Today is the official send-off for Jerry Nichols. We can’t be in Champaign, IL in person, so I shall say to good-bye to my 45-year friend and colleague this way.
Jerry was one of the kindest, most gentle, people I have ever known. An ideal pastor, except…
His wife, Nancy, was not the traditional model of a pastor’s wife. She was a singer and actress. Not flamboyant, but not interested in discussing the color of the new carpet for the church lounge. She did her own thing, in her own way. Church members did not appreciate that.
Today, most churches wouldn’t even notice an independent preacher’s wife. Some would even applaud it.
My last appointment was to a vibrant congregation in a small, old-fashioned town. Jane Jenkins, our Lay Leader was an elegant woman who had started in the office of a large corporation in a city near us and had worked her way up from part-time secretary to vice-president. It was a multi-national corporation, and she traveled all over the world for her job. She was a 21st century woman in a 19th century town. But she was a committed church woman, who still lived in her home town. Some folks didn’t understand how far she had come. She said to Helen, “Thank you for being here. You check all the boxes for the perfect preacher’s wife, but you’re also a full-time teacher. It gives legitimacy to all the rest of us women who work at full-time jobs.”
That was the 1990s. But back in the 1960-70s, when Jerry and I were new in ministry, society was changing so rapidly. People wanted the assurance of a church that clung to the old values. That meant a preacher’s wife who acted like one. That wasn’t Nancy.
Nancy died in January this year. I met her because Jerry and I became friends as we worked together as neighboring pastors, but she became a friend to me in her own right. She got colon cancer very soon after I did. We went through treatments together, in different places, but together in sharing experiences and fears and hopes. It was she from whom I got the phrase, “Cancer is the answer,” that I used in my cancer book. [1] Remarkably, she dealt with a colostomy for 30 years.
Jerry and I had a lot of good times together, lunches and cuppas [aka, “coffee with…”], when we pastored in neighboring places. We shared dreams. So, after Helen, he was the first person I told when the bishop said he was going to appoint me to a large university church, “the perfect place for you.” I was excited about it. I was sure he would be excited for me. Instead, his face fell. “I guess that’s never going to happen for me,” he said.
I knew what he was thinking, because we had talked about it. Nancy. For all her gifts, as a preacher’s wife, she was a handicap. The ever-kind and ever-patient Jerry said to me, “I try to be faithful to God, and I try to be faithful to Nancy.” But he knew that despite his faithfulness, Nancy would always short-change his career.
So, that’s how I became the secret DS of our conference.
District Superintendents are sub-bishops, presiding over an area that contains 100 or so churches. It’s the bishop who, technically, makes the appointment of pastor to church, but it’s the DS who really makes the match. Except for big churches, where the senior pastor “hires” associate pastors, and the DS and bishop stamp their approval on it.
Jerry needed an appointment that was “the perfect place for you,” where he could use his gifts, be faithful to God, but where Nancy would be able to be herself, too. I decided to get Jerry that place. I called Roger Rominger, who was senior pastor of the very large downtown church in Springfield. He didn’t know Jerry, but agreed to interview him. Later he told me, “That’s the best thing anybody ever did for me. Jerry’s a gift. He is the pastor of the building. I have to be all over the place. So do other staff members. Jerry is always there in the office. Someone needs counseling, he’s there. A homeless guy needs a meal, he’s there. Somebody has a complaint, he’s there. Some emergency arises, he’s there. He handles everything that comes up with the same grace and kindness. He's the daily face of the church. He makes us look better than we really are.”
That worked so well that I continued to broker those situations directly. Many preachers complained to me about unused gifts. So I continued to act as a go-between for them and those who could get them into position to use their gifts.
After Jerry retired, he continued to preach, at a small village church, for 15 years, while he also became a hospital chaplain, a position he continued almost until his death. Always faithful to God. And to Nancy.
John Robert McFarland
1] NOW THAT I HAVE
CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Faith & Life for Cancer Patients and
Those Who Love Them.
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