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| Dave Embree (cchonthe.net) |
I met up with Dave at the Missouri Christian Convention in late March and spent an hour talking about campus ministry. My wife had rattled off a list of other people I should keep an eye out for who I could also talk to if I needed to get quotes about Dave. She was concerned I wouldn't get enough from our interview.
"This is Dave Embree," I said. "He loves to talk!"
And he did. The transcribed interview notes came to about 6,500 words. My assignment was to produce an article with 1,200 to 1,500 words.
I encourage you to read the slightly-less-than 1,500 word interview at ChristianStandard.com.
Over the next three weeks I'm going to post some of the parts that didn't make it into the published piece. Starting with Dave's answer to my question about how he got started with the campus ministry in Springfield, MO.
Remember, I warned you. He likes to talk.
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In the late 60's, early 70's, Christian churches were planting campus ministries rather rapidly.
Based upon what they had seen take place at Columbia and what had already taken place at Rolla, Christians from churches around Springfield and the Lebanon area started coming together to plan a campus ministry. Woody Wilkinson had actually tried to do some things on campus himself and found out that at that point the university was pretty averse to particular churches doing outreaches on campus. So Woody kind of backed off and threw his support behind people coming together.
So initially people from probably five Christian churches in Springfield and the Southern Heights church in Lebanon came together to form a board of directors and charter in 1977.
At that point they started holding bible studies on campus. They wound up purchasing a house, because their model was Columbia, a couple of guys on the board having been Mizzou alums, and they just knew that’s what you do.
They decided they could at least partially finance the campus ministry by renting to students. So they had purchased a house, and renovated it in order to hold the maximum number of students in not all that really big a house.
In the 1977-1978 school year they had preachers coming in to do Bible studies on Thursday nights and had had maybe five students living in the house.
This was at a time when there was a lot of town/gown conflict and the neighbors didn’t really want students living there. And they technically were out of the proper zoning area, so the city came in and said you can’t have this many unrelated people living here, which made it less financially feasible.
At the Missouri Christian Convention over Christmas break, I was going to school at Joplin at that point, and had come up to the convention because my parents were there.
I saw this display for the SMSU [Missouri State University was known at the time as Southwest Missouri State University] Christian Campus Ministry, and a friend of mine from Ozark was actually setting it up. And I said, "Hey, I didn’t know there’s a campus ministry at SMS."
He said, "There isn’t really, we’re just getting it started."
I said, "That’s great, I really support campus ministry, having grown up near Columbia and Roy Weece having already impacted my life." And that’ all I knew about campus ministry."I think that’one of the best things going right now."
He said, "I think you should apply for the job."
I said, "Well thanks, but I’ve never really spent any time on a university campus and I’m going for a 5 year degree here at Ozark and I’ve only completed four years of it, and I just don’t think I’d be any good at that."
He said, "It would really be good for you to go through the process of applying for the job, even if you don’t expect to get it."
And I said, "Yeah you’re right, I ought to do that."
But I didn’t.
I saw the same guy at a youth ministry conference on the OCC campus, and he said, "Hey Dave, I never got anything from you about the job."
I said, "Well, I’m doing youth ministry right now and I'm in school and I'm married and there’s a lot going on and I’m not sure I’ve got time to be applying for a job."
He said, "I've been talking to the board about you and how you do youth ministry, and we think we’re interested in you."
I said, again, "I have no experience in this. I know nothing whatsoever."
He said, "Why don’t you just trust God and submit an application and see what God says about it."
And I said, "That’s a really good idea."
But I didn’t.
And then in February, I see the same guy at the preaching and teaching convention at Ozark, and he said, "Dave, been waiting for your application."
I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been winter and I just haven’t gotten it done."
He said, "I’ve been talking to the board and they’d really like to meet you."
I said, "I’d like to talk to these guys and tell them what a great job they’re doing, but I just don’t think I can work it in."
And he said, "Would you think about applying?"
I said, "I’ll think about it and pray about it."
But I didn’t.
And about the first of March I get a phone call, and he said, “Dave, we’ve been pursuing people for the campus ministry, and every door we’ve opened has been slammed shut in our faces, except for you. And you keep kind of nudging it shut, but you haven’t slammed it. Would you come up and talk to us?
And I was really ashamed. I’d said to him three times I would send him something and I never had.
And I said, "Yes, I will come up and talk to you."
So a week later I drove up to Springfield and they were great people, and they had such a great vision and I loved talking to them. And they talked to me and asked my ideas about discipleship and pastoring and all sorts of things and they liked what they heard.
At the conclusion of that meeting I said, I think you guys are on the right track. I think you’re going to have a wonderful ministry here. I'm not the guy for it, but I trust that God will send you the right guy."
They said, "OK, OK. Could you come back next week and bring your wife?"
And I said, "You realize, I'm not the right guy for this job."
And they said, "Well can you come back and bring your wife?"
And I said, "OK."
I brought Joyce up the next week. And they talked to her and she talked to them and they we all talked some more together and at the end of that meeting, I said, " I just praise God for your vision and commitment. I will be praying that God will send you the right person."
They said, "would you pray about you coming?"
I said, "Well sure, but I don’t have any training for this. I haven’t finished my degree at Ozark. I'm just absolutely not what you're looking for."
They said, "Just pray about it and talk to us again in 2 or 3 weeks."
Couple weeks later I get home from a church board meeting.
Joyce was gone, but there was a note on the table that said, "Had to run to the store. Will be right back. Oh, the board from Springfield called. They asked if you were still interested in the job. I told them Yes. They’re voting on you now. Call them back."
I thought, They’re voting on me? How can they be voting on me? I thought we had another week.
About that time Joyce comes back and I said, "They’re voting on us?"
She said, "Yeah, I didn’t know if you’d talked to them and maybe told them something."
I said, "No. We've talked about this and prayed about it."
She said, "I don’t know if I can live in the middle of noisy Springfield right by the campus. I'm a small town girl."
I said, "I still don’t know that I know anything that I would need to know to do that."
About then the phone rang and he said, "Dave, we just voted unanimously to hire you. Will you come?"
I said, "Just a second", and I put my hand over the pine, and said, "Joyce, they voted for us, what do we do now? "
And she said, "If this doesn’t look like God railroading us into something, I don’t know what it would be."
And I said, "So you think we ought to go?"
She said, "I don’t think we have a choice."
And I said, "So I guess we’ll go."
So we came. On July 1st, 1978, we moved to Springfield.
And all I knew was, Roy Weece is a good campus minister and I can try to do some things I know he does, and that’s it.
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