scwguild.com

By Teena Myers

One author I interviewed spoke about her pastor with great respect. That was the first time I heard the name Pastor Waylon in a positive light, but not the last. I concluded he is a man of excellent reputation and googled his name to learn more about him. He accepted my friend request on Facebook. Occasionally, a title to a blog post he wrote would grab my attention, and I’d click through to read the article. Then I noticed an invitation to share his blog articles with friends. At that time, I shared a lot of material for pastors, authors, and friends on a newspaper website, so I sent him an email requesting permission to repost some of his articles. By the time the details of sharing his material concluded, he had agreed to speak to the Southern Christian Writers Guild about blogging, and to tell me his story.

He arrived at the Guild meeting full of intriguing information about social media. Facebook had become America’s front porch. Seventy-two percent of Americans use social media. The percentage of eighteen to twenty-nine-year-olds is higher. He then addressed how blogging opened a door for shy people in his church to communicate with him. People uncomfortable speaking to him willingly shared their thoughts through comments on his blog.

This information resonated with me. I’d heard several ministers criticize the use of social media as though it were a demon destroying relationships. I even received a phone call chiding me for using Facebook. If I was limited to face-to-face encounters or even phone calls, it would have been impossible for me to connect with many of the people I have written about.

“I’m not a writer,” said Pastor Waylon, “I am a pastor who writes.” The pastor who would not call himself a writer has written and co-written seven books. He taught us how to discern the will of God for our writing by taking the next step. Throughout his ministry, he normally knew the next step to take, but never knows the second step before he has taken the first. Following God one step at a time had served him well. He oversees a large church, which is currently expanding its facility to accommodate the growing congregation.

After the meeting, he met with me privately to share his. Waylon is a generational Christian, beginning with his grandparents and then parents, who followed their example of devotion to God. His parents set an example of loyalty that engraved character on their young son. Throughout his parents’ service within the church, Waylon witnessed much turmoil and many occasions for his parents to be offended. Unlike some who abandon the church when the waters become rough, his parents remained faithful to God, to their ministries, and to God’s people.

“I had the shortest confession of faith on record,” Waylon laughed. He made that confession in an automobile. His questions about a revival led to a discussion about baptism and faith with his mother. During the conversation, she quoted Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, …” Waylon shifted his slender nine-year-old body back into the car seat, closed his eyes, and took his first step of faith when he said, “Lord, I believe.” As far as Waylon was concerned, ministry was not in his future. Until he was a senior in high school and his pastor asked, “What are you going to do when you graduate?”

“I might go into business, I might be a lawyer, I might even be a preacher…,” nervous laughter followed. Waylon did not know why he included a profession he had no desire to enter. The perceptive pastor recognized a calling resting on the young man’s life. The following week, he invited Waylon to come to his office and talk.

Waylon took the second step toward God’s will in Pastor Brown’s office on a crisp January afternoon. Pastor Brown asked Waylon why he included preacher in his list of options after graduation. Waylon admitted that he had thought about it. “This is what you need to do,” said Pastor Brown. “You need to tell God that you are willing to do what he tells you to do.” Waylon made his second shortest confession of faith on record. “Lord, I will do what you want me to do.”

God took Waylon at his word. Easter Sunday night, Waylon sat in the back row of the church with his friends when he felt overwhelmed by his presence and a sense of the reverential fear of God engulfed him. The service concluded with an invitation to come to the altar for prayer. He walked forward, knowing exactly what had happened. God had set him apart to preach the gospel.

Waylon paused to collect his thoughts, and said to me, “My call to preach came violently. When you asked me a moment ago about my salvation, whether something dramatic happened, or I just knew. Well, I just knew. But when I was called to preach, it was a violent call, an astounding call. I knew this is what God wanted me to do. Not only do I know this is what God wanted me to do. This is what I wanted to do. My passion to preach the gospel was immediate, and that passion has only grown stronger through the years.”

Pastor Brown took Waylon under his wing. Waylon assisted in funerals, visited the sick, and delivered his first sermon at a small country church. He preached everything he knew about the call of Abraham from Genesis Chapter 12 in eight minutes. Then Pastor Brown put Waylon’s picture in the weekly Alabama Baptist Magazine announcing Waylon had been called to preach. A church twelve miles from his hometown invited Waylon to be their pastor. His parents bought him the same set of commentaries Pastor Brown used when preparing his sermons, which helped Waylon increase his sermons from eight minutes to ten.

Circumstances and the peace of God led Waylon to pastor several churches before he settled into a long-term position as a seminary professor. Each pastorate taught him valuable lessons. He learned the importance of relationships. In the smaller pastorates, he knew every congregation member by name and their struggles. His current church is too large to build intimate relationships with everyone, but he still strives to know as many people as possible.

He learned how to conduct business meetings. Voting whether to pay the light bill seemed trivial to Waylon, but he learned it was important to the people who wanted to vote. At times, he sat through business meetings that left him confused regarding what was accomplished. But he learned to be patient and gentle.

Another pastorate taught him the importance of evangelism. He invited a college roommate to preach a revival at his seventy-five-member church. The revival started a good relationship with a nearby school, which allowed them to share their faith with its students. Ultimately, the revival produced thirty professions of faith. In another church, the deacons requested permission to worship “with him” instead of asking him to “try out” for the office of pastor. Their humility left a mark on Waylon’s life and ministry.

Waylon had a firm foundation to tread upon as he began seventeen years of service as a professor, which undergirded that foundation with an accurate understanding of the Bible. “Four years before accepting my current pastorate, I felt like Jeremiah,” said Waylon. “There was a fire in my bones to be a pastor again. Every time I found a place I thought I fit and should go, the door closed. Every time I didn’t think I fit and was not inclined to go, the door opened.”

A church invited Waylon to serve as their interim pastor. An impromptu revival started. People walked in off the street and received salvation. Waylon asked the associate ministers on staff what they were doing that produced the revival. They didn’t have a clue. They elected a new pastor, and Waylon continued to help other churches when and where needed, as he taught at the seminary.

Five years later, the church, with the impromptu revival, once again in need of a pastor, remembered Waylon and asked him to return as a candidate for pastor. He was already serving as an interim pastor at a church in Mississippi and made it a practice to stay until the church found a suitable pastor. He turned down their invitation. They said, “We will wait.”

A comparison of Isaiah 64:4 and 1 Corinthians 2:9 reveals that the Apostle Paul interpreted to wait is to love. When the church waited, they loved. They chose wisely. After a long vetting process, Waylon became their Senior Pastor, where he learned another valuable lesson. How to successfully guide a church through change. He led his flock of three hundred to a new location, where the congregation blossomed to several thousand and continues to grow.