Passing on the baton

From childhood, I have been fascinated with relay races – in the pool or on the track. The careful handing over of the baton without losing a stroke or a stride in momentum. The cheers from an enthusiastic crowd of spectators watching on.

It took till I was much older before I heard the term mentor, or had any idea what it meant. I began to see some powerful pictures in Scripture as I observed team duos like Elijah & Elisha, Naomi & Ruth, Barnabas & Paul, Paul & Timothy. The wonderful energy and fruit that comes when one intentionally invests one's life into another.

I have seen it with counsellors in training who my wife has taken under her wing. How quickly they have developed under her modelling and supervision.

Yet for all this, I have been reluctant. I held back in offering any advice when as a young man in my mid-30s employed as a teaching elder in Christchurch, a friend some years my senior approached me one morning after I had spoken, and asked if I would share with him how I put a sermon together.

I cannot count the number of times God has prompted me to write this account of my journey, His prompts have been met with classic resistance, and my constant procrastination.

I stalled him by saying I didn't really know how to put it into words. Yet, if I was honest with myself, I did have a method and one that might encourage others if I would make the effort.

A new song

One day, my mind wandered to my own preaching beginnings. While still a young man, a Scotsman by the name of Jim began to ask me to accompany him on Sunday evenings when he was asked to preach at a Sunday gospel service at various places around Auckland. I was only 14 but I played the guitar while Jim played piano-accordion, and we both harmonised well together. The rule Jim lived by was simple – never do ministry alone! After some weeks, I got a phonecall: “Wayne, I'd like you to speak this time around.” I think my first attempt was something they call a sermonette (an 8-10 minute devotion), but I was in the saddle and there was no looking back.

I never did get to share with Ray how I constructed a message but over 20 years later, I had the opportunity to lead an elective on teaching at a spiritual gifts workshop weekend. It thrilled my heart and was so rewarding, perhaps like the swimmer touching the end of the pool signallng the next swimmer's entrance into the water, or the runner passing on the baton. In fact, we only got halfway through my material, I really needed to divide the elective into two parts. It felt so healing, even though so late in coming. If only I had done it sooner; the opportunity was there.

2 Timothy 2:2 says it all:

You shall teach people who you can trust the things you and many others have heard me say. Then they will be able to teach others
New Century Translation

Entrust this message to faithful individuals who will be competent to teach others
God's Word

Surely, it's the highest calling there is. Jesus invested three valuable years into 12 men, and the world's never been the same since. Notice it's passing the baton on to reliable, trusted, competent, faithful individuals. Paul doesn't teach an “any-man ministry.” The church cannot run well under the banner of an open teaching pulpit.

Wherever you're at in life, whatever age you're at in life, start sowing “pass the baton on” seeds. I've finally begun to learn something God tried to teach me 30 plus years ago. It must take in the whole of my life - my life as a preacher, when at work, my life as a husband, my life as a father.

Always be ready, to receive the seed that is planted your way through others

At a strategic crossroads in my life, a time when I would have been tempted to give up, a dear friend in our church approached me one day outside the church office. She looked me in the eye and said, “Wayne, there will always be work for you to do.” What a seed she planted that day! Be careful to “seed” your life and words into others and always to be ready, to receive the seed that is planted your way through others.

Perhaps, there lies a challenge for us in words from a most unlikely source, George Bernard Shaw: “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”¹ Praise God, when the Lord is leading the team, it's never too late.

¹ George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman