It was Epiphany, January 6, 1994. A Thursday. A typical Minnesota winter morning with a little snow overnight.
Got up early. Cleaned off the driveway. Read the paper. Ate breakfast. Got dressed: put on “the blacks” for a funeral later in the morning. At 8:05 A.m. I said goodbye to my wife, Pat, who would be leaving for work a few minutes later.
The roads were a little snow-packed, but conditions were not extreme. A few minutes after I arrived in the office, I heard a siren that was headed back up the road I had just traveled. I had a funny feeling. Then the telephone rang.
“Is this Steve McKinley?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife was just in an auto accident. She’s banged up a bit, but all right.”
I got the precise location of the accident and flew out the door. When I arrived at the scene, I instantly saw that the car was a mess. I was more concerned about Pat. I found her seated inside the paramedics’ vehicle, bleeding nastily from the forehead.
Off to the hospital emergency room. The doctors stitched her forehead and splinted her broken arm. To our great relief, the injuries were not severe. (A follow-up visit the next week also revealed a broken foot.) In a couple of hours, I took Pat home and cleared my schedule for the rest of the day. I did make one trip to check out the car–totalled.
BECOMING THE “MINISTEREE”
Friday, the next day. Worked some in the morning. Home in the afternoon to look after Pat, and to take her to the dentist to check out a chipped tooth. Fixed dinner. Started to dish it out. Burning pain in the middle of my upper chest. I had felt the same pain a few times earlier in the week but not to this extent. It shot down my left arm. Could hardly lift the pan off the stove.
I’m human: I tried to deny what was happening but couldn’t. I told the family, and in a few minutes, our eldest daughter coaxed me into her car, and we headed for the same emergency room I had been in with Pat the day before.
Let’s not make a long story of this: I had a mild heart attack. The following Monday I had an angiogram; one artery was badly clogged. By noon it was on to the next stage: angioplasty. The procedure removed one large can of pipe tobacco, a jar of Miracle Whip, a year’s supply of peanut butter, and a pound of bratwurst.
My hospital stay was under a week. Then it was home for convalescing, enjoying this unexpected and enforced time with Pat, and conversion to a new and healthier lifestyle. While we had not planned for this togetherness, we did our best to find the cloud’s silver lining.
To my shock and surprise, Grace Lutheran Church carried along swimmingly without me. Every time I talked to my staff colleagues or to the congregational leadership, they gave me a simple message: Everything is fine. Don’t worry about it. Right now the only thing you need to worry about is getting healthy again. Take as much time as you need.
In the meantime, I found myself in the unique position of being “ministered unto.” My associate had come to the hospital, along with our youth director, as soon as they returned from a retreat on Saturday. One pastoral pal and his wife, friends of ours for more than 25 years, were at my bedside on Saturday night, prayed with us, and saw to it that the rest of the family had a nourishing meal another night. Another buddy was regularly on the phone from Arizona. Still another colleague prayed with me over the phone. My bishop called Pat from Chicago; his staff kept in touch with both of us.
But not all of the ministry came from ordained professionals.
I will never forget two of my nurses: the one who laid down the law with bulldog determination that it was time for me to stop trying to run the church from my hospital bed and the other who prayed with me in the dark middle of the night before my angiogram and angioplasty.
We were besieged with cards, balloons, and flowers. The initial outpouring was so overwhelming that the hospital limited my visitors and phone calls for my protection. At home, dinner meals arrived every day for more than a week after I was home.
Volunteers plowed our driveway when more snow fell, brought salt for our water softener, delivered our younger daughter to her bowling league. One friend brought clothes for Pat to fit over her arm cast. Another drove her to doctor appointments when I could not, and drove me home from the hospital.
I am proud of my congregation, but I do not think their generosity is exceptional. We’ve provided support for families in need before and will again. No big deal. Your congregation does the same thing.
What was unusual was that they were doing it for me and my family. I am in the habit of being the field general, not the beneficiary. I get a kick out of the production end of things. But it is humbling to be on the receiving end. Perhaps even painfully humbling.
I am not into self-pity, but I had sometimes wondered if my congregation appreciated me. Now I wonder how I could have wondered that! The support Pat and I have received since her accident and my heart attack are clear evidence of a love greater than I had ever imagined.
I expect that many pastors are given to insecurity about the affection and esteem given by their congregations. It is sadly true that there are some fine pastors and associates in ministry who are doing yeo-person duty but not granted the affection and esteem they deserve.
However, much of the time our people probably love and respect us more than we realize.
I suggest that you take my word for that. You could probably prove it with an auto accident or a heart attack, but I do not recommend either.
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Steven McKinley is pastor of House of Prayer Lutheran Church in Richfield, Minnesota.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
