At the age of thirty, soon after becoming a Christian, during a visit to my parents I tried to institute a family prayer time. We had never prayed together before, never even talked about religion.
My parents were church-goers, but not Christians (at least, not according to my new-found definition). They attended an Anglican church where services were conducted from the old Book of Common Prayer. This was not my style, but in order to pray together as a family I was willing to compromise, and so I suggested we pray some short prayers from the BCP.
My Dad and Me, circa 1987
We did this for a couple of evenings, and I thought the experiment was going relatively well. Then, on the third day, my dad took me aside and lit into me. Seething with anger, he made it clear there would be no more family prayer times. Fixing me with a steely gaze he said, “Michael, you’re my son, not my pastor.” I don’t remember anything else he told me that day. But that one line burned itself into my memory.
In ensuing years, that sentence took on the force of a curse in my life. What was the point of me trying to tell anyone about Christ, or influence anyone to pray, read the Bible, or look into Christianity? If I did any of that, people would just get mad at me and shut me down. I was not a pastor, or an evangelist, or the sort of person anyone would listen to. I might as well just shut up.
That was how my father’s words affected me. One sentence, one deadly, incisive blow to my heart. After that, all my evangelistic fervor was sublimated into the form of writing. In my books I could freely say whatever I wanted. But face to face—with anyone—I might as well have been tongueless.
I did make some valiant attempts to break this curse. I became a lay preacher, and on one occasion I was invited to preach at a church very much like the one my parents attended—a congregation who believed (in my estimation) not much of anything. Almost as if I were getting back at my father, I really let them have it. Oh, did I ever preach the gospel that day! I reached way down into my boots and gave them a sizzling, rip-roaring, hair-raising, soul-saving diatribe. Afterwards, a few people told me what a great sermon it was, and one fellow even said it was the best he’d ever heard.
But I never preached that way again. In order to do it, I’d had to whip myself up into a state of such nervous tension that for days afterwards I was a wreck, and I even got sick. During that aftermath, I concluded that I had overstepped my authority, colored outside the lines of my gifting. If that’s what it meant to be a Christian, I couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t me.
Notice the shift in my thinking here. My thought was not, If only my father hadn’t spoken that curse over me! Or even, If only my parents had been receptive to my gentle attempt to evangelize them. No, my thought was a different one, namely: I don’t think face-to-face evangelism is my thing. Maybe I’ll just stick to writing.
And that’s what I’ve done. The experiences I just related happened many years ago, in my early thirties. Now I’m over 70. In all those years, never again (or only rarely) have I tried verbally to tell anyone the gospel. Instead, I’ve written it. All my passion to share Christ with the world has been poured into my writing, and I tend to think my writing has been stronger for having had my tongue cut out.
Indeed, somewhere along the line I came to a point where I could say sincerely, Thanks, Dad. Those words you spoke to me were not a curse but a blessing. Thanks for naming me, for accurately identifying who I am. You were right: I’m not a pastor, I’m a son.
And being a son is a much more beautiful thing than being a pastor, or teacher, or evangelist, or prophet. If only the Christian Church had more true sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, and friends, then the rest of the jobs would look after themselves.
It took me many years to forget the sting of trying to be a pastor to my father, and to learn simply to be a good son. I wish I’d embraced my true calling earlier. I wish I’d stopped trying to tell anyone else who to be, and settled for simply being myself.
Today I read the passage where Jesus sternly warned His disciples not to tell anyone He was the Messiah (Mt 16:20). It occurred to me that this was not just a temporary ban, annulled by the Great Commission. No, it seems there are times and situations—many situations—where the need to keep quiet about Jesus still applies today, where it would be inadvisable to preach the gospel outright. But it is never inadvisable to live a life of love, to be a good friend or a good son or father, or just to be yourself. Where evangelism is blocked, there is always pre-evangelism to do.
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