A Simple Christmas (19 page)

Our church was very innovative in terms of its communications and also launched a twenty-four-hour-a-day television channel that broadcast not only church services but also talk shows, sports, and local events. Looking back, I am amazed that we had the chutzpah to attempt something so bold, but it worked, and the church grew dramatically and rapidly because of it.

I settled in to the role of pastor and loved it. I abandoned the idea of ever running for office, assuming that being a pastor would preclude me from ever being able to make that transition to politics. During my six years in Pine Bluff, we added two more children to our growing family—David, who was born just a few months prior to our moving there, and Sarah, born in 1982. It was also there that I learned not only some useful skills in everything from diplomacy to administration but also some of the most important lessons of my life.

A pastor looks at life more deeply than people in most other professions. A pastor witnesses the most wonderful moments in a person's life, such as weddings and births, as well as the most painful moments, such as divorce, disease, and death. During my time as a pastor, I received an education like no other in the realities of life. I saw intense poverty by going into the homes of the poorest people in our community to bring food or assist in a family crisis, and I saw intense prosperity by interacting with some of the most successful businesspeople in the community.

Most elected officials learn about the issues of the day by studying or reading about them. For me, there is not a single social pathology that I haven't seen firsthand, and I probably have a story for any situation you could think of: a pregnant unwed teen afraid to tell her parents that she's about to be a mother; a young couple faced with the news that their child will be born with severe disabilities; a middle-aged couple forced to become “parents” to their parents, who are no longer able to care for themselves; an elderly couple having to decide whether to take medicine or eat because they can't afford to do both. I've met couples facing marital or financial problems; individuals with drug, alcohol, gambling, sex, or other addictions; and people suffering from deep depression. I saw all of this every week and spent a good bit of my time counseling those who had come to me as their first line of help for just about anything and everything.

After six years in Pine Bluff, I was approached by the pastor search committee of the Beech Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Arkansas. Other pastor search committees had approached me in the past, but I had always declined their offers. But the Texarkana congregation was persistent, and in order to test their seriousness, I told them that I would only consider working at their church if they were willing to launch a television channel similar to what we had in Pine Bluff. I believed that part of my calling was to use the media as a communication vessel for the Gospel, and so I wasn't willing to give up the opportunity to do that, no matter where I worked. Because the Beech Street First Baptist Church was known as a more traditional church, I fully expected this to be a deal breaker for them, but they told me that it was precisely this nontraditional approach and the idea of a television channel that appealed to them and had led them to me.

Several weeks of discussion and agonizing prayer followed. Janet, the kids, and I loved Pine Bluff and the people who lived there. I could have stayed there forever. We were very active in the community, we had close friends, and the kids were settled in school and the neighborhood. But despite how comfortable we were, we somehow knew that, despite our misgivings, we were being clearly drawn to a new field of ministry and life and that God was calling us to a new chapter of our lives. We decided to move to Texarkana.

Our experience in Texarkana was very different from our experience in Pine Bluff, but equally exciting and fulfilling. I hit the ground running by launching a major fund-raising effort to start the television channel, construct a family life center that had been on the drawing board for years but never constructed, and purchase additional property for the church to expand. The church was a majestic old building originally constructed in the early 1900s and was rich with history and tradition. It was a landmark in the city for its distinctive silver dome, which made it look more like a state capitol than a church. Because it was an older, downtown church, it was much more traditional than I what was used to, and one of the regular challenges I faced was taking my more unconventional methods of ministry into a much more conventional congregation.

I immersed myself in the community just as I had in Pine Bluff, and Janet and I found a wonderful home on a cul-de-sac in an absolutely great neighborhood. There were kids everywhere who were about the same age as ours, and it was a quiet, safe, and uncongested area about as perfect as we could have hoped for. We loved our house, and with its five bedrooms and spacious yard, we had room for the kids to play and to enjoy life.

Over the next six years, we lived a life that was nothing short of ideal. We were in a wonderful church and had close friends with whom we developed deep bonds. My sister, Pat, already lived in Texarkana at that time, and my parents and in-laws were just thirty miles away in Hope, so we saw our families more than we ever had. My parents moved to Texarkana about two years later and lived just a few blocks from my sister and from us.

Neither Janet nor I had grown up with all that much, and while we were far from rich and still had to live frugally, we were enjoying a standard of living far better than either of us had growing up. We were active in the community, our kids were totally engaged in all sorts of sports and school activities, and we truly loved the life we were living—neighborhood, community, church, family. We had lots of friends, and I really can't think of any enemies. Great fishing lakes were nearby, and we were only a three-hour drive from Arlington Stadium, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team, whom we would go to see play several times each year. Life was good!

In 1989, I was elected president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and became the youngest person to ever hold that position. I was thirty-four years old. It was a tumultuous time in the life of Southern Baptists, mainly due to a decade-long struggle over the doctrinal direction of the denomination. The theological issues had been overwhelmingly settled in the favor of an unapologetic commitment to the authority and in errancy of the Bible, and about the only thing left to fight about was not what belief system to follow, but who would hold key positions in the church. My election was viewed as a way to put in office someone who was an unwavering conservative but who had not been divisive and was very involved in advancing the mission of the denomination. The other person nominated was Ronnie Floyd, a good friend of mine, who today is one of our nation's most dynamic and innovative pastors in Spring-dale and Rogers, Arkansas, and leads one of the most influential ministries in the denomination. I've often joked with him that he may have gotten the better end of the deal by
not
being elected!

During my tenure, the denomination was able to avoid the angry schisms that had befallen other state conventions, and we had a peaceful and productive two years. To be fair, this had far less to do with me than it did with the rank-and-file pastors in Arkansas who kept the “main thing the
main thing
.” The main thing in this case was the goal of equipping people with biblical truth so they could live out the Gospel and mimic the life of Christ in their everyday lives. Being elected president of the state convention put me in a highly visible position not only with Arkansas Baptists but in other states as well. Southern Baptists make up 20 percent of the population of Arkansas, making it by far the largest denomination in the state. I received very favorable news coverage during my time as president, from both secular and denominational publications, and I traveled all over the state as a representative of the convention.

By early 1991, several good friends and others had asked me, “Have you ever thought about running for office?” While most of them had no idea of my plans some eleven years earlier to do just that, some of my old friends from high school and college, to whom I had mentioned those plans twenty years earlier, also encouraged me to consider it.

In early spring of 1991, the Arkansas legislature was considering some prolife legislation that then-Governor Bill Clinton's Health Department director, Dr. Joycelyn Elders (later appointed surgeon general under President Bill Clinton) was openly opposing. At one legislative hearing, Dr. Elders made the now-infamous statement that “preachers need to get over their love affair with a fetus” and that “preachers need to quit moralizing from the pulpit.”

The outrage was instant and intense. It was a direct insult to the character and integrity not only of pastors but of all prolife people in the state. Arkansas had passed an amendment to the state constitution in 1988 that declared a person to exist from the point of conception, and the state had a responsibility to protect human life until its natural conclusion. Not only were the pastors of the state incensed, but so were the voters, and a firestorm erupted throughout the state.

On several occasions during my tenure as Baptist Convention president, Governor Clinton contacted me to ask for input from the evangelical community. He was a shrewd and savvy politician and knew that the combined influence of Southern Baptists alone could turn an issue. While the debate over abortion raged, Governor Clinton called and asked if I would be willing to sit down privately with Dr. Elders and explain how evangelicals felt about the issue and why there was such a strong, visceral reaction to her comments. I agreed, and the governor's staff set up the meeting between Dr. Elders and me at her office.

She and I met for almost two hours. It was a thoughtful and civil conversation, and to this day, we've maintained a cordial relationship, but our views on the sanctity of life and the role of government in such issues were 180 degrees apart. When I arrived home that night after the two-and-a-half hour drive from Little Rock to Texarkana, I told Janet, “If these are the people who are setting the agenda for our children's future in school and in the community, then maybe we're going to have to get out of the stands and onto the field.” At the time I said that, I had no idea what it would lead to, but I knew that sitting back and letting others decide this issue wasn't enough.

Over the coming months, more people talked to me about the idea of running for office, and I began to seek counsel from trusted friends and other pastors. In several cases, I sought the advice of those who I thought for sure would discourage me, but to my surprise, I received encouragement. One of my mentors was Dr. Trueman Moore, a pastor in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and one of the most brilliant and thoughtful men I have ever known. He had become a source of inspiration and information for me, and I cherished his insights and respected his irreproachable integrity. I specifically sought him out assuming that he would discourage any notions I had about running for office. I was surprised when he said, “I would ordinarily advise a pastor to do what you're already doing, but in your case, I really feel that you should consider politics—we need people like you.”

One of my close friends since the days we had met at Arkansas Boys State in 1972 was Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs, Arkansas. (Boys State is a national program operated in each state by the American Legion to build citizenship and patriotism in young men.) I had been elected governor of Boys State, and he had been elected as one of the two national Boys State senators from Arkansas. In high school, we had talked about one day going into politics, and he had become a leader in state and local Republican circles, chairing the county organization of Benton County, the largest and most influential county. As I visited with him to get his insights, he suggested I get to know some other political operatives and activists and told me some people I should contact.

As the fall of 1991 began to turn toward winter, Janet and I had seriously contemplated the idea of my running for the United States Senate and determined that it would be absurd for me to even entertain the notion. Bill Clinton had announced his candidacy for president in October of 1991, and we knew that that alone would change the political landscape of the state.

We carefully sought to weigh all the ramifications of stepping out from what was a very comfortable and desirable life to get into something that would be an incredibly uphill climb. To get elected, I would have to defeat Dale Bumpers, a three-term U.S. senator and two-term governor. As Christmas approached, we knew that to run in 1992 I would have to make my decision soon and that if I decided to run, it would require another major transition in our lives that would bring upheaval to the peaceful and comfortable world we lived in.

In December of 1991, within days of Christmas, Janet and I took a long walk around the streets of our neighborhood and talked very honestly with each other about what might be the most game-changing decision of our marriage and our lives. It was a cool but not especially cold night, and we were able to take our time as we walked past the nicely decorated homes in our well-groomed subdivision, where our friends and neighbors were behind their doors preparing for Christmas, oblivious to the fact that just outside, Janet and I were on a journey that wouldn't just end when we got back home. In fact, what happened on that walk would ultimately lead us further from home than we could have ever imagined.

Christmas is the perfect time to reflect; it's a time for looking back. You look back to the first Christmas, to the year behind you, and to the year ahead. At Christmas, you are reminded what really matters—sacrifice, love, family, purpose—and this Christmas was no different. Janet and I were grateful for everything we had, but we also knew that politics would give me the opportunity to give back even more. First, we knew that running for office would mean having to resign from the church, and that meant walking away from a good income and a comfortable life—better than either of us had imagined living. It would mean opening our lives up to a level of scrutiny, hostility, and criticism unlike any we had faced. We couldn't fully understand just how lonely the journey would be at times and how much it would empty us of pretty much everything we had materially, personally, and spiritually. But we decided that we could hardly encourage people to be “salt and light” in a broken world if we weren't willing to step out of the boat and into the sea ourselves.