E2: Effective Elders Blog
Editor’s Note: Each Friday we publish a new blog post from our partners in ministry, E2: Effective Elders. We publish it here simultaneous to E2’s posting on their site. The leaders of E2 write an article for our print and online magazine every month as well. Those articles are full of wisdom and practical help for elders. Please check them out!
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KEN IDLEMAN
By Ken Idleman
My father lived a very full life of 94 years.
He started out as the youngest of four boys—not an enviable place in the “pecking order.” He grew up in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom, 900-square-foot house just 30 yards from five sets of railroad tracks in the little village of Tolono, Illinois.
His father, my paternal grandfather, Lee Idleman, was a section boss for the Illinois Central Railroad, where my dad swung a pick alongside his older brothers—8 to 10 hours a day for a dollar a day during the Great Depression . . . which wasn’t really “great.” He learned Morse code and applied for an operator’s license. He succeeded and was later promoted to train dispatcher (sort of like air traffic control for trains).
He married my mother and they raised a daughter and three sons. I’m the middle son. His family and work were my dad’s world until he was introduced to Jesus as a 38-year-old. The Lordship of Jesus changed my father from the inside out—and a good man became a great man, as God measures greatness.
Ken Idleman Sr. became a Christ follower, a local church elder, and as a result, an even better husband, father, grandfather, and provider.
I spent the last 48 hours of his life beside his hospital bed. Dad’s lungs and heart were worn out. But he was lucid into the last moments of his life as he fell asleep—and awoke in the presence of our Lord.
He taught me three vital church leadership lessons in his last days and hours:
1. Legacy matters. It is the one thing you leave behind that will survive. You will quickly be forgotten after you die. Just as you cannot remember the names of your great-great-grandparents, your posterity will not remember you. But your influence will survive you—ifit is a legacy of real and deep devotion to what is right and true in God’s sight.
2. Love until the very end. I remember how my dad looked at my mother as she left the hospital room on the last night of his life. My own eyes took a picture of the expression on his face. He knew it would be goodbye for a while. He would have to go on alone, without her, after 77 years of being with her nearly every day. And I remember the look on his face as he turned up on his side, managed a weak smile and said, “Good night K.D.” (his nickname for me). It was the unmistakable look of pure love.
3. Leave well. I remember some of his last words to me: “I would like to live longer. . . . But if it is my time to cross over, I’m ready. I am not afraid. It is well with my soul.” That testimony was absolutely the best gift my dad ever gave me.
In his hospital room he wanted it quiet. No TV, no cell phones, no laptops. I tried to get some work done as he quietly rested. But he said, “K.D. I am going to need you to turn that off.” It was uncharacteristic for Dad to be so assertive.
He wanted the curtains open, the light on in the bathroom, the door open to the hallway.
When I asked him that last night, “Dad, don’t you want to take your [false] teeth out?” he replied, “Not tonight, Son.”
He knew.
I pulled the sheet up and read part of Romans 8. He labored for breath as he softly sang a verse and chorus of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” I laid my hand on his and prayed. He said good night and fell asleep. As I reflect on it today, I am thinking what a way to go!
None of us can script our passing from this life into the greater life. But as Christian leaders we can live a legacy, and leave a legacy of faith and faithfulness that will live long after us in our nuclear family and in our church family.
Ken Idleman served as the fourth president of Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri, was senior pastor for 10 years at Crossroads Christian Church, a megachurch in Newburgh, Indiana, and is presently mentoring pastors as vice president of leadership development with The Solomon Foundation.
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