The Significance of Mentors
by Mike Chancellor,
pastor Cresent Heights Baptist Church, Abilene

Dr. Janes Shields

A celebration honoring Dr. James Shields’ retirement from Hardin Simmons University was held recently at the Taylor County Exposition Center in Abilene.

The celebration was a labor of love for someone whose life and teaching cast a giant shadow across our many lives. It was appropriate that as Dr. Shields approached his retirement, friends and former students should mark it with celebration and gratitude.

I have long thought that Dr. Shields was a good model of the kind of teaching that makes a difference in the Kingdom. Let me give some reasons why:

First, his teaching was consistent across the years. He always prepared, he balanced his material with a scholarship and theology. He challenged students to think, to move beyond the narrow furrows that often characterize our intellectual endeavors.

As I listened to the testimonies of those who came to honor Dr. Shields, the second feature of his teaching struck me. Speakers often passed quickly over his good teaching to speak of his life and compassion. He befriended many of us when he invited students to his office, his home, his favorite fishing holes.

While we played Acquire (A Milton- Bradley Bookcase game) or fished with him, we learned life lessons. Some were about integrity, being one’s best, compassion toward others, and living a balanced and honorable life.

I guess Dr. Shields was the first person I ever knew who was not afraid to challenge the self-righteous veneer that often can cover those preparing for and serving in the ministry. Dr. Shields kept us honest.

My deepest regret and greatest criticism of my seminary education were the absence of such relationships with the faculty. For Master of Divinity students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, we had the “honor” of sitting in the classes of some “great” faculty. Most of us did not have the opportunity to walk with them as heirs together in the grace of life.

While Southwestern touted its size, the impoverished teaching amazed me. Most of us had only the classroom at Southwestern. Wise people know that one is not prepared for the ministry by just sitting in the classroom. Students need the partnership of a shared life.

Dr. Shields has helped me see that we need more than just the classroom in the university and the seminary experience. We need also the experiences outside that reveal examples that span a lifetime. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Christian teaching is not just about fine lectures, because wisdom is acquired by seeing, not just hearing. I think Dr. Shields shows us the difference between imparting information and changing lives. I pray his tribe increases.

Something more is here. As we worked on this celebration for Dr. Shields, I had the occasion to reflect upon what it means to be a leader in the Kingdom.

Some see leadership as offering the opportunity to manage, control, or otherwise exert power over people. Their view of leadership is, “whatever it takes.”

So they define the pastor’s role to include being the spiritual boss of the church. One person ruling and giving the orders is more efficient. That lot has fallen to the pastor (unless of course you happen to be in a church where some deacon/deacons believe that is their lot).

In Jesus, we find a different model— one of serving others. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” (Matthew 20:28 NIV) Power was directed toward doing good, not controlling people or situations.

Second, I note that Kingdom leadership is drawn from a feature of modern life. I call it the difference between show horses and work horses. One looks good, the other works hard often under difficult circumstances.

When one thinks of kingdom leadership, the appearances that swirl around the show horses of the kingdom often impresses the world. After all, they are so charismatic, so compelling! Often, like shooting stars, they are here today, and gone tomorrow.

“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (I Corinthians 4:2 NIV) When it comes to Kingdom leadership, Dr. Shields taught us God was more concerned with faithfulness than the fleeting veneer of appearances.

Faithfulness keeps one to the task until it is done. It keeps one holding on to the standards no matter what the cost. It also welds the servant’s heart to God’s heart.

The secular culture of power and greed have slowly crept into the work of the Kingdom and unfortunately into the pulpits of Baptist life. The results are tragic: driven men who rule those entrusted to them with little regard to Biblical or historic Baptist precepts; driven men who have come to be served not to serve; driven men whose egos and ambitions know no bounds; driven men who baptize their hunger for power, possessions, and privilege in the murky waters of distorted spirituality.

As Dr. Shields finishes his official teaching career, his well-lived life bears witness to the need in our time for teachers/pastors/ leaders of excellence who are people of character and integrity committed to disciple leaders for a new millennium.

July 1999