John W. Drakeford
Dr. John Drakeford had an open-door policy. Yes, the counseling icon, who pioneered a Christ-centered approach to psychology and counseling, had a rule that whenever his office door was open, any student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary could walk in.
But that’s not the open door policy to which I refer.
Dr. Drakeford also had this thing about the door to his classroom. He saw to it that it remained open at all times, propped so by a chair. Without fail, when a student arrived a bit late to class, he/she would grab that available chair, and the classroom door would swing shut.
“Suh, suh!” Dr. Drakeford would say in his beautiful Australian accent. “Could you choose another seat? I like to keep the door propped open in case of fire or something.”
I don’t think anybody else in the room believed that propping two swinging doors open would stop any of us from getting the heck outta’ there if the building was burning down. But who wants to argue with the author of Psychology in Search of the Soul?
One day, right in the middle of one of Drakeford’s fascinating lectures, somebody nabbed the empty chair and took off down the hall. I believe to this day it was a prank. [click to continue…]
I never knew Bill Hyde.
I will one day.
Bill was a church planter. I know a little about that; I planted a church five years ago. Bill planted six hundred, and just before he died, he hosted a then-record 3,700 participants in a Pioneer Evangelism conference. His vision: to plant 3,000 churches. He took what people were adding in the Philippines, and began multiplying their efforts ten-fold.
I never heard Bill’s deep bass voice, singing or otherwise.
I will one day.
Bill gave up a career in music or teaching because, as one person put it, he wasn’t content leading a quiet, happy life teaching music. Instead, he and Lyn, his wife, chose the frontlines of the battle. They were appointed as missionaries in 1978.
I never hung out, played golf, argued, or even shook hands with Bill. I sure hope I can one day.
Jim Cox, his former co-worker, said that Bill was a big guy:
Big in stature, big smile, big laugh, big hands, big heart. Bill was a musician, a teacher, a planner, an organizer and a doer. He had strong opinions, enjoyed a good argument and a game of dominoes. Bill and I played golf together weekly. He was my perfect golfing companion because he was as bad a golfer as I—not that we kept score anyway.
Bill and I have met in one way. [click to continue…]
I’ve done reunions badly, if at all. Never went to a high school reunion. And while I do have my share of sentimentality, somewhere in my brain is a switch that flips with life changes. “Move on,” it says, and typically I do.This year was different. Somehow in one of those once-in-a-lifetime periods of alignment, I had two reunions in exactly the same location within a week of each other. [click to continue…]
