February 17, 2003
Think you're too old for ministry?
Emulate Father Buckner, speaker says
___DALLA--Age should be no barrier to continued ministry, Mary Stephens told 500 people attending Buckner Baptist Benevolences' Founder's Day celebration.
___Ministry founder R.C. Buckner provides a model of lifelong ministry, said Stephens, vice president of Buckner Retirement Services. Buckner Baptist Benevolences was founded in 1879 by the larger-than-life figure known to many as Father Buckner.
___Much of his ministry was conducted in his senior years, she explained.
___Born in 1833, Buckner's life expectancy should have been 50 to 55 years, Stephens reported. That means that in 1879, when he filed the charter for Buckner Orphans Home, "he could technically have been called a 'senior adult' since he was 46."
___She cataloged Buckner's additional achievements in his later years, including organizing the Dallas Humane Society at age 55 and, beginning at age 61, serving as president of the Baptist General Convention, a position he held for 19 years.
___At 67, he traveled to Galveston in a wagon after the great hurricane of 1900 and brought back to Dallas many orphan children. The Galveston News carried the story of his
| At 82, R.C. Buckner baptized 87 children in 35 minutes, and he established the Goodnight Panhandle Home at age 85. |
trip and aid with a banner headline, Stephens noted.
___He began four years of service as president of a black orphanage near Gilmer when he was 68. At 71, he was elected the first president of the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium, now known as Baylor University Medical Center.
___She quoted his own words when responding to a 1909 assessment of him as a "grand old man."
___"If so," he replied, "then like an old grand piano, the polish rubbed off by repeated careless touch of many children's fingers, the strings rusty and the keys discolored by age. ... My shoulders are not tired of the burden, my heart is not faint, my hope does not waiver, and no clouds shall dim the light of hope that cheers my spirit."
___Other accounts supported proof of his vigor. In 1913, at 80, he attended the annual possum hunt on the orphans' home campus, where he climbed trees and shook down seven possums.
___Later that year, he traveled to China and preached where dozens of people professed faith in Jesus Christ. After his trip, he said, "I enter upon my 81st year, hale, hearty and hopeful, and this must be my busiest and most successful year ... unless other years to come shall exceed it."
___Before he died at age 86, other accounts show him baptizing 87 children in 35 minutes (at age 82) and establishing the Goodnight Panhandle Home (at age 85).
___Stephens called Buckner's deeds in senior adulthood "Herculean" and noted that at his death, one speaker said Buckner "towered above almost every other man in the world in knowledge, respecting the good work of caring for orphan children and dependent aged people."
___Also during the program, three R.C. Buckner Founder's Awards were given to individuals and organizations who have made a significant impact on the ministry of Buckner.
___Clara and Oliver Rushing, members of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, received the R.C. Buckner Founder's Award for their volunteer work at a Buckner after-school program in Dallas. The TLL Temple Foundation received the R.C. Buckner Founder's Award for Philanthropist of the Year for its support of Buckner Family Place in Lufkin. Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston received the R.C. Buckner Founder's Award for dedicated church service for its long-time support through giving, Buckner senior ministry volunteers and international missions volunteers.
___
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
|