Mentors Wanted

NEW LIFE – Pastor Rusty McMullen grins as 10-year-old Naomi exits the baptistry following her public profession of faith in Jesus at First Baptist Church of McAlester, Oklahoma.

The weight of failure rested on Rusty McMullen’s shoulders like an anvil.

Less than two years into his ministry, the then 30-yearold Oklahoma Baptist pastor was grieving a series of broken marriages that had shattered the lay leadership at his small church. Five couples within 18 months. Each had come to him for counseling in a last-ditch effort to stay together. McMullen did what he could, but one by one, all five marriages fell apart.

“Some of these couples had been married for 20 or 30 years. They were leaders in the church,” McMullen remembers. Seminary hadn’t prepared him for this. Nothing could have. “I was a brand-new pastor. I really had no clue how to shepherd them,” he admits.

“What-if” questions gnawed at McMullen’s heart. Maybe he had said the wrong things. Maybe he wasn’t presenting Scripture clearly. Or maybe he wasn’t supposed to be a pastor at all.

“I believed I had failed so miserably. All these couples came to me for help and they still divorced,” he says. “I thought, ‘OK Lord, obviously I misunderstood my calling.’”

McMullen felt his only option was to resign. But before taking that last desperate step, he turned to a fellow pastor, friend and mentor—Hance Dilbeck.

IRON SHARPENS IRON – BGCO leader Hance Dilbeck (right) draws on more than 30 years of experience as he mentors young pastors like Rusty McMullen.

Dilbeck leads the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO). Although the role requires him to balance a full plate of challenges on behalf of Oklahoma Baptists, one of his great passions is mentoring, training and sending out young pastors.

He says problems like the one McMullen faced are surprisingly common. During Dilbeck’s 30-plus year career as a minister, he has witnessed too many

young pastors walk away from the ministry. Regardless of the circumstances, he says the root cause is usually discouragement.

“In my experience, much of what a mentor does for a young pastor is keep him from quitting,” Dilbeck explains. That’s exactly what he did for McMullen.

“Hance said to me, ‘Rusty, the problem is that you’ve assumed this ministry belongs to you and not the Lord,’” McMullen remembers. “‘You’ve assumed that you’re the shepherd of the church and that Jesus isn’t. But your calling isn’t to be shepherd, it’s to be the under-shepherd. Christ is the one that will take responsibility for the good and bad that happens in the church. He will shoulder the load. What you have to do is be faithful to care for people as best you can and trust Him with the results.’”

Understanding that truth changed the course of McMullen’s life.

McMullen welcomes members and guests with a warm handshake or hug before Sunday morning services at FBC McAlester.

“Those words that the Lord spoke through Hance kept me in ministry,” McMullen says. “I would have quit. I had

every intention of going home and telling my wife, ‘I’m going to resign this Sunday.’”

But today, seven years later, McMullen is still pastoring. He now leads First Baptist Church in McAlester, Oklahoma, where Dilbeck’s wisdom still echoes.

“I’ve replayed those words countless times in my mind as I face new challenges as a young pastor,” McMullen says.

LEADERSHIP DEFICIT

The need for that kind of godly wisdom has never been greater. According to the BGCO, Oklahoma Baptists have witnessed between 11 and 16 percent declines in church membership, worship attendance and baptisms over the past decade.

“We have a deficit of pastoral leadership. We have a lot of feeble churches that need to be strengthened,” Dilbeck says. “One of the primary keys to strong churches is healthy pastors. Not rock stars, but men who have strong, vital relationships with Christ, who have healthy relationships at home, who are committed to the Word and to evangelism.”

But Dilbeck admits leading a church has changed significantly since he was a young pastor, which is why mentors are so important.

“The young pastor has a much more difficult job today,” he says. “He faces more obstacles and a more diverse set of expectations—some external, some self-imposed. Pastors expect opposition from the world, but not from inside their church. A mentor helps sort through expectations and helps the pastor know what he should respond to and what he should reject as unhealthy and unreasonable.”

Some days the expectations seem overwhelming. Leading a multi-generational church comes with a built-in set of challenges, McMullen says, from worship-style preferences to theological nuances. The competitive nature among churches is difficult, too. McMullen says these things sometimes leave him feeling isolated.

ALTAR CALL – With her mother at her side, 11-year-old Chloe comes forward to receive Christ during a Sunday morning service at FBC McAlester.

“It’s tough feeling alone, with few friends and no one knowing what I’m going through,” he says. “That, plus the challenges of everyday leadership of a church make my relationship with a mentor like Hance a true blessing.”

Dilbeck understands. He learned the benefits of mentoring firsthand after graduating from high school.

“I had a mentor who was a volunteer youth minister,” Dilbeck recalls. “He knew God had prepared me to serve Him before I did. I was planning to pursue another career when I surrendered to the ministry at Falls Creek, and he said, ‘I’ve always thought God had other plans for you.’”

“Dick Radar (pronounced raider), from Oklahoma Baptist University, counseled me the night I made my decision,” Dilbeck continues. “I didn’t have a full sense of what was happening, but I now know he was challenging me, showing confidence in me, mentoring me.” He notes that Radar didn’t spend large amounts of time with him but instead gave him attention at critical moments in his life. “The right touch at the right time makes a difference,” he says.

By the time Dilbeck reached his mid-40s, young men began coming to him for advice.

“It made me realize that one of the ways we meet this need for establishing a new generation of pastors is by

being more committed to investing in them through mentoring relationships,” he says.

“Sometimes I think of a young pastor as a tightrope walker who’s trying to walk the rope but doesn’t have the benefit of the balancing bar. Experience is that balancing bar, providing stability. When you don’t have experience, you don’t know what to take seriously and what to ignore. So, the young pastor may make one of two mistakes. Either everything is a major catastrophe that they overreact to, or they fail to pay careful attention to a person or issue that does require a significant response.

YOUR MOVE – Six-year-old Hudson (right) matches wits with his father as his brothers, Beau, 8, and Dax, 6, look on.

“In many ways, what the mentor provides is encouragement,” Dilbeck adds. “Encouragement is an important

New Testament word that means to be called alongside another. To encourage is to support, comfort, console. But it also involves challenge, exhortation. It’s an arm around the shoulder, but also a hand in the back, pushing someone forward.”

MENTORING NOT OPTIONAL

The Bible, Dilbeck explains, teaches that the minister of the Gospel has a duty to mentor. “Some are hesitant because they think it will take too much time or they have issues they don’t want others to know about. But it’s a mistake to think a mentor has to be perfect. When a

SHEPHERDING THE FLOCK – McMullen provides premarital counseling to Troy Meadows and Maggie Homer, who are engaged to be married in 2019.

person sees weakness, disappointment and inconsistency, he gets a realistic expectation of what it takes to be a pastor.”

Dilbeck says the mission of the BGCO is to encourage one another and advance the Gospel, emphasizing that Kingdom work is always relational.

“We want to encourage and facilitate mentoring relationships and raise up pastors who could benefit from being mentored. We also need to open the eyes of established ministers to understand what mentoring is. It’s not a structural thing, but something that happens naturally. It’s good for young pastors to know they have needs and for experienced pastors to know they can meet these needs.”

McMullen points to an iconic example of mentorship in the New Testament as proof.

“In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul instructs Timothy about the importance of a mentor,” he says. “It is an ongoing process that doesn’t come to a conclusion but continues indefinitely, relaying knowledge, wisdom and application through one-on-one discipleship. Every believer should have both a mentor and a person they are pouring into. But in pastoral ministry, it is especially vital that younger pastors receive guidance, advice, training and teaching from others who have had success leading healthy ministries.”

As McMullen expresses thanks for the mentoring he’s receiving from Dilbeck, he also shares his desire to mentor others.

“When you shepherd a church, you start seeing the brokenness in people as you’re living life with them,” McMullen says. “The only thing that helped me overcome that was my mentor. I desire to pass on to others what was passed on to me.”