I used to be a young pastor. That’s why I was a little nervous when an older pastor started attending the church where I served — not just any older pastor, but a legend.
His name was Dr. Hal MacBain. Years earlier, when I graduated from seminary, I knelt before him as he conferred my degree in his role as chancellor of the seminary. As a teenager, he’d preached on the streets of Toronto. As a 21-year-old, he founded Temple Baptist Church in Sarnia. Over 27 years, he oversaw that church’s growth to over 800 before moving to Toronto to pastor Forward Baptist Church. He served on the board of Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto, which later became part of Heritage College and Seminary. He was the first full-time director of the international missions arm of the Fellowship Baptists.
In fact, he was a key founder of the Fellowship. He witnessed modern Baptist history in Toronto, having studied under T.T. Shields of Jarvis Street Baptist Church, and having witnessed the events that led to the ouster of Gordon Brown.
As I stood to preach before Dr. MacBain every week, I felt humbled and a little fearful. What would this man think of my ministry? What could I learn from someone who had played such an outsized role in the Canadian church?
I discovered that Dr. MacBain was one of the most gracious men I’d met. In 2005, while he was in his late eighties, I wrote these words: “It’s humbling to see someone in his late eighties model the type of faithfulness and integrity and courage that I can only aspire to at this point.”
I got thinking about Dr. MacBain again as I read “A Priceless Heritage”: A History of Heritage College and Seminary in Three Essays by Michael Haykin and Jonathan Cleland. In the early years of Central Baptist Seminary, some students were in a hurry to get through school so they could begin full-time pastoral ministry. MacBain offered them wise advice: “Prepare for the last ten yours of your ministry,” he said.
Dr. MacBain died in 2016 in his hundredth year. What was the secret to his effectiveness and long-term faithfulness? I’m not sure I can say. He was clearly a gifted man with a lot of vision and stamina.
One of the reasons he lasted so long, though, is that he took the long view. His advice to students reflects wisdom from a man who would continue to serve for decades after he gave this advice to young pastoral candidates: take the long view. Prepare for a lifetime of faithfulness. Don’t be in such a rush. Prepare not for the early years of ministry, when many flame out, but for a lifetime of faithful service before your God.
I’m no longer a young pastor. I may even be in the final decade of vocational ministry. Who knows? I hope that I still have many more decades of faithful service even after I one day step down as pastor. But his advice still stands: take the long view. Prepare to serve not just for months or years but for however long God may give you. We may never measure up to Dr. MacBain, but with God’s help, we, like him, can stay faithful to the end.
