Dr. Rick Lance is retiring soon after 28+ years as executive of Alabama Baptists’ “State Board of Missions,” a euphemism for “the leader of the pack!”

I heard about Rick Lance before we met.  My wife told me about him.

From wherever we were living and pastoring, Margaret would travel back to Birmingham to visit her folks and would attend Sunday worship with them at the home church, West End Baptist Church.  When she returned, I got a report. That church had been God’s arm of ministry to me during my college years. I loved it dearly and wanted it to do well. (These days, in its present incarnation, Mount Calvary Baptist Church meets there.  This will always be holy ground for me.)

As a pastor’s wife, Margaret saw more than most people, and her reports were always on target.

“They’ve got a good one,” she said. “A young pastor fresh from seminary.  His name is Rick Lance.”

I’m not sure when Rick and I met.  But once when we were vacationing at Smith Lake in north Alabama, on Sunday morning I told her “I’m driving to Cullman to hear Rick Lance.”  After only three years in Birmingham, Rick had gone to pastor First Baptist Church-Cullman, about 40 miles from our Smith Lake cabin.

It was June, traditionally a down time for churches. But First Baptist was packed out that day.  After the service, I said to a deacon, “You folks have been fed spiritually today as well as anyone in the state.”  The man said, “Pastor Rick is that way every Sunday.  And frankly, it scares us to death.  We just know some big church is going to come and take him away.”

They did.

Tuscaloosa’s First Baptist was that big church. After four years in Cullman, Rick spent fifteen years in Tuscaloosa following the great Dr. Cecil Randall.  This is where he and I became good friends.  I was pastoring FBC Columbus, MS sixty miles west on the same highway.

From time to time, he and I visited, we preached for each other a couple of times, and when churches began sending cassette tapes of sermons, I signed up for his. Once a month I received an envelope with all his sermons of the previous month.  (Don’t ask if I plagiarized anything!)

Early in 1986, Rick was dealing with the search committee of a big church in North Carolina.  He told me later, “All the time I was walking around their facility, I kept seeing you here.”  When he withdrew his name, he gave them mine.  In short order, I began seeing these people from North Carolina in my congregation.

In the summer of 1986 the  Lord moved me to that NC church.  Instead of it being the church of my dreams where I would put in twenty years before retiring, it turned out to be a nightmare.  I resigned after a difficult three years.

We ended up in New Orleans where we lived and ministered for the next 26 years.

More than once, Rick has apologized for recommending me to that church.  We laugh about it now.  (I assure him the Lord was responsible and that all is well. God had His purposes.)

Rick became Executive of Alabama Baptists in 1998. It was one of the best things to ever happen to the Baptist ministry in my home state, and I have rejoiced to see God using my good brother.  Several times Rick has had me over to minister–speaking at the annual legislative luncheon in Montgomery in 2002 and another time speaking twice at the state convention.  (I tell him guilt is a wonderful thing!) There is no way I could ever repay Rick for such a high honor as this.

Alabama Baptists will be honoring Rick and his sweet wife Pam at their annual convention in mid-November, held at Trussville’s First Baptist Church.  He’s invited me to add my bit to the occasion by sitting in the exhibit area for the two days sketching people.  On the walls in the same area, they will exhibit a number of cartoons I’ve made for this occasion, some honoring and some teasing my beloved friend, Dr. Rick Lance.

When life is over, when you and I look back at all that happened, we will quickly decide that one of God’s greatest blessings on our earthly years was the great friends He let us serve alongside.  (A Canadian pastor friend once said, A friend is God’s apology for your relatives! It certainly seems so, doesn’t it?)