Dr. J. Howard Olds, former senior pastor of Brentwood United Methodist Church in Brentwood, Tenn., pastored one of the largest Methodist churches in America. He hosted a popular "Faith Breaks" radio ministry and wrote or coauthored three books, including his most recent, "Led to Follow: Leadership Lessons from an Improbable Pastor and a Reluctant CEO" (Abingdon Press, 2008). In this book, which he wrote with Cal Turner, Jr. (retired CEO of Dollar General), we get a glimpse of a mega-pastor who was not afraid to admit his human ambitions.
Olds continued preaching for 30 days after his official retirement at age 62; one month after that, he passed away from cancer. His 11-year battle with the disease was marked by laughter, introspection, and spiritual deepening.
Howard's transparency and passion for ministry endeared him to many. If you lead a church or ministry, you may be encouraged by the following excerpts from "Led to Follow," which was published just months before Olds' retirement:
Finding my soul beneath all the roles
Very early in my life I set out to earn the blessing and approval of my parents, especially my father. I never got it from either of them. I excelled in school to earn the recognition that I missed at home. … Finally, I played the trump card. I announced I was going to college to study for the ministry. No one else in our family had attended college. Clergy, from my observation, were held in high esteem by my parents. Surely this would alter the tides of time. My father responded, 'Well, you might as well be a preacher. You're too lazy to do anything else.'
For years as an adult I pursued leadership positions in a desperate attempt to gain the recognition and approval of my parents or any other parental figures I could find. This 'chasing after the wind' proved to be costly to my emotional maturity, my marriage, my colleagues, and, most of all, the congregations I was called to serve. I remember a pastoral counselor telling me a long time ago that I was the most ambitious person he had ever met and he didn't know how I would ever learn to handle it. … When it hit me [later] that I was a loved child of God without proving anything, I cried for hours. That simple truth altered my whole approach to life.
… I have learned the hard way that life is not a matter of competition but of cooperation with our innermost being. Finding my soul beneath all the roles I'd been playing brought me a deep sense of assurance and helped me redefine those roles and bring my true self to them. That is why following the person inside—the image of God in each of us—is a key to fruitfulness and an answer to restlessness.
A calling since birth
Ministry is in my bones. My calling has been there, I think, since my birth. When I was 8 years old, I used to play church. I would line up the kitchen chairs in our tiny little living room, put hymnals out and get up in the front and preach.
By the time I was 12, I was wrestling with this notion that maybe I was being called to professional ministry. I saw the church as a place of comfort and safety, a place to run to when I didn't like it at home. … I felt like I was in the way, like I'd been abandoned. But I never felt abandoned by God. During the worst of times as an adolescent, God was a refuge. Since the beginning, I wanted to be a preacher, and that calling has never fundamentally altered.
I think part of the appeal might have been the student ministers who were coming into town, and by the time I was 16 or 17 I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I belonged in a local church where I could preach and where I could hold people's hands at critical moments in their lives. I didn't even know what colleges were available, and I went to Asbury just because that's where the student pastors to our church came from.
I was 18 when I took my first appointment to two little churches. One of them had about eight members, one of them 16. There would be from two to ten people in church on Sunday. I used to dream about the three big churches that I wanted to lead in Kentucky, but the guiding hand of God led me elsewhere, sometimes against my will.
[In] 2000, I was nominated for the episcopacy, and my name was circulated across the denomination. Not long afterward, a man who had been a student pastor in our little church when I was 5 or 6 years old called me. … He said that when I was no more than five, my mother was praying at the altar in that church. She looked up at him and said, 'The Lord just told me that Bubby [as I was called then] is going to be a minister.' She never mentioned that to me, even though I had been a pastor for 15 years when she died. 'I just thought maybe you need to know that,' he said.
His 50-year-old story confirmed to me that I had indeed been a minister since birth. I never did choose it. It's just always been there, and I think that's why I never burned out as other pastors have. I've gotten tired and weary, and I've had my moments with it along the way, but I bounced back and I love it now more than I ever have. Health problems and all, my passion is as alive at 62 as when I first preached to that empty row of chairs.
Editor's Note: Church Central President Tom Harper knew Dr. Howard Olds well. "He meant a lot to me," Harper says. "He was a long-time friend of our family, performed my marriage ceremony, always had a huge smile and a bear hug for those he loved — and he was beloved by thousands." Harper says understanding Olds as a man and a minister helps him understand himself and ministry.
Portions of text from "Led to Follow: Leadership Lessons from an Improbable Pastor and a Reluctant CEO" (Abingdon Press, 2008,) are reprinted with permission.
