Days to Remember 6: That 22nd Feeling

I am not privy to what David Cameron feels when he has his regular audience with Her Majesty the Queen.  I imagine he feels somewhat smaller than in many other settings.  Here's one reason - the list of British Prime Ministers who've served under Queen Elizabeth II:

 

Winston Churchill 1951-55
Sir Anthony Eden 1955-57
Harold Macmillan 1957-63
Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1963-64
Harold Wilson 1964-70 and 1974-76
Edward Heath 1970-74
James Callaghan 1976-79
Margaret Thatcher 1979-90
John Major 1990-97
Tony Blair 1997-2007
Gordon Brown 2007-2010
David Cameron 2010-

 

He may be Number One just now, but in another way he's Number 12.

 

It is manifestly unsuitable for a Pastor to compare himself with the hierarchy of politics, though some perhaps do and others do on their behalf. 

 

And yet it evokes a thought remembering one day visiting our oldest Church Member at the time.  My relative longevity and seniority was put into brutal perspective.

 

"It's the Pastor to see you", said the carer down her ear.

 

"Who?"

 

"THE PASTOR"

 

"Oh, I don't know"

 

"YOU DO KNOW HIM.  THE PASTOR FROM UNION BAPTIST CHURCH.  YOUR CHURCH."

 

"The Church?  Who?"

 

"IT'S THE PASTOR - PASTOR JOHN FROM THE CHURCH.  HE'S COME TO SEE YOU"

 

"Oh, I don't know."

 

"YES - YOU KNOW HIM - JOHN ROBERTS -THE PASTOR"

 

"Who?  I don't know, there's been so many of them . . ."

 

Ah yes, you have to have stamina to outlive the elderly ladies of a church.  I may have had the microphone on many Sundays but I was just another in a long, long, line for her!  22nd overall in fact.

 

It reminded me of a pastoral visit I did in the storied First Baptist Church of Dallas where Dr W A Criswell had been the celebrated leader for nearly 40 years at that time.  The elderly lady complained about the new preacher and how she had much preferred his predecessor - who finished in the mid 1940s. 

 

Thank God (albeit perhaps through slightly gritted teeth) for those who remind us we are but parts of chapters in a Greater Story.

Happy Birthday WA!

You may be accustomed to this blog's tradition of celebrating birthdays on this date. As well as Horatius Bonar and Edith Piaf, today is the birthday of W.A. Criswell.  W.A. was the first Pastor I worked with when I left Spurgeon's College and moved to Dallas, Texas and as long as my memory lasts it will be my privilege and joy to recall working with him.

 

W.A. occupied a place of influence far beyond that of any British Baptist other than C H Spurgeon but to meet the man week by week, on a corridor or a catfish restaurant or his somewhat palatial church house was to realise that, for all his reputation in American and Texan politics, in Southern Baptist controversies and in fund raising on a mind-boggling scale here was a man whose greatest excitement was seeing, one by one, ordinary people come from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ's salvation. 

 

It is amazing how many lesser men I have met before and since, especially on this island and in its religion, who have nowhere near as huge a story but nonetheless have somehow managed to lose the plot.

 

 

You can listen to one of his Christmas Sermons here.