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I was honored to write an article for this month's Chatter (church newsletter - www.chattermag.com) about Rex Greenstreet. Rex was an incredible person who I looked up to. Even though I didn't know him well, what time I did get to spend with him was very encouraging. I suspect that if I spent every day with Rex, every day would be encouraging.
Rex Greenstreet, a Legacy of Service
On October 1, 1987, Rex Greenstreet was baptized in a backyard swimming pool in
Rex recalled the accident in a 2001 interview. “I dove for the water headfirst and hit bottom. I was immediately paralyzed from the neck down, but I never went unconscious. I thought I was going to drown lying there face down in the water. I couldn’t move.”
But despite his memories of water, despite being a quadriplegic, despite having every excuse not to venture into that pool, Rex did. Turns out, that wouldn’t be the last time Rex overcame fear with obedience.
Rex’s life mirrored his baptism in many ways. He had every reason to avoid obedience, to be bitter at the hand life—or God—had dealt him, to sit back and let others leave their comfort zones while he stayed in his familiar, if not ever entirely comfortable, chair. Instead, his ministry was so faithful and so courageous he became the first person ever to have an IBC ministry named in his honor. Rex died on September 25, 2005. He was 67.
Then there was the accident at
Remarkably, Rex regained enough control of his body to return to work. He moved back to
“It seemed like every time I turned on the TV, those guys were on. And every time they were on, they were giving the gospel.” Rex said. But the gospel they were preaching was about humility and surrender—a message that didn’t sit well with Rex. “My dad was a survivor, and I was brought up to be that way. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Frankly, I had always thought that anyone in any religion was just escaping from the world. Just wimps.” Even from his wheelchair, Rex held to his strength. The prospect of yielding to anything—misfortune and God included—scared him.
But there was a night when Rex awoke in tears and gave his heart to Jesus. “That night, it just all came together,” he remembered. “I said, ‘God, I don’t know about all this, but I want you in my life.’”
Not long after that experience, Rex’s nephew invited him to IBC. Again, he faced a frightful prospect.
“You can’t really sneak into church in a wheelchair,” Rex remembered. “I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if they were going to run me up to the front and try to heal me or what. I was scared.”
But the pattern of obedience over fear was being established in his life. Rex came to IBC and stayed. That first visit was in 1986. He was baptized in 1987. And soon after, he was invited to take on a ministry that would make him the voice of
“I was a claims adjuster for 26 years. Most of that time I was on the phone and it was always confrontational,” Rex said. “I didn’t want any part of phones. The last thing I wanted to do to serve the church was to call people.”
By now, though, Rex knew what to do with fear.
“People really appreciated me calling,” he said. “I just got to where I loved it.”
And he was good at it. Years of phone calls with insurance claimants had taught him to listen well and take copious notes. Soon, the church staff discovered the value of what they called “Rex Notes” for discerning visitors’ interests and ministry needs.
From 1988 to 2003, Rex called every IBC visitor—sometimes more than 50 calls per week. In the last five years of his ministry alone, Rex placed more than 20,000 calls, and prayed for as many people. “I always pray before I dial,” he said. Often, the calls were all protocol and information. But many times, Rex said, they were personal and poignant.
“Sometimes people are hurting and they just want to talk,” Rex said. “Most of the time, people just need someone to listen.”
Hundreds of people who are now serving in IBC ministries made their second visit to the church because of Rex’s call.
“I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘You know, Rex, the only reason I’m here at IBC is because of your phone call,’” he said. “That makes you feel like you’re helping.”
But the greater blessing may have been for those who knew Rex beyond the phone calls. IBC Community Life Pastor Nat Pugh can trace his ministry at IBC to the welcome phone call he received from Rex after his first visit. And Nat can trace the route Rex took through the IBC halls every Sunday, stopping for a cup of coffee that he placed on the make-shift rubber pad he had glued to the cover of his Bible so it wouldn’t spill. “He always stopped at the kiosk and got three butterscotches,” Nat smiled. “I’ll miss seeing him.”
His roommate, John, remembers Tuesday and Wednesday mornings as the highlights of his week. Those were the mornings after Rex made his phone calls on Mondays and Tuesdays.
“I couldn’t wait to get out of bed and go to the living room,” John said. “Rex would be there drinking coffee, and I would get to hear the stories about the phone calls. Imagine living with someone like that. You grow every minute you’re with him. Rex used to drive around the neighborhood and give out money or food. He used to mail his testimony to people blindly. One of his favorite verses was ‘faith without works is dead’. Rex was alive.”
When his failing health finally forced Rex to stop making phone calls, the church placed an announcement in the worship bulletin telling of the need for volunteers to take over the job. The project was named the Greenstreet Ministry. And it took eight people to do the work.
At his memorial service at IBC on October 5, the photos from Rex’s later years seem to look more and more like those from his youth. The broad smile is there. There is strength in his expression if not in his legs.
“I’ll miss that sparkle in your eyes that revealed the depth of your love for Christ. You gave so much to us and never complained about your situation,” eulogized Barbara Greenstreet, Rex’s sister-in-law.
But the most concise praise at Rex’s memorial service may have also been the most complete, from the man who baptized him in that swimming pool in 1987, a witness to Rex’s fierce obedience in the face of fear.
On September 25, Rex answered the call to come home. Now he stands—yes, stands—in the presence of God, his smile broad, his fear gone, his reward complete and, probably, with three butterscotches in his pocket.
Still thinking about getting to know my heart, cultivating it, keeping tabs on the issues of my soul. It’s not easy for me. My heart seems a fickle, inscrutable thing that may lead me down a risky path only to stop at its precipitous end, peel off a mask and declare, “I was only joking. You are not who you thought you were!”
Jesus must not have been like that. He must have been as confident in the mettle of his heart as he was in the Father’s. I’ve often wondered how he gained such confidence. Just from the still, small voice in his private prayer?
Brennan Manning wondered the same thing…
“I believe that at some point in his human journey Jesus was seized by the power of a great affection and experienced the love of his Father in a way that burst all previous boundaries of understanding. It may have happened during his hidden years in
I don’t know if I agree entirely. If Brennan is postulating that Jesus experienced some extraordinary measure of grace or an avenue or experience with the Father that defined his person and heart and mission with some extra measure of certainty, I don’t want to buy it. After all, isn’t Jesus even more impressive if he went on with such great courage and faith as to give his life in torture without an iron-clad, etched-in-stone, videotaped-for-replay-and-reassurance declaration that he was a member of the Trinity?
But I guess he did have those kinds of experiences – his transfiguration and baptism. Brennan continues:
“At about age thirty Jesus sets out for the River Jordan to meet with the Baptist. John is bluntly calling the Jewish community to repentance and arousing the first stirrings of conversion. Jesus gets in line. His behavior reveals the sense of identity and mission that has been growing within him. John reluctantly confers baptism and Jesus identifies with the brotherhood of sin. ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf’ (2 Cor. 5:21)
“Then it happens! Whatever the external manifestations were, the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan was an awesome personal experience. The heavens are split, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove, and Jesus hears the words, ‘You are my Son, my Beloved, on you my favor rests.’ What an earthquake in the human soul of Jesus! The heavenly voice confirms and fulfils thirty years of search and growth in
Is the
Just wondering…
BY DAVE BARRY
''Let's take the baby to a restaurant!''
Now, to a normal, sane person, this statement is absurd. It's like saying: ''Let's take a moose to the opera!''
But neither you nor your spouse will see anything inappropriate about the idea of taking your baby to a restaurant. This is because, as new parents, you are experiencing a magical period of wonder, joy and possibility that has made you really stupid. You are not alone: All new parents undergo a sharp drop in intelligence. It's nature's way of enabling them to form an emotional bond with a tiny human who relates with other humans exclusively by spitting up on them. Even very smart parents are affected, as we see from these two quotations:
Albert Einstein Shortly Before The Birth Of His Son: ''To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.''
Albert Einstein Shortly After The Birth Of His Son: ''Daddy's gonna EAT THESE WIDDLE TOES!''
After a month or so of bonding with their baby, the typical parents have the combined IQ of a charcoal briquette. This is when they decide it's OK to take the baby to a restaurant. I know what I'm talking about: My wife and I have a baby daughter, and we have repeatedly taken her to restaurants, even though by now experience should have taught us that it would be far more pleasant and relaxing for us to stay home and play tic-tac-toe on our foreheads with a soldering iron.
But we cannot help ourselves, and neither can you, if you're a new parent. That's why today I'm presenting these Helpful Tips For Dining Out With A Baby:
1. THE INSTANT YOU GET TO THE RESTAURANT, ASK FOR THE CHECK.
You want to be able to pay and get out of there as quickly as possible when your baby screams, or decides -- as babies instinctively do, in restaurants -- to grunt out an impossibly large output, such that you experience a dreaded condition known to diaper scientists as Projectile Huggies Leakage (PHL). So it's best to pay your bill as you enter the restaurant, adding a little extra (say, $800) to compensate for the fact that after you're finished, your table may have to be burned. Some parents never actually enter the restaurant: They simply drive up to the front door, hurl money out the car window, then speed off, their baby wailing like an ambulance siren in the night.
2. REQUEST A TABLE IN A LOCATION THAT WILL NOT DISTURB OTHER DINERS.
For example, if you want to eat at an elegant restaurant in New York City, you should try to get a table on the roof. Or, better still, at a Bob's Big Boy in Cleveland.
3. SELECT AN APPROPRIATE CUISINE.
Of the wide variety of cuisines available today -- Italian, French, Chinese, Tiny Portions Of Meat With Some Kind Of Inedible Decorative Stuff Dribbled On The Plate In A Pattern As If It Were An Art Project Instead Of A Meal -- I would say that the best kind of cuisine, for the parent of a small baby, is a cuisine that you can eat with one hand. You, of course, need the other hand to keep putting things into your baby's mouth, so your baby can spit them out (a baby is not happy unless it is emitting something from somewhere). In fact, you may need both hands for this activity, so you might want to order an entree that you can eat with no hands, sporadically lunging your face down to your plate and snorking up food Labrador-retriever style. You will not have time to taste anything. Restaurant employees know this, and sometimes, for fun, they serve prank entrees to new parents, to see if they'll notice. A Boston restaurant recently got a new father, distracted by a small baby, to eat a whisk broom covered with melted cheese.
At least he ate something. Sometimes I spend the entire meal carrying my daughter around the restaurant, crossing paths with other nomadic parents carrying THEIR children around, each of us leaving a trail of drool. Our big night out! It may not sound like fun to you, but we parents of newborns are able to enjoy it because of our philosophy of life, which can be summed up by the immortal words penned by William Shakespeare shortly after the birth of his first child: ''Woogum woogum WOOGUM WOOGUM WOOGUM!''
