Have You Seen Tim?

I suppose I was just an average, ordinary thirteen year old kid. What’s now referred to as a “middle-schooler”. Self-aware, awkward…annoying… all that. But there was a man who was looking beyond the present, outer package. There was a man who was looking for potential. This man, approaching his retirement, pulled me aside – a mere boy – and saw me as a young man. He saw me as a godly young man – regardless of whether I actually was or not. (I don’t think he really knew me that well.)

The details of how it really began slip past this mind almost forty years later, but soon I was sitting on the stage behind the pulpit with him – in one of those big preacher chairs – observing, seeing the congregation from his perspective. He wasn’t spending a lot of time before the service started hobb-knobbing with folks – not that he never did, but not in these last few minutes before the service began.

A few weeks later, he asked if I’d give a prayer during the service, still sitting in that big preacher chair – the clueless boy next to the veteran pulpiteer. Soon I was reading a scripture. On a Sunday night I was to bring a sermon. (It was probably ten minutes that people left complaining they’d “never get back”.)

Then one Sunday as the little band of musicians played the prelude, the man in the big chair beside me said, “I’ve been praying about this… and I want you to be my Timothy.”

I didn’t know what to say…

I was thirteen. I didn’t know what a “Timothy” was.

But I knew enough to say, “Yes,” to whatever he asked of me. So I did. “Yes, sir.”

And there were never any lessons – formal or informal. There wasn’t even really a lot of time spent with him. But there was respect, location, perspective, and observation.

And that’s how you make a Timothy.

A “Timothy” is someone like the “original” Timothy. The Apostle Paul chose him – and others – to pour life, faith, example, and direction into. A Timothy, in short, is one man picked by another to be the repository of faith’s heritage. And though you may not be a preacher, if you know Jesus, you are – to some extent – someone’s Timothy.

What I ask is, “Do you have a Timothy?”

Christian, we are all called to make disciples, ie., to have “Timothys”.

Preacher, if you don’t have at least one… what have you been doing!?

The Atlas Uriah Fund – through the Atlas Uriah Strickland Memorial Preaching Scholarship – is ABOUT making Timothys. We want to do all we can with every dollar we collect to train Restoration Movement preachers for a new generation.

If you won’t join us in our effort, at least make an effort yourself!

Our world needs it, our young boys and men crave it, and our Lord commands it!

Are you looking for someone to pour your faith into? Have you seen Tim?

(You can hear my “Paul”, Bro Fred Huckelbury, preach messages from the ’60’s and ’70’s on the RSM Podcast – available on most any podcast platform.)