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NOTE: Click here for Part 7: University Hills Baptist Church; click here for Part 9: Where I worked – McDonald’s on (1) Colorado Blvd. & (2) Leetsdale Dr.
Don Murray was the pastor of Ken Caryl Baptist Church, which Joanna and I joined in February 1985. Don’s preaching wasn’t exactly electric, but it was solid and sound. We joined a young marrieds Sunday School class taught by Lon Wright, whose teaching was dynamic.
From the outside, Ken Caryl Baptist Church looks the same today as it did when we were members almost 40 years ago. Well, except for one glaring exception . . . though it is still a Southern Baptist church, they have removed “Baptist” from the name. It is now simply Ken Caryl Church . . . as one who has long since left the Southern Baptist Convention, believing its leadership has ceased to be faithful to its Baptist heritage, maybe this is one church that finally decided to admit that. No? Well, one can always hope.
We had moved to 5251 S. Independence only 3 months earlier, putting us only a short 5- to 10-minute drive from our new church.
We were members of Ken Caryl Baptist Church for only a brief 2½ years, but a lot can happen in a short time, and it did at this church. Barely over a month after we joined, Lon Wright confided in me that he had decided to take a “breather” and step down as teacher of our Sunday School class; he asked me to consider taking his class. Honestly, I don’t know what he saw in me in that short time, but I soon decided that God was leading me to teach, and I agreed to take the class. There were three classes in this department; the other teachers were Tim Roark and Bob Wilson. I came to appreciate these two men as friends and colleagues. Our department director was Jeanie Murray, the wife of our pastor, and Jeanie usually sat in on my class. Jeanie must have had a sixth sense for when I was discouraged and felt I hadn’t connected with the class, because it was always those days that she made a special effort after class to compliment me on my teaching.
My most special memory of Jeanie, however, had nothing to do with Sunday School. In 1986, Jeanie played Jesus’s mother, Mary, in our choir’s Easter presentation. I was one of the men who took Jesus down off of the cross and laid his head in Mary’s lap. As we did so, I was stunned to hear Jeanie – as Mary – weeping . . . sobbing. It wasn’t faked . . . it was real. After the presentation was over, I went over to Jeanie and asked her about it. She replied, “I just thought, what if this were my own son, and I couldn’t stop crying.” I’ve rarely been so moved.
Besides my Sunday School responsibilities, I had joined the choir. When the music minister, Larry Snodgrass, heard about my music degree, he began asking me to substitute for him whenever he was gone. So I started directing the choir rehearsals and congregational worship when Larry was gone. After Larry resigned in 1986, Paul Bolding was called as music minister. Paul also asked me to direct the choir and congregation in his absence. I fully enjoyed these opportunities to call on the musical training I had received at OBU.
Travis was born during our first year at Ken Caryl Baptist Church, and his birth was duly noted the following Sunday in both our church bulletin and our Sunday School department newsletter.
In the spring of 1986, there was an organized movement to oppose and remove the pastor. A faction had been holding secret meetings to plot against him. The church body began to split, depending on whether you were for or against the pastor. There was no doubt where Joanna and I stood – foursquare in support of Don Murray. An all-church meeting was held one Sunday evening, and grievances were aired. To our ears, every single grievance seemed petty . . . there was nothing of substance, no serious accusations, nothing that rose to the level of requiring a pastor’s removal or resignation. There might have been a vote taken at the conclusion of the meeting, but I really don’t remember. What I do remember is people hugging each other afterwards. Having never been through something like this before, I naively thought that everyone had agreed to “kiss and make up,” and we could get back to being church together again.
How wrong I was! That would be the last time we would see many of those people at Ken Caryl. Don Murray had decided to stay the course and remain as pastor, and most of those who opposed him decided to leave. We lost at least a third of our membership following that meeting.
That, of course, meant that we had also lost a lot of our leadership. First of all, Larry Snodgrass had resigned as minister of music. He and his parents, who were members there, had been among the chief instigators of the rebellion. We lost some deacons. We also lost a lot of our Sunday School leadership.
All of these had to be replaced as soon as possible. The Nominating Committee was not responsible for nominating deacons, but it was responsible for nominating Sunday School teachers and directors. However, most of the Nominating Committee members were now gone, too. So the church needed to elect a new Nominating Committee. One Sunday, the church held an election for a new Nominating Committee. There were no names on the ballot. It was all write-in . . . in other words, we were each to take a piece of paper and write-in the names of six church members who we believed would serve most effectively as a Nominating Committee to fill the many missing slots in Sunday School, members of other committees, and so forth. The six who received the most votes would be asked to serve. Those who accepted had a big job ahead of them.
Joanna and I had been at Ken Caryl for just over a year at the time, so imagine my surprise when I was told that I was one of the six elected to serve on the committee. I accepted, and a few days later the six members of our new Nominating Committee met for the first time. Then I received another surprise when we were told that, of those who accepted (we were not told whether any had declined), I had received the most votes. Because of this, the committee elected me as chairperson.
It took us about 6 months to fill all of the positions that we were charged with filling. But that wasn’t the only challenge that faced us. The Church Operations Manual, which had been approved by a church vote only months before the split, gave the Nominating Committee the responsibility of removing anyone from service – among the positions for which we were responsible – whom we believed had compromised their faithfulness to the church in any way. That was a paraphrase, but it seemed to be the gist of it. Well, it came to our attention that one couple in the church, both of whom taught in Sunday School, had been playing on both sides of the field during the split. They had been attending the secret meetings of those who sought to oust the pastor, yet they then moved among the rest of us, pretending to support the pastor. After the split, they had stayed, contrary to the actions of their co-conspirators, and continued to act as if they had supported the pastor all along. This, to me, was a betrayal of the trust of the church. At least those who left had been honest with us.
I went to the pastor and discussed the situation with him. I proposed to recommend to the Nominating Committee that we go to this couple and ask them to step down from their teaching positions – at least temporarily, until they could be honest with both themselves and the church body on where they stood in reference to support of the pastor’s ministry. I’m one who always goes through channels. I wanted to make sure I had Don’s support for this proposal before taking it to the committee. Don gave me his approval.
At the next meeting, I made my recommendation, and the committee voted unanimously to approve it. Because I was the chairperson – and because it was my recommendation – I decided that I should be the one to go speak to the couple. However, I wanted another committee member to go with me – just to affirm what I said to them, in case they tried to claim differently. One of the women on the committee volunteered. The next day, I called the couple and told them that we wanted to come by their house that evening and discuss something with them. They said that would be fine.
That evening, we appeared at their door and were welcomed inside. We sat down on a couch opposite them. I had written out what I wanted to say. This was no time for improvising on the spot. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and I didn’t want to take a chance on deviating from it. I began to speak. After I finished, the husband walked over to the couch where we were sitting, dramatically reached underneath, and pulled out a running tape recorder.
First of all, I have to question just how he knew what was coming. Did someone on the committee tip him off? I’ll never know, but I’ll always wonder. Second, the hidden tape recorder was yet one more piece of evidence of the duplicitousness of this couple. He told me that they had formerly been members of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, and that he planned to send this tape to Pastor W. A. Criswell. The irony of this is that he had no idea of my own history with Criswell. Back in the late 1950s-early 1960s, my dad – who was then on the staff of the Dallas Baptist Association – used to meet Criswell at the YMCA across from First Baptist to plan the Jewish Neighbor Nights that Daddy’s office held at Criswell’s church. As for myself, I not only had no fear of Criswell – what could he do to me? – but no respect for the man who was one of the chief instigators of the fundamentalist takeover that was, by this time, into its 8th year in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Well, I don’t recall just where the evening went from there. I guess we thanked them and left. The next day, the committee friend who had accompanied me – who had voted with the rest of the committee to approve my recommendation – recanted her support of me, calling the couple and apologizing for her part in this matter. For the next week, I took at least one phone call every night, asking me about what had happened at this couple’s house, asking me to explain the committee’s decision, and – in some cases – upbraiding me for a decision with which they disagreed. Lon Wright was among those questioning me and disagreeing with me. The end result, though, was that the couple left Ken Caryl, presumably to join their co-conspirators, wherever they had gone.
I never wavered from my conviction that I – and our committee – had done the right thing. My conscience was clear; I believed that I had been faithful to what God led me to do as chair of the committee.
The following year, as Joanna and I prepared to move to Texas, the Sunday School class that I had taught for over 2 years gave us a wonderful going-away party one Saturday evening. At that party, several people gave “testimonials” to what Joanna and I had meant to them. Among them was Lon Wright, who told of his disagreement with me – a year earlier – over our committee’s action in sanctioning that couple. He shared that the husband had asked Lon to listen to the tape recording he had secretly made of our meeting. Lon said that he was proud of me, because – as the husband angrily ranted, raved, yelled at, and threatened me – I never returned his fire. I never engaged in any name-calling, I never yelled back or showed any anger. I took everything that this couple threw at me, then thanked them and left. Lon was proud of me for acting like a Christian. That meant more to me than you can imagine.
In 1989, 2 years after moving to Texas, Joanna, the kids, and I returned to Denver for a visit. On a Friday afternoon, we visited the Ken Caryl Baptist Church office, wanting to see Don Murray. While we were waiting to see Don, we chatted with our good friend Jere Gardner, Don’s secretary. She told us that the couple had recently returned to Ken Caryl, walked the aisle one Sunday morning, and apologized for the deceitful actions in which they had engaged in 1986. God works with us where we are. It takes some of us longer than others, but eventually God’s Spirit works miracles, as he had in this couple’s life. I was so gratified to hear of this, partly, of course, because it affirmed the action our committee had taken, but moreover because this couple had been restored to the fellowship . . . repentance and redemption had taken place.
I should add that, when we prepared to move to Texas in the summer of 1987, Don and Jeanie Murray took us to dinner to show their love and appreciation for us. It was mutual – we had come to love these special people a lot.
By the early 1990s, Don and Jeanie had left Colorado, and Don had taken a pastorate in Kerrville, in south-central Texas. One Sunday, after visiting my parents in Austin, Joanna, the kids, and I drove down to Kerrville, heard Don preach, and went to lunch with Don and Jeanie afterwards. I had called Don earlier that week to tell him we were coming and to arrange lunch. I had been quite clear that we wanted to return the favor and treat him and Jeanie to lunch this time. My offer fell on deaf ears! Don was too crafty. When we had finished lunch and no check had come, I went to ask the waitress. Turned out that Don had gone behind my back, probably when he supposedly went to the men’s room, and had already paid the check. Pretty sneaky, Don!
I remember one other thing about Don Murray. During our time at Ken Caryl in the mid-1980s, he once told me about having been approached by a fellow pastor who invited him to join and support the Fundamentalists who were in the midst of their hostile takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. He turned them down, refusing to take any part in their plot. This only deepened my respect and admiration for him. I wish more Baptist pastors had displayed such courage and conviction during that period.