Trials, tribulations, and the love of GodMark Galli appreciates God's difficult plans for our lives.
Set free in Angola PrisonSteve Starr tells how one man brought God into America's worst prison.
The Church holds the answer Mark Earley calls on the Church to engage in prison ministry.
Prescribing Jesus to beat addiction
Danette Clifton explores solutions for methamphetamine addicts.
Are churches 'too feminized' for men?
Robin Russell examines men's roles in today's churches.
Steve Beard profiles four of today's most influential UM churches.
COLUMNS
A personal word of appreciation
Helping them practice what you preach
Resourcing, enabling network for evangelical women
The Gospel is not about turf
Like little children
DEPARTMENTS
News
Aldersgate focuses on worship and prayer
Methodists must speak out, says World Methodist leader
David Seamands, evangelical United Methodist leader, dies at 84
The meltdown of liberal Christianity
Culture in View
David A. Seamands-Methodist missionary, pastor, counselor, author, and seminary professor-died July 29th (see p. 37). I was privileged to share a personal tribute at his memorial service at the Wilmore United Methodist Church. Dr. Dennis F. Kinlaw, his friend of 67 years, gave the memorial address.
As I reflected on David's life and ministry, I was reminded of the many ways my life had been influenced by this unusually gifted person.
I was indebted to David before I ever met him. In the late 1950s, my pastor at the Fairfield (Illinois) Methodist Church invited Dr. Sam Kamelson (a native of Madras, India) to come and speak at a youth banquet at our church. Sam's witness of how he was led to Christ by a former Hindu was the first Christian "testimony" I had ever heard.
Sam's story and magnificent ministry in song (he has a Bev Shea-quality bass voice) got my attention as a searching young teenager from a broken home. His witness was a major factor in my coming to experience Christ as Savior not many months later.
Only later would I learn that David Seamands, and his brother J. T. (both Methodist missionaries), had ministered at Sam Kamaleson's church in Madras when Sam was a new Christian. They befriended Sam and eventually helped him and his wife, Adala, come to study at Asbury Theological Seminary. So, I was indebted to David and J. T. before I ever knew them for guiding Sam to Asbury.
I spoke with Sam the day after David died. (Sam, many years the vice-president-at-large with World Vision, is recovering from a heart attack he had this spring while ministering in India.) He spoke to me of his deep love for David. It was David, he said, who had led him into the experience of the fullness of the Holy Spirit-that perfect love about which Wesley preached.
My first recollection of David was in 1962 when he and Helen returned from sixteen years of missionary service in India to serve the Wilmore United Methodist Church. I was a junior at Asbury College at the time. Because I stayed in Wilmore to attend seminary, I was privileged to sit under David's extraordinary preaching for six years.
After several years of David's leadership, the Wilmore church moved into a larger new sanctuary. David was soon preaching each Sunday morning and evening to more than 1,000 persons. He was, I believe, one of the finest United Methodist preachers I have ever heard. (Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, who preached his memorial sermon, is another.)
David never went into the pulpit without being well-prepared. He was timely, thoughtful, scriptural, socially relevant, and amusing in his own dry way. He had the gift of mixing scriptural truth with the best insights of Christian psychology. He preached (sometimes 30-40 minutes) in a way that brought listeners to decision. The altars were often filled with persons seeking Christ as Savior and Lord. Tapes of his sermons were sent by the tens of thousands across the country and literally around the world.
It is difficult to express fully what David's life and ministry meant to the various renewal ministries within the United Methodist Church. In 1972, David helped bring together a consultation of United Methodists from across the country who were concerned about the declining overseas missions force in the denomination. That gathering led to the establishment of the Evangelical Missions Council (EMC), which several years later became a part of Good News' ministry.
After 22 unfruitful dialogue sessions with United Methodist mission leaders in an eleven-year span, the EMC was set to launch an alternative mission sending agency when a larger group of evangelicals met in St. Louis in 1983 and formed The Mission Society for United Methodists. Today, it is a vital growing supplemental sending agency with more than 180 missionaries serving full-time in some 30 countries. Half of the persons at the St. Louis meeting which launched The Mission Society had been involved with the EMC. That, of course, included David and J. T. Seamands.
Six times (1976-1996), David was elected as a delegate to General Conference. Several times he chaired strategic minority reports that eventually become majority reports and were then passed by delegates. He was a highly respected evangelical spokesman, admired by United Methodists on both sides of the theological aisle.
David's best-selling Healing for Damaged Emotions, just one of his many books, has sold more than a million copies, and has been translated into 30 languages. During visitation hours, I learned that two state correctional institutions in Kentucky have new Christians engaged in small group studies of this book.
For 44 years, David was to me a pastor, friend, confidant, and voice of wise counsel. He was always a source of personal encouragement to me here at Good News. I am profoundly grateful for his remarkably fruitful life.
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