One Pastor's Story
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
Series II Cycle B
Craig Barnes has learned what it is to be a servant. And he knows what it is like to serve. He knows firsthand what it is like to be forgotten, left behind. And he knows what it is like to be a leader and looked up to.
When Craig was a teen, his mother left her husband and two sons. Craig's father, a pastor, was asked to resign from his position. His father left the church and his sons. Craig, who was sixteen, and his older brother were left to take care of themselves. They sold their parents' belongings and did their best.
As their first Christmas alone approached, the boys thought they could hitchhike to see their mother. They set out on a cold night, only to be told by a police officer that the road had been closed two hours earlier. They felt despair. They felt abandoned. And they recalled a passage that reminded them that though they had nothing, they had been called by God, named by God, and loved by God.
Craig remembers feeling very low, very distraught. He dropped out after a year of college and started pumping gas at midnight. He knew this wasn't what God had intended for him. A pastor, John Wallon, befriended Craig and encouraged him in his faith. It was life-giving. Craig graduated from King's College and married Anne, his high school sweetheart.
Craig went on to seminary at Princeton and he and Anne became parents of Lyndsey, who is now seventeen. His first call was to First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Three years later he took a leave and went to the University of Chicago for a doctorate in church history before returning to Colorado.
Craig took another call to Wisconsin and five years later his life changed. National Presbyterian in Washington, D.C., the closest thing to a cathedral for the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) Church, invited him to be their pastor. Craig was 36. Only nine days later, Craig received another call: the doctor told Craig he had thyroid cancer.
Anne and Craig were drawn to Washington, but they had to deal with Craig's illness, surgery, and treatments. Nevertheless, they went to Washington. Full of enthusiasm, full of cancer, and full of hope.
National has been blessed with the Barnes' presence since 1993. Craig still has to take leave each January for radiation therapy, but he feels his weaknesses from his childhood have given him strength to understand and preach grace, something Anne and Craig had to learn firsthand. They bring hope to others when others seem to have lost it all. Craig had lost it all at one time, yet he knew who was Lord. He knew whom to serve.
(Details taken from the article "Barnes Ennobled" in Pastor's Family, August/September 1998.)
When Craig was a teen, his mother left her husband and two sons. Craig's father, a pastor, was asked to resign from his position. His father left the church and his sons. Craig, who was sixteen, and his older brother were left to take care of themselves. They sold their parents' belongings and did their best.
As their first Christmas alone approached, the boys thought they could hitchhike to see their mother. They set out on a cold night, only to be told by a police officer that the road had been closed two hours earlier. They felt despair. They felt abandoned. And they recalled a passage that reminded them that though they had nothing, they had been called by God, named by God, and loved by God.
Craig remembers feeling very low, very distraught. He dropped out after a year of college and started pumping gas at midnight. He knew this wasn't what God had intended for him. A pastor, John Wallon, befriended Craig and encouraged him in his faith. It was life-giving. Craig graduated from King's College and married Anne, his high school sweetheart.
Craig went on to seminary at Princeton and he and Anne became parents of Lyndsey, who is now seventeen. His first call was to First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Three years later he took a leave and went to the University of Chicago for a doctorate in church history before returning to Colorado.
Craig took another call to Wisconsin and five years later his life changed. National Presbyterian in Washington, D.C., the closest thing to a cathedral for the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) Church, invited him to be their pastor. Craig was 36. Only nine days later, Craig received another call: the doctor told Craig he had thyroid cancer.
Anne and Craig were drawn to Washington, but they had to deal with Craig's illness, surgery, and treatments. Nevertheless, they went to Washington. Full of enthusiasm, full of cancer, and full of hope.
National has been blessed with the Barnes' presence since 1993. Craig still has to take leave each January for radiation therapy, but he feels his weaknesses from his childhood have given him strength to understand and preach grace, something Anne and Craig had to learn firsthand. They bring hope to others when others seem to have lost it all. Craig had lost it all at one time, yet he knew who was Lord. He knew whom to serve.
(Details taken from the article "Barnes Ennobled" in Pastor's Family, August/September 1998.)
