Keep Them In Your Prayers

I seldom write about local events, but one this week has hit closer to home.   While I'm not in that circle, it has brought to mind a wave of memories and how grateful we should be for transparency.

The event was a murder in Indianapolis of a pastor's wife, a one year-old at home and another on the way.  It appeared to be a home invasion that led to the shooting, two lives cut too short and many people shaking their collective heads in disbelief.

Most people are shaking their head in academic disbelief: How can this happen?  Why did this happen?  It is so terrible.  They are right.

The young wife and mother was Amanda Blackburn.  Her parents are Phil and Robin Byars.  He is a pastor, too.  For the best part of fourteen years, he was one of my pastors.  For the best part of a decade, he taught the Master's Class, which my wife and I attended.

Phil Byars is one of the finest teachers I have had in any classroom.  Having two B.A. degrees in Social Sciences and Business, I have had a few teachers.  Phil blew them all away.

He used an inductive teaching style.  He would pose the situation, and then listen.  He would take the answer and probe, challenge, guide, direct to the understanding of the subject.  It takes great knowledge and love for both the subject and the student.  Phil knew the Bible and loved the people in the Master's Class.  You didn't have to ask him: you just listened.

It is no surprise he was made the Lead Pastor of First Baptist Church.  The down side is he can't preach with the inductive teaching style.  He can still teach.  And it is still done with great love.

One thing about Phil's teaching was that he abhorred the academic answer: an answer that sounds good but has no practical application.  If you dared to give an academic answer in his class, be prepared to tell what that looks like in real life.  If you couldn't make it practical, it wasn't of use.

Robin matched Phil with her support, her knowledge, and her love.  She knew the Bible as well as anyone, and brought an answer in support of Phil's teaching.  I remember a number classes opening with Phil's word, "After class last week, Robin pointed out..."

We watched Amanda grow through her middle school and high school years, not up close, but knowing she was being taught and shepherded the way we were each week.  She had a great model of teaching in her father and a great model for a pastor's wife in her mother.  I can't help but believe something incredible was going to happen with her life.  She was working with her husband, planting churches.

As I write this, the celebration of Amanda Blackburn's life is beginning in Indianapolis.  We ache for the Amanda's husband and son, for Phil and Robin and her siblings, James and Amber.  It would be academic to bring a cliche'.  It takes knowledge and love.  These attributes are not in short supply.