brave swoops, swatted it with his bulletin, and down the thing went to the floor. Quickly, the assailant caught up the thing in his now battle-weary bulletin and hauled him outside, accompanied by gentle applause from mostly the women. As he finished his pastoral prayer (as there really wasn't much of a congregational aspect to it), Pastor Bob didn't chastise his flock for their distraction. Nope. All calm and collected, he simply remarked, "Some things just don't belong in church." And on he went with the service.

Most of my memories are really impressions - images of what he was like and what characterized his ministry. And as I think about them, some are really things we pastors can learn from him. Much of what ministry is about can be learned from this simple man.

1. He was committed to his church. One never received the impression that Trinity Reformed, a small church in a small Midwest town, was merely a part of a larger, more ambitious plan for a bigger church and ministry. He was not an "ecclesiastical professional." He was a pastor. He was a shepherd. He was Trinity's pastor. And he was going to be that until God, not his ego, called him elsewhere.

2. Pastor Bob had the most unique children's sermons. Whenever he said, "I invite all the children to come forward for a children's sermon," we flocked up there. You just never knew what he had planned. One Sunday, he even had me be part of a children's sermon that included a few of us boys donning football pads and helmets to re-enact a true story (I think) of a football player who once recovered a fumble and ran in it for touchdown, in his own end zone. That player, he said, now humiliated now went on to have one of his best games. It was a lesson about not giving up.

Pastor Bob recognized that kids were important part of the worship service. In fact, one children's sermon included him telling the kids to leave the church building for a few minutes, and after we left him telling the adults that children are important to the church. Say what you will about the appropriateness of children's sermons, he never once saw us kids as insignificant, or as a nuisance. And he never looked out at the congregation, half-filled with children, and said, "Appropriate for yourselves the eschatological richness of Christ's vicarious work." Call him crazy, but he didn't.

3. Pastor Bob always visited us when we were sick. If you were home sick for more than a day, it seemed he was there in the living room visiting us as we were recovering on the couch. Often times he would bring his bag of magic tricks to entertain us for awhile. To Pastor Bob, pastoral ministry was relational. Ministry wasn't just what he did on Sunday in the pulpit. What he did in the pulpit was that out of which a regular weekly interaction with his congregation flowed.

4. I remember him asking me to help him clean his bookshelves one day when I was seven or eight years old. It required taking down all his books, dusting the shelves, and then putting the books back in their place. I think he paid me ten cents for the job, which was problem more of me getting in the way than me helping. Either way, as we were working, he asked, "What do you know about the Titanic?" "They said that God himself couldn't sink that ship." "Very good. Why don't you read this," as he handed me a book about the ship.

5. Late in college I was asked to come back to Trinity to preach a sermon, my first ever. Of course, I immediately thought my sermon publishing-worthy and destined for seminary preaching textbooks everywhere. Somehow, Pastor Bob, now comfortably in retirement, got a recording of that sermon. A few weeks later, I received a tape of his own for me, on which were his thoughts on my preaching. He was encouraging where he needed to be; he offered gentle criticism where he necessary. It was his attempt to impart some of the lessons he learned to a young man aspiring to the office. That tape has long been in one of my storage boxes, but I still remember many of the things he said.

6. Most importantly, whenever you were around him, you got the distinct sense that he genuinely loved you, and that caring for you was more important to him in his ministry that you agreeing with him on whatever his particular theological hobby horse was. Never would he have set the cross hairs of his blog on you. He believe that the greatest of these is love.

May the Lord grant him rest from his earthly labors.