Bill Weber Reflects on a Lifetime of Ministry

(When Bill Weber announced recently that he and his wife, Verna, were retiring, we asked him to share some thoughts and insights from 53 years of vocational ministry that included service in church/campus settings, Christian colleges/education, and work as missionaries and with mission agencies.)

By Bill Weber

I’m one of those kids whose parents said, “You’ll go to Bible college for a year and after that you can go where you want.” So, I did.

When I was 10 years old, I gave my life to Christ and was baptized. I went through another conversion experience the summer after my junior year at Nebraska Christian College. Two things happened that set the trajectory for the rest of my life. One was Verna and I married, and the second was when we began a student ministry in Ewing, Nebraska.

And now, after 53 years of doing ministry together, we are retiring.  

After NCC we both earned graduate degrees that opened doors for us in South Africa and in Christian higher education here in the States.

Over the years we have done youth ministry, campus ministry, preaching, associate ministry, and Christian education in Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Indiana. We served as professors and academic administrators at Nebraska Christian College and Cincinnati Christian University. After serving in the academic world, we worked with two mission agencies, Christian Missionary Fellowship and New International. We’ve traveled to dozens of countries on behalf of missions.

We have been involved with people who do writing and editing, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, building, education, counseling, child evangelism, general mission work, planting churches, and developing leaders.

We’ve been served tea in some of the poorest homes in the poorest villages and have been dinner guests in some of the very finest homes.

Along the way we’ve learned a few things and none so important as this—no matter how diverse the ministry activities or the people one works with, the focus must always be on Jesus. There are so many good things to do, but pointing people to Jesus must be at the center of it all.

CAMPUS MINISTRY
As a young campus minister and graduate student at the University of Nebraska, I invited an older, wiser, more experienced campus minister to come and spend a few days teaching. We invited everyone and several other campus ministries participated. Our speaker was a good communicator, understood the culture of the day, and identified with university students.

He was a good Bible teacher and each evening his messages sparked a lot of interest and discussion. One evening he shared from Scripture how following Jesus included baptism. There was nothing unusual in his presentation, but after the session a group of students began to ask about it. “We love Jesus and are following him. No one ever taught us we should be baptized. When can we do this?” That night we found someone to open a church building for us and seven university students were baptized because they loved Jesus.

It was an early lesson that if Jesus is the center of it all, people will be drawn to him. There are so many peripheral issues to bog us down, but total and complete conversion to discipleship with Jesus must be the unshakeable foundation.

CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION
When I became the dean of the Seminary at Cincinnati Christian University, I was mandated the responsibility to review the entire curriculum. To facilitate the best outcome, I formed focus groups to tell us what people in our churches thought of our graduates. We received high marks for much of what we were doing. However, there was wide agreement on one area where improvement was needed. We needed to help our students develop their spiritual lives. It seems we were doing well at teaching them leadership skills, preaching, Bible, and theology. But we had not focused enough on development of the inner person.

As a result, we began to require that all incoming seminary students take a class in spiritual formation. In that class, students reflected on their call to ministry, their spiritual disciplines, and on what it means to be a follower of Christ. Students gave high marks for the course and its impact on their preparation for ministry. Years later, graduates who took my course still comment on how significant it was in their spiritual development and ministry effectiveness.

MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA
For 12 years we served in Johannesburg, South Africa, planting churches, developing leaders, and engaging in community service.

One of the young ministers we worked with served in Upington, a small community on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Newly married and new to the church, he and his wife were celebrating the birth of their first child.

Sadly, the baby unexpectedly became ill and lived only a few weeks. I really felt the need to be with the family at the funeral. Because of the distance and the short time, I booked a flight and flew to Upington. As the plane descended, I observed the stark barrenness of this community on the banks of the Orange River. The desolate, brown, dry land was interrupted only by the river and the irrigated gardens of fruit and vegetables along the banks.

The cemetery was dirt and rocks, just as you would expect in a desert. No trees, no manicured lawn, no flowers, no water. Standing there on that dirt, I offered what comfort I could at one of the saddest funerals I would ever officiate.

As I flew home and reflected on the events of the past few days, I also thought about our family living as foreigners and working cross-culturally. We had gone to Africa as our part in taking the gospel to the nations. I was reminded how central Jesus was to all we did. I began to understand better how a holistic approach to the gospel was the best way to demonstrate God’s love and grace and to share Jesus’ message.

This young couple didn’t need an evangelistic sermon at the funeral; they needed to hear again that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The couple went on to have other children. They remained faithful to their ministry calling and are still doing well decades later.

We know well the saying often applied to ministry, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” There are days when ministry is so hard we just have to say, “If it weren’t for the gospel, it wouldn’t be worth it.” But there is also great fulfillment and joy in pointing people to Jesus.

We have had such a blessed life. We have met and worked with wonderful people. We have seen God at work in amazing ways, in people and in situations. It has been so good to be a part of the world Christian movement, with Jesus at the heart of it all.

Bill and Verna Weber are enjoying retirement in Cincinnati.