Ministry For A Lifetime

What does “ministry for a lifetime” look like? To me, it looks like Vernon Grounds. When I first met him, I was four years old, and he was president of the seminary where my dad had just come to teach. By the time I was ten, I held Dr. Grounds in near awe. He employed the most impressive vocabulary I’d ever heard (I think it was in one of his sermons that I first heard the words perspicacity and concupiscence), but just as remarkably, he was one of the warmest and (vocabulary notwithstanding) unstuffiest men I’d ever met.

When he put his arm around my shoulders and asked, “How goes the battle?” I never knew what to say, but I knew he really wanted to know. He was Gandalf and the Apostle Paul rolled into one.

To my pre-teen eyes, he was ancient, but a timeless and wise man. Turns out, he was only about as old then as I am now.

This year marks Vernon’s 50th anniversary at Denver Seminary, where he currently serves as chancellor and, at age 88, continues an active ministry of counseling and encouragement.

Recently a student at Denver Seminary told about his first day at the school. After the orientation, getting all the syllabi, hearing all that was expected of him, he walked out totally overwhelmed. He slipped into a side room and, sitting on the floor, burst into sobs.

After a time he heard footsteps, then realized someone was sitting on the floor beside him. The person gently touched his shoulder and said, “I don’t mean to intrude, but whenever you feel like it, come to my office and we can talk.”

It was, of course, Dr. Grounds.

My dad, church historian Bruce Shelley, in a soon-to-be-published biography of Vernon Grounds, tells about another occasion when an attorney, while working out in a gym, became friends with a fellow who was there lifting weights. The attorney’s new friend turned out to be a professor, seminary president, and counselor.

The attorney’s marriage was crumbling. His wife wanted a divorce. And after a while he decided to talk with Vernon. As the two discussed things, Vernon had him draw up a list of options on a piece of paper: 1. Stay in the marriage. 2. Separate temporarily. 3. Divorce.

Then, since desperate events had driven the attorney to consult his new friend, Vernon urged him to add Number 4. Suicide.

Then he said matter-of-factly, “And, of course, there is murder.”

Not many things can shock a practicing trial lawyer, but this got his undivided attention. He began to object. “That never entered my mind.”

“Come now, Marty. You mean to tell me that a lawyer, who’s spent as much time in the courts as you have, does not know someone who will kill for money? Surely the thought has crossed your mind.”

The attorney said later, “Vernon may as well have clubbed me with a baseball bat. He was right—the name of such a person was instantly in my mind.”

“Write it down,” he said.

Then Vernon took the list and said, “Can we agree that, as Christians, murder is not a viable choice?”

Marty nodded.

“Can we also agree as Christians that self-murder, or suicide, is not a viable choice?” They went to what were Christian alternatives.

The whole exchange was so shocking that a decade later the attorney reflected, “I was in dire need of a serious dose of reality, and Vernon knew exactly how to deliver it.”

From his early days as a student evangelist till now as a resident sage, his mind is supple and his heart tender. He’s been that way for a lifetime.

(Dr. Grounds participated in our forum on Spiritual Vitality, along with Erwin McManus, Ben Patterson, and Sheila Walsh, held at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego. “It’s imperative to have a friend with whom you can unzip your viscera,” Dr. Grounds said. The forum appears in the Summer issue of Leadership.)

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