Rev. Edgar M. Crosby.
Actually, Mr. Crosby. I don't think I ever heard anyone refer to him as Edgar. Or Ed. He was always Mr. Crosby.
That's how my parents always addressed him.
Maybe when he was introduced as a guest speaker in a church or listed in a program, he was Rev. Edgar M. Crosby. But to me, he was always just Mr. Crosby.
I can't remember an exact date that I first met Mr. Crosby. I knew him during my entire childhood, from as early as I can remember through my high school graduation.
During my early church days, he was always just a part of our lives. The picture of him here is at our church. It was probably taken at our annual church Homecoming one August. After worship each Homecoming (well, actually, each third Sunday of the month), we would have an old-fashioned "dinner on the grounds," a covered-dish potluck type luncheon spread out on a huge picnic table under towering oak trees at Stevens Grove Baptist Church.
Mr. Crosby was the Director of Missions for the Sarepta Baptist Association of Churches. This network of Southern Baptist Churches contains about 75 churches in the Athens, Georgia area. Mr. Crosby served in this role, I think, from 1957 until his death in January of 1984. He was 59 years old when he died.
Through this position, Mr. Crosby built relationships with all of the churches in the association, worked with them in missions activities, and provided pulpit supply (guest preaching) when needed. To level set, many of the churches in the association are, like ours was, small country churches with bi-vocational ministers. They didn't have multiple ministers, like Missions Pastors, so they participated in a network of churches where functions like missions were accomplished at the association level.
He was well known and well loved throughout the area and if he gave as much time and attention to all of the churches as he did to ours...and to our family...then he was extremely busy. Actually, I think through his work he simply became close friends with our family.
I can remember often him just showing up at our house for an unannounced visit. (People did that more in those days). He was always dressed in a suit, just as in this picture, regardless of what day of the week it was. He'd sit at our dining room table and share news from other churches and ask about our family over a cup of coffee and a slice of pound cake. He always had a smile on his face and always tried to make people laugh. In fact, he wrote a small self-published book called Come Along and Laugh With Me. I think I have a copy somewhere.
Mr. Crosby loved Jesus and always talked about Him. Jesus was as much a part of every conversation as anything. He knew the Word and preached great sermons. Once when he was driving in Athens he actually encountered a tornado in the middle of a thunderstorm and wrecked. A picture of his demolished car was in the paper. He survived and talked often about how he saw Jesus in the middle of that tornado. He was larger than life to me...but he was also my friend. Even as a kid, I viewed him simply as...my friend.
Once when I was very small, I remember that I had a toy doctor's kit. Mr. Crosby had dropped by for a visit and I gave him a "shot" with the toy needle in my kit. He made a huge deal about it and said he felt so much better. But here's the kicker. A few days later I received a typed letter in the mail addressed directly to me. He talked about how much he enjoyed visiting with me and how grateful he was that I had given him a shot. I kept that letter for years. He sent me many letters through the years. I kept them all.
Think about that. He had relationships with over 70 churches, each filled with families and children, and he took the time to send me personalized letters. I aspire to be the kind of a person who encourages others the way he encouraged me.
In the late 1970's (can't remember the year), we were having a week-long evening revival at our church. It was probably early August. Mr. Crosby was the guest speaker. It also, coincidentally, happened to be the same week as the Sarepta Baptist Summer Youth Camp. To clarify, many of the churches in the association had very small youth groups and couldn't put on their own summer camps like larger churches do. Our church at that time might have had 10 youth.
To help the churches, the local Baptist Associations would host a week long summer camp and each church would send its youth. At that time, I had never attended even though Mr. Crosby had often encouraged me to go. I was painfully shy as a child. Much more shy than just being an introvert. I'd never ever wanted to go to a camp.
One night at the revival, during his sermon Mr. Crosby talked about the camp that he was helping lead that week. He'd be at the camp during the day and drive about an hour to our church in the evening to preach. Afterward the service he offered to take me and two of my friends back with him just for the one night so we could experience one day of the camp the next day and maybe attend the following year. So, we all quickly went home and grabbed sleeping bags and a change of clothes and loaded into his little car.
Since it was late night, we stayed with him in a counselor's cabin. We were absolutely wired. I remember it was me, Gary Sisk, and Kenneth Stanley. The camp was being held at a rustic camp ground called Hard Labor Creek State Park. The cabins were a type of log cabins with open rafters in the ceiling. I can remember Kenneth crawled up into the rafters to look around. He found a paperback book that someone had hidden called Helter Skelter. If you're not familiar, that book is the true story about the murder spree of Charles Manson in California. There were pictures.
A thunderstorm came up. We were in a rustic log cabin in the middle of the woods in Middle Georgia in the middle of the night looking at pictures of murder scenes. We.were.terrified!! Imaginations went wild! We saw people walking outside the cabin. We screamed. We woke up Mr. Crosby.
He didn't get mad. He didn't yell. All we heard was, in a long, slow voice, "Booooyyyyyssss, it's time to go to sleeeeep."
So...what did I learn from Mr. Crosby and my friendship with him and his role as an unofficial, but very important, discipler in my life that I can pass on to anyone who might be reading this and is interested in discipleship?
1. You can learn from someone without being in a formal discipleship relationship with them. Conversely, you can disciple someone without being in a formal discipleship relationship with them. The important thing is to be in a relationship with them. For Mr. Crosby and me, it was NEVER about his position or the sermons he preached. It was ALWAYS about my friendship with him and my observing the kind of life he lived and how it matched up with what he preached.
2. Look for ways to encourage people. Don't overlook the little things like a letter in the mail.
3. Personal time together is important. Just spending time together. Without an agenda.
4. Fun and laughter is important in relationships.
5. It's important to have relationships with someone older than you. Someone farther down the road of life and the journey of the Christian faith. They can help guide you along.
6. Involve people in what you are doing. It may have been just one night as a tag-along at a youth camp and the following day where we just hung out and observed...but the next year I actually attended the camp and had one of those milestone moments in my spiritual journey. I made a formal re-dedication of my life to Jesus Christ as Lord. But that's another story for another time.
Remember that as Christ Followers we are mandated to be and make disciples. It's the Great Commission. Look it up. Then look for a discipler and make it a priority to invest in others.
Thanks Mr. Crosby! You have no idea how much the Lord worked through you to change my life. I'm forever grateful. I'm not sure what heaven will be like, but I hope we can spend some time together there.
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Note: Blog entries in the Heroes & Mentors Section are about, by and large, my disciplers. These are people that I look up to and have learned from in many ways during my journey. They are all truly a blessing from the Lord.
My hope and prayer in spotlighting them is in no way to put them on a pedestal...or to say that I am a wonderful person because I've been the beneficiary of their mentoring. Rather, I want to use them as examples of how people can invest in others and fulfill The Great Commission, and hopefully encourage the reader to both look for a discipler and be a discipler of others.
Remember Jesus' mandate...Make Disciples.
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