Muddling Toward Maturity Blog: A STORY OF AUTHENTICITY AND HUMILITY

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Wednesday, 05 December 2012

A STORY OF AUTHENTICITY AND HUMILITY

TimChallies tells a moving story: (HT: Justin Taylor)

Doug Nichols is a friend of mine through the Internet. He is the Founder and Director of Action International Ministries and in that role he travels all over the world promoting missions and evangelism. He emails me often and from all parts of the world with words of encouragement. He closes almost every email by saying, “Let me encourage you with this” and then shares a Scripture passage. I love it.

It was a long time ago, in the summer of 1966, that Doug was working for Operation Mobilization and was stationed in London during their big annual conference. He was assigned to the clean-up crew. One night at around 12:30 AM he was sweeping the steps at the conference center when an older gentleman approached him and asked if this was where the conference was being held. Doug said that it was, but that just about everyone had already gone to bed. This man was dressed very simply and had just a small bag with him. He said that he was attending the conference. Doug replied he would try to find him a place to sleep and led him to a room where about 50 people were bunked down on the floor. The older gentleman had nothing to sleep on, so Doug laid down some padding and a blanket and offered a towel for a pillow. The man said that would be just fine and that he appreciated it very much.

Doug asked the man if he had been able to eat dinner. It turns out that he hadn’t eaten since he had been travelling all day. Doug took him to the dining room but it was locked. He soon jimmied the lock and found some cornflakes and milk and bread and jam. As the man ate, the two began to talk. The man said that he and his wife had been working in Switzerland for several years, where he had a small ministry that served hippies and travellers. He spoke about his work and spoke about some of the people he had seen turn to Christ. When he finished eating, both men turned in for the night.

Doug woke up the next morning only to find out that he was in big trouble. The conference leaders came to him and said, “Don’t you know who it was that you put on the floor last night? That’s Francis Schaeffer! He’s the speaker for this conference! We had a whole room set aside for him!”

Doug had no idea that he was sleeping on the floor next to a celebrity, that he had told a man to sleep on the floor who had a profoundly important ministry. He had no idea that this man had helped shape the Christian church of that day, and really, the church of our day. And Schaeffer never let on. In humility he had accepted his lot and been grateful for it.

That is just a tiny little glimpse into a man’s life. Francis Schaeffer lived for 72 years and this little story consumed less than half of one of the 26,000 days of his life. But it tells you a lot about the man. I think it tells you as much about the man as his public ministry does. A book may proclaim that he is brilliant, but a story like this proclaims that he is humble. A speech in front of thousands may proclaim that he is a great philosopher, but the story tells us that that he is godly. There is so much we can learn about a person from those little otherwise-forgotten moments. It’s not only the great things a person does that make the man, but the small things.

When Doug tells the story he offers an application that has helped him. Not many of us can have the intellect of Francis Schaeffer; not many of us will ever have his abilities or his wisdom. But what we can do is reach out to others and minister to them with godly humility.

Me: I love this story. Years ago I met Doug Nichols. He's authentic and humble, too. I know OM life, and can imagine the setting of this story. As for Francis Schaeffer, like so many others, I owe him a huge personal debt. Encountering his person and works dramatically enlarged and deepened my own understanding of the Gospel and it's relevance to all of life. Schaeffer started a spiritual and intellectual revolution that changed the face of evangelicalism.

Justin Taylor offers the following resources:

Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life
Barry Hankins, Francis Schaeffer And the Shaping of Evangelical America
Lane Dennis, ed., The Letters of Francis A. Schaeffer
Bruce Little, ed., Francis Schaeffer: A Mind and Heart for God
Bryan Follis, Truth with Love: The Apologetics of Francis Schaeffer
J. I. Packer, “No Little Person“
Jerram Barrs, “Francis Schaeffer: The Man and His Message“
Credo Magazine, “Francis Schaeffer at 100“
William Edgar, Schaeffer on the Christian Life: Countercultural Spirituality, Theologians on the Christian Life Series

I would strongly recommend you visit Credo Magazine's articles “Francis Schaeffer at 100“ The introduction points out:

The year 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). It is difficult to think of an evangelical figure in the 20th century who so seriously engaged the philosophies and ideologies of the secular world and set them over against the Christian worldview than Francis Schaeffer.

But Schaeffer was no ordinary evangelical. The man wore knickers and knee high socks when he lectured, sporting not only long hair but a goat’s-chin beard! Most importantly, Schaeffer did not fear man, but feared God. Not only did he engage secular worldviews, but he confronted his fellow evangelicals, even rebuking them for doctrinal concession and compromise.

As many have observed, it is not an overstatement to say that the Schaeffers transformed, reshaped, and in many ways reformed American evangelicalism. Those writing in this new issue of Credo Magazine are proof, each writer bearing testimony to how Francis Schaeffer has made a monumental impact on how we understand and articulate the Christian faith and life in the world of ideas. Contributors include Bruce Little, William Edgar, Bryan Follis, and Stephen Wellum, and many others.