Three Who Taught Me Ministry: Rev. Edgar Frank

As I prepare to retire from 42 years of pastoral ministry, I reflect on the three pastors who were part of my early formation. This is the first installment.

In my home church in Owego, New York, there is a plaque on the back wall of the sanctuary. It memorializes a pastor who served the congregation for thirty-eight years. Rev. Edgar Frank was thoroughly old school. He prayed to “Thee” and “Thou,” preached formal sermons, and offered long prayers. He also phoned church members on their birthdays. There wasn’t much else for him to do – no programing, no staff development, no real community engagement. He was our Christian-in-Residence, a Protestant rabbi who strolled beneath the maple trees. My family remembers him fondly from the days when we moved into town.

One of our Sunday School teachers suggested with a snicker that the pastor was buried behind the marble plate. That seemed a little creepy, even if it was untrue. The clear inference was that it would always be Rev. Frank’s Church – and that he would never leave those walls. With that feeling in the air, it was no coincidence that the next pastor who followed him stayed only a short handful of years. Who would want to follow a saintly predecessor who was perpetually looking over his shoulder, even from the grave?

According to the New Testament, the church belongs to Jesus Christ. Only Christ, who outlives us all. Pastors come and go. Some pop in for a short stint, others tarry a while. Presbyterian clergy are not subject to the needs and whims of bishops, who might yank them around like pawns on a chess board. And there’s that whole “listen for the call of God” thing. I’m sure Rev. Frank wondered sometimes if God might have nudged him to depart for greener pastures. Yet he stayed. He dug in and stayed.

It was a remarkable tenure. Three years after he began, the stock market tanked and a global depression began. Then a second world war broke out in his fifteenth year. American optimism surged after the war was won, yet the last decade of his tenure brought its own challenges. IBM built a huge facility outside the village, bringing an influx of highly skilled engineers and dramatically changing a small town in a rural county. This coincided with a national reckoning of the aftershocks of slavery. While far from the front line of the civil rights struggle, our monochromatic community was shaken.

Pastoral ministry takes place while a lot of other things are going on. I give thanks for the Rev. Edgar Frank. My childhood pastor kept pointing to Christ’s work of redemption and reconciliation in every season of his work. His faithfulness kept him grounded as the world kept changing. He served his people with perseverance and grace. His life has been a model for my own, even though I am thoroughly convinced the only marble tablet bearing a minister’s name should be a tombstone. It should be the same size as everybody else’s. The church belongs to Jesus, not to anybody else.