The Speech I Didn't Get To Give at Johnathan's Retirement

When I met Johnathan, I called my parents and said I met the man I want to marry.  I didn’t know if he’d want to marry me, but I was hoping he did! Next year we will celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary, and 29 of those years have been spent in Troy, Ohio.

Our family about the time we moved from TN to OH

Now to be quite honest, I would’ve been perfectly happy staying in Memphis at Bellevue Baptist Church. I LOVED Bellevue - the choir, the orchestra, Singing Christmas Tree, our friends, and SO much about it.  But I knew marrying Johnathan meant we were not staying at Bellevue - and we might even end up in Mongolia or Timbuktu! Instead, Johnathan said, “Let’s move to Ohio to plant a church!” Being newly married and extra submissive (at the time), I agreed and off we went in a U-Haul packed to the brim and our 8-week-old son Joshua in his trusty car seat.

Johnathan, thank you for following God’s leading to come to Troy – look what He has done! Psalm 126:3 says, “The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.”

Thank you for not giving up when things got hard. When I was weak and frustrated, you remained steadfast….and God’s Word is true - your labor was not in vain. “Be strong and do not give up for your work will be rewarded.” (II Chronicles 15:7)

Our elder team minus our newest elder, David. This was the night the elders announced Johnathan was going to step away from his role as senior pastor but we had another great candidate in mind!

Thank you for insisting that God, not culture or tradition, shaped the mission and vision for this church. Because you didn’t have to be the top dog, you invited a team of elders to lead with you. You steered us away from a seeker model to a Christ-centered, gospel-driven, true-to-Scripture model of church. You led our elder team to adopt unconventional, less popular (yet biblical) practices like church discipline and covenant membership. Galatians 1:10 says, “Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”

Thank you for preaching the whole counsel of God Sunday after Sunday for 26 years both

from the pulpit, in life group settings, and one-on one.  You have obeyed II Timothy 4:2 to “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”

Thank you for your example of loving the gospel and living it out by laying your life down for the Lord’s church. You illustrate Colossians 1:24-25 “….for the sake of his body, the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present the Word of God in its fullness.”

Those who know Johnathan well know he is an evangelist. He epitomizes I Corinthians 10:33, “I am not seeking my own good but the good of many that they may be saved.” I started wondering how many times Johnathan has shared the gospel. Let’s say 50 Sundays a year for 26 years…that’s 1,300 times. Then add about 7-8 times a week – sitting at Tim Horton’s with newcomers, teaching life groups and next steps classes, at block parties, with dads on our boys baseball teams, and at home in family worship – 7/wk x 52 wks for 26 years = 9,464 times. These numbers don’t count before I met him or since he has begun his new role as state rep – we’re looking at about 11,000 times.  I can’t begin to imagine the number of souls that we’ll see in heaven because Johnathan cared enough to tell them the gospel.

He always says in our family, “In your conversations, just get to the gospel! People want to talk about it! Even if they don’t, they NEED to hear it!”

Thank you for tearing up every time you preach the gospel, because it reveals to us all your tender heart, your love for Christ and for His people.

Thank you for being a ROCK - steadfast, reliable, present, faithful. You have “kept your head in all situations, endured hardship, done the work of an evangelist, discharged all the duties of your ministry.” (II Tim. 4:5)

Thank you for prioritizing our family when church ministry could have consumed every waking moment, but you took the kids camping, fishing, hunting, searching for crawdads, you coached baseball, you may have cooked more dinners than I have, (and they definitely tasted better than mine); we had movie nights, family vacations, and thousands of conversations about theology, God’s Word, the church, and more, following the instructions of Deuteronomy 6.

Family vacation in 2008

When I think about my husband these ideas come to mind: integrity, humility, compassion, boldness, a love for the lost, servant leader, faithful shepherd, relentless encourager, my best friend.

Johnathan, I thank the Lord for your steady, Christlike leadership of our church and family for 26+ years and am blessed to continue serving alongside you in this new chapter.