Bill Hauser Overflowed with Joy, Energy, and Love

Ozark Christian College President Matt Proctor recently shared via Facebook this remembrance of evangelist Bill Hauser, who preached at New Testament Christian Church during Matt’s growing-up years in Keokuk, Iowa. “Brother Bill,” as he was known, died Feb. 21, 2024, at age 75. (Matt gave us permission to repost this.)

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ON A BLANK PAGE in the back of my Bible is a list of names—spiritual heroes, men and women who have shaped me, my personal “great cloud of witnesses” that inspires me to keep the faith. 

After my dad, the second name on the list is Bill Hauser. 

THE MAN I THINK OF WHEN YOU SAY ‘PREACHER’ 

I was 8 when my parents moved to Keokuk, Iowa. That first Sunday, we walked in the doors of New Testament Christian Church, and when the singing concluded and the preacher stepped into the pulpit, I was unprepared for what happened next . . . for who happened next. The short, round, already-slightly-balding guy with the Italian nose bounded to the stage, made some funny comment, and though chuckles filled the sanctuary, the loudest laugh erupted from the preacher himself. This guy liked to laugh. He then commenced to preach. 

And boy, did he preach. This evangelist (as the church bulletin called him) opened his Bible, turned his volume up to 10, and started preaching up a storm. He preached loud, and sweat poured off him. Halfway through the sermon, he interrupted himself, opened his suit jacket, looked down at his armpits, smiled, exclaimed “Whew! It’s raining in here!” guffawed loudly at his own joke, took off his suit coat revealing a half-soaked shirt, threw the coat behind him, and recommenced preaching. I did not know then that he would do that same thing almost every Sunday. 

I honestly can’t remember if, on that first Sunday, Bill charged down out of the pulpit and stood up on the front pew to exhort us, but I know I saw him do it other Sundays. (I’ve traveled to many churches, and when I tell folks my hometown preacher was Bill Hauser, they smile knowingly and speak his nickname, “Ah, Wild Bill!”) At 8 years old, I was already used to doodling on the bulletin while the preacher in our previous church droned . . . but I never doodled at New Testament Christian Church.  

If the old Looney Tunes Tasmanian devil had become a preacher, he would’ve preached like Bill. 

I ended up listening to Brother Bill (as all the church folk called him) for 40 more years, and when you say the word “preacher,” the first picture that pops into my mind is always his. Bill would’ve never described himself as a great pulpit orator. But during the Great Awakening, someone asked John Wesley why thousands flocked to hear him when the wiry little preacher’s sermons were so unadorned. Wesley replied, “I set myself on fire, and people come to watch me burn.” 

That was Bill Hauser. 

All the years I knew him, he wore a wooden cross necklace over his shirt for all to see, and when it was time to talk about Jesus, Bill was passionate and blood earnest. Bill took the gospel seriously. 

OVERFLOWING WITH LIFE 

But Bill Hauser never took himself too seriously. He told every joke Wayne Smith ever told, and his laugh was legendary throughout our whole town. He loved to kid people, and sometimes even from the pulpit, he’d have one-liner exchanges with other congregational jokesters that left the whole church in stitches. When Brother Bill saw you, his face lit up, and his smile took over the room. The man overflowed with joy. 

And he overflowed with energy. Bill absolutely could not sit still. The Lord never installed a dimmer switch on Bill; he had only two speeds—full throttle and unconscious. (Look through a stack of Bill Hauser pictures, and he’s either in motion or asleep in a chair.) God made him a doer, a living embodiment of Romans 12:11, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” 

So, Bill was rarely in his office. Sometimes, he was out physically serving, shoveling snow off the church sidewalk, taking groceries to a widow, or helping someone move. Our church housed a Christian school, so hundreds of tiny scuffmarks appeared each week on the education wing’s tile floors. I can’t count the number of times I caught Bill mopping that hallway. Once I was helping a group of men stack sanctuary chairs to set up tables in our worship space for a congregational dinner. As we worked, I remarked to Bill, “I bet you’ve done this a few times.” He laughed and said, “I have a master’s degree in tables and chairs.” 

More often, he was just out visiting people. He wore out more tires and shoe leather than any one man should: knocking on every door in Keokuk, moving among the Hy-Vee deli tables talking with the regulars, walking hallways in all the hospitals from Iowa City to St. Louis, working the stands at the high school football game like it was the church sanctuary, doing hundreds (thousands?) of funerals. He ran on Diet Coke and faith, and his motor never stopped. Everyone in our city of 15,000 had a Brother Bill story, and that’s why he was named grand marshal of our big Labor Day parade, riding down Main Street in that convertible to cheers like some kind of celebrity. 

Mostly what flowed out of Bill was love. He loved people like there was no tomorrow, looking you in the eye, remembering your name and the names of your family, listening with complete self-forgetfulness, hugging you like he might never see you again. And he loved all kinds of people. When I walked into church every Sunday, I saw men and women, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, management and union, longtime believers and rough-around-the-edges nonbelievers all getting warm handshakes from Brother Bill. The first two pews told the story best: the front pew was filled with deaf folks—Bill had learned sign language to be a missionary in our local deaf community—and the second pew was filled with folks from “the county home,” the local facility for mentally disabled adults. Claude, Jerry, Vera, Charlie: Bill hugged every one of them. 

Every sermon I heard Bill preach, he ended the same way: “Remember three things: God loves you, Jesus loves you, and I love you!” And I believed him. 

Joy, energy, love—Bill overflowed with life itself. And remarkable as he was, Bill wasn’t that good all on his own. Growing up with his boys, I stayed the night at the Hauser house more than once, and Bill never put on pretenses. Anyone who spent much time with him knew he was not perfect. But his faith was genuine and deep. “I have come that they may have life,” said Jesus in John 10:10, “and have it to the full,” and those who knew Bill knew the life that flowed from him came from Christ.   

TAKING THE BROTHER BILL BATON 

Yesterday morning [Feb. 21], Bill Hauser met his source of Life face to face. 

When his son James texted me the news yesterday at 7:30 a.m., I bowed my head and wept. 

I took comfort in the hope of heaven and this thought: Brother Bill passed the baton to more Timothies than anyone I know. One of Bill’s great passions was raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders. For decades, at our local church camp, he was the dean of the going-into-ninth-grade week. Why did he want to dean the “niners” week? Bill wanted to catch these young people at the critical moment before they entered high school, and he wanted to cast a vision of Jesus’ life—to help these young teens see themselves fervently following Christ in the years ahead and serving him in ministry, whether volunteer or vocational. 

He did that with me. I was an awkward, nerdy, sometimes-obnoxious kid who was a little too smart for his britches. But Bill planted ministry seeds in me early, and he sat beaming in the pew when seventh-grade Matt Proctor preached his first sermon, entitled “Jesus, a High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek.” (I told you I was a nerd.) Like Paul in 2 Timothy 1:6, he was determined to “fan into flame the gift of God” he believed was in me, and though I had a Jonah season where I ran from God’s call, Bill never gave up, and he eventually prayed me into ministry. 

In his and Connie’s family (all four kids serving in ministry), in 40 years at New Testament Christian Church, in all of those Niners weeks of camp, Bill passed the kingdom leadership baton to hundreds in the next generation. For a guy that no one described as tall, he cast a giant shadow, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of lives have been touched for Christ by those Bill raised up.  

I don’t tend to yell in the pulpit like Brother Bill. (When a friend heard Bill went to be with the Lord yesterday, he said, “Well, the noise level in heaven just went up.”) But every time I open my Bible and proclaim the Word, I sense his passion still flowing in my blood. (On days I wear a suit coat, I have an unexplainable urge to take it off halfway through my sermon.) And if you ever see me, a certified introvert, greeting people with a smile or a laugh or a warm handshake or a hug, you’re really seeing Brother Bill. I’m just carrying on his ministry. 

That’s why his name is in the back of my Bible. 

I’ll finish with this: Bill once gave me a caption to keep over my ministry. As I was preparing to graduate from Bible college, I applied to several youth ministries, but only one pulpit ministry. I wasn’t sure I was quite ready to be a preacher. But the church that called me to interview was the pulpit ministry. I sought Bill’s counsel. “Do you think I should do this now?” I asked him. “I’m not sure I’m ready for the pulpit. Maybe I should wait and get more experience.” 

“You’re ready,” he said. “In fact, Matt, I think you’re going to preach at this church, and I think God will do great things through you.” But then he looked me straight in eyes, and with that blood-earnestness, Bill said something I will take to my grave. “And when those good things happen . . . you keep your hands off God’s glory.” 

I will, Brother Bill. 

And as a kid whose life you changed, I give God glory. 

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This remembrance was originally posted on Feb. 22 at Ozark Christian College’s Facebook page and at Matt Proctor’s Facebook page. 

An obituary for William Ralph Hauser is posted at the Flanner Buchanan website.