Everyday Hero #2

 September 15, 2022

My second everyday hero has gone on to be with the Lord: Bob Pascoe was my District superintendent in the early 90’s. His coming on the district happened to coincide with an occupational crisis I was experiencing at the time. I had been pastor here in Sinclairville for about ten years, and was doing all the pastoral things we clergy do; preparing and preaching sermons, making hospital calls, baptizing people, marrying and burying folks, leading meetings, etc., but it had lost its lustre. I was going through the motions, but finding little satisfaction in it. I thought to myself, “If I have to do this the rest of my life, I won’t be able to stand it.”

At his very first meeting with all the district pastors, Bob cited statistics documenting our denominational decline and said, “If we continue doing church the way we’ve been doing it, there won’t be a United Methodist Church in twenty years.” He then proposed grouping pastors according to the size of our congregations instead of by geography. Park church at the time was in between what he called the “pastoral church,” and the “program church.” The former had an average attendance of from about 75 to 150, the latter from 150-300. The pastoral size is about all one pastor can handle by himself. The program church needed a more organized approach with volunteer staff. I decided I wanted to play with the big boys, and Bob led by taking us to seminars and conferences all over the country.

Methodist pastors are not generally known for lengthy tenures at their churches, but Bob wanted to see what would happen if we were able to stay for ten, twenty, and even thirty years. When the bishop wanted to get me back in the active itineracy, Bob protected me, giving me time to grow the church and to heal it when things went south. During that time, Bob was my listening ear and spiritual counselor. 

To this day, I don’t know why he took me under his wing, but he literally saved my ministry by doing so. I will always be in his debt. When cancer took him from us, I lost a good friend and ally. In Bob, the Scripture was fulfilled: “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24). Bob was that friend to me.