When your Mentor Passes

When your mentor passes from this life to the next, you see even more clearly his influence on your life.  This past weekend, my first ministry mentor, Rev. Carlton Hansen passed away.  Pastor Hansen was my Pastor at Dayton Parkview Church of the Nazarene and then my first District Superintendent. 

When I was 14 years old I said yes to God’s call on my life to full-time pastoral ministry, but I told no one.  You see, I was so painfully shy that I could not even see in myself the qualities that I thought a good pastor needed to have and I had no desire to stand before people and preach.  So, I figured I would just keep my calling to myself—maybe it would go away.  But one Sunday evening, I was walking into the sanctuary and Pastor Hansen grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye and asked, “Chad, is God calling you into ministry?”  I was stunned.  How did he know?  I had told know one.  I answered, “I think so.”  He smiled his big smile and said, “I can see how God will use you.  You are called.”  How could he see what I could not even see?  But he was convinced even more than I was of my call.  In fact, that same Sunday night, he announced it in front of the entire congregation and had me stand.  I wanted to crawl in a hole as I did not like attention drawn to myself.  But it was exactly what I needed.  If not for him announcing it, I may never had done so and I may have even run from my calling, but he committed me. 

Next, he started letting me experience ministry. He had me teaching Sunday school classes, visiting shut-ins, going with our Pastor of visitation on hospital calls and even preaching (for those of you who endured my first sermons let just apologize).  But with every opportunity he gave me, my calling became more and more real to me. I began to see a glimpse into why I was put on this planet earth.  It did not make any sense that God would call a shy, awkward person like me, but Pastor Hansen gave me permission to see myself from a different perspective. 

Fast forward seven years.  It was my senior year at Nazarene Theological Seminary.  I met with a few District Superintendents to see who would take a green, single Pastor-want-to-be.  Somehow Pastor Hansen found out that I was interviewing.  He called me and gave me a gentle, but clear rebuke.  He said, “Chad, quit interviewing with those other guys.  There is nothing open in South West Ohio right now, but I believe God wants you here so he will open a door.”  I just did what I was told and stopped looking elsewhere.  Once again, Pastor Hansen saw what others did not.  Centerville First Church of the Nazarene would close and West Carrollton Nazarene would restart that dead church.  “Chad,” Pastor Hansen said, “I want you to come and interview as the restart Pastor.”  I said, “Pastor Hansen, I don’t know anything about starting a church.  I have had one class on church planting and I have no experience.”  He said, just come.  So, I just came.  And somehow, I am sure with Pastor Hansen’s influence, West Carrollton voted to call me to be on staff for six months, to send 40 people and to support the new church financially for one year.  I was scared to death, but once again I relied on Pastor Hansen’s faith.  He gave me the courage to believe that God loved to take dead things and breathe new life in them. 

Then, because this was basically the first new start church in 50 years on the district, he said I was the expert and he appointed me the New Start director. Ha!  It still makes me laugh.  Once again, I had no idea what I was doing, but Pastor Hansen called me out into leadership with his typical sink or swim methodology.  And before he retired we had reached his goal of seeing ten new starts in the works.  Once again he saw what others could not see before they actually were. 

Well, he retired, I got busy in ministry and having a family and our contact changed from common to occasional.  But this past year, when I felt like had made the hardest decision of my ministry and announced my resignation from Living Hope after 14 ½ years to lead Canton First as their Pastor and for the purpose of a refocus, it was Pastor Hansen’s Facebook comment that meant the most to me.  He simply said, “I have no doubt that Chad would not make this move if he did not believe God was calling him to do so.”  Once again, he had confidence that I did not even have in my own decision. Once again he gave me permission to accept God’s call.

Then a little over a week ago he and I had our last communication.  I sent him a private face book message expressing my gratitude and love for him.  He was too weak to reply on his own so Mrs. Hansen wrote back.  And guess what he did?  One last time, he spoke blessing and life over me and my ministry.  He said, “Chad, I always knew God called you and would use you.”  He was dying and in pain, but to the end he would be a man who saw and believed what even today I struggle to see or believe about myself.  And once again, he gave me permission to believe that if he saw it, maybe there was something more that God could show me too.

I am very thankful for Pastor Hansen.  The truth is, I am not half the pastor he was.  But the half that I am is because that man dared to look in the shy eyes of an awkward 14 year old and call out something more.  I thank God for Pastor and Mrs. Hansen’s influence in my life.  I am very sad that he is gone.  But I am so happy that he has heard Jesus say what anyone who sat under him has always thought, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”