Posted on 04/23/2003 5:14:43 AM PDT by miltonim
The Pastor Without a Paycheck
Randy Alcorn learned to live what he had preached while fleeing the wrath of abortionists and the judgment of the courts.
| posted 04/22/2003
On the first friday in May 1990, an envelope came to the door of Randy Alcorn's semi-rural home in Gresham, Oregon, east of Portland. Inside the envelope was a copy of a writ of garnishment for Alcorn's wages. The writ required Good Shepherd Church, where Alcorn was pastor of missions, to surrender a portion of his wages.
Alcorn understood instantly what lay behind the writ. In 1989 Portland police had arrested him several times for blocking the doors of several abortion clinics. One of the clinics had sued him and other "rescuers," winning a small judgment plus attorney's fees. Alcorn had refused to pay, believing it would violate his conscience to write a check to an abortion clinic.
Some time before the suit, Alcorn and his wife, Nanci, had placed all their assets in her name—house, car, and bank account. Alcorn had given away or sold the copyrights to his five published books. At a debtor's hearing he was able to state truthfully that he owned nothing of value. An opposing lawyer went so far as to ask about the gold band he was wearing on his left hand.
Alcorn held up the ring, milking the drama of the moment. "I'm not sure what it's worth today, but I paid $12.50 for it at Kmart four years ago."
Alcorn had not anticipated having his wages garnished, however. This implicated not just Alcorn's conscience, but also that of his church. If the church refused to pay, serious legal complications could follow. Many church members had grave doubts about the wisdom of Alcorn's protests. Now they were sucked into the backwash.
A quick visit to the church offered Alcorn slight relief. By some glitch no legal papers had yet reached Good Shepherd. The church office would be closed for the weekend. He had until Monday.
After a flurry of phone calls, prayers and consultations, Alcorn concluded that he had only one alternative. Sunday evening he met with the church's elders to resign his position. On the spot, they wrote him a check for the week of May he had already worked. Though he was a founding pastor of the church, though it was the only church he had ever known since seminary, though he had expected to spend the rest of his life as a pastor there, he quit his job.
On Monday morning he caught his breath and began to ask the next question: What would he do with the rest of his life?
Single-minded zeal
Alcorn is a man of passionate commitments. The son of an Oregon tavern owner, he gave himself to Christ in high school with a rare single-mindedness. At the age of 22 he joined one of his former youth pastors, Stu Weber, in launching Good Shepherd Church in the rural burg of Boring, Oregon. (The Boring Pastors Fellowship is a legendary but entirely real phenomenon.)
The church grew quickly to become one of the larger fellowships in the Portland area. Finances were tight in the early years, but eventually Alcorn began to draw what he considered a generous salary. Furthermore, he began to write.
In 1985 he published his first book. Others followed, and though the royalty checks were not huge they made a significant addition to his income as a pastor. Alcorn was enthusiastic about writing, so much so that he felt torn between his pastoral responsibilities and the time he needed for books and articles.
The royalty checks helped prime another emerging passion. After specializing in counseling and family life at Good Shepherd, Alcorn had asked to concentrate on missions. As he learned more about overseas needs, he wanted to give more to meet them.
Studying Scripture impressed on him the importance God placed on generosity. He and Nanci and their two girls had always lived simply—not entirely by choice. Now, as their income increased, they kept expenses at the same level and gave the difference to needy causes. A book, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, offered Alcorn's detailed scriptural examination of wealth. In it, Alcorn challenged Christians to give sacrificially.
The book was published just as a third passion reached its peak. For years Alcorn had preached outspokenly against abortion. He served on the board of Portland's first Pregnancy Counseling Center. He and Nanci took a pregnant teenager into their home while she prepared to give birth and give up her child for adoption.
Yet nothing seemed to make any difference. Year after year, abortion clinics killed hundreds of thousands of unborn children.
"The issue was consuming my mind and heart," Alcorn says. "When that light is turned on, you can't turn it off."
In 1986 Randall Terry had launched Operation Rescue, a national effort that tried to break the abortion stalemate through civil disobedience. By blocking clinic doors, protesters hoped to prevent at least a few abortions. Alcorn agonized. He had always respected the law and never dreamed of participating in civil disobedience.
Nevertheless, in January 1989 he asked his church elders for permission to participate in local protests. With some reluctance they granted it.
Chained
To scan headlines from that period in The Oregonian is to re-enter a forgotten world of struggle. Rescue protests marched repeatedly to Portland abortion clinics, blocking access with their bodies. Clinics fought back ferociously, enlisting all the powers of law to their side. In clearing protesters, police were often less than gentle.
Accusations and counteraccusations filled the air. Rescuers claimed that press accounts were highly biased and sometimes false. Prochoice voices claimed property damage and savage emotional harassment of women who were in desperate straits. Though Alcorn says the rescue movement in Portland (not affiliated with Operation Rescue) worked hard to be peaceful and respectful toward women seeking abortions, leaders always had to contend with fringe individuals who favored more dramatic tactics.
The prochoice cause got the courts to level harsh fines and jail sentences against protesters, particularly those who refused to promise future good behavior. Clinics pursued civil suits, hoping to bankrupt those who participated in rescues.
Alcorn emerged as a vocal leader, frequently quoted. It was an intensely lonely time for him and his family. A private person, Nanci began to hate going to the grocery store, or even to church, because of the "cow eyes" people would show her.
Only when she went to her daughters' sporting events did she find refuge. People there knew her only as the mother of Karina and Angela.
She despised being the object of others' sympathy. "I wanted to take people aside and say, 'You know, we're not nuts.' "
A lawyer for the abortion clinic made a statement in court that stuck in Alcorn's memory. "My clients," he said, "have every bit as much right to perform abortions as McDonald's has to sell hamburgers." Alcorn knew perfectly well that the man spoke truly, in a legal sense; but what an upside-down world they lived in, where selling hamburgers was on a par with taking the lives of babies.
Though arrested a number of times, Alcorn spent only one night in jail. Chained hand and foot, pushed down a corridor full of gawking spectators and flashing cameras, stripped and subjected to a body cavity search, refused food or medicine when guards wouldn't believe that he was an insulin-dependent diabetic, he learned what it meant to be treated as a criminal.
One of his best friends, Ron Norquist, spent nine months in jail, losing his job and his house in the process. Nanci says, "The experience taught us to understand what it means to say, 'We won't always receive justice in this world.' "
Survival mode
In May 1990, when he quit his job, Alcorn's convictions seemed to have brought him to a dead end. In the face of fierce legal consequences, rescues were petering out. He had planned to pastor at Good Shepherd for his entire life. If he went to any other church—any other job, for that matter—the legal judgment would travel with him. And he did not want to go to any other church. He wanted his children, 10 and 12 years old, to continue at the Good Shepherd School they loved. All that seemed impossible, gone for good.
Alcorn's passion for generous giving and for missions would find few avenues for expression, it seemed, with his working at minimum wage. (By law, if he made more than that his wages would be garnished.) Nanci, a stay-at-home mom, presumably would have to get a job to support the family.
Trying to think through possibilities, Alcorn remembered the conflicts he had felt between pastoral work and writing. He had taken months of leave without pay in order to write. Now, apparently, he had as many months of leave as he could ever wish—if he could find a way to survive.
As he pondered his options, Alcorn realized that his family was well prepared. Since they had struggled to give generously, they lived simply as a matter of course. They had always driven old cars. They did not have loans to repay or an expensive lifestyle to support. Just two months before, they had paid off the mortgage on their house. They could not live on air, but they could live on very little.
Alcorn got an idea. With three months of bridging help from the church, the Alcorns set up a nonprofit organization in their home—Eternal Perspectives Ministry (epm). Working for the organization at minimum wage, Alcorn would write and speak. He would have the freedom to emphasize his passion—generosity, missions, and prolife advocacy. Nanci would handle the administration as a part-time secretary, paid a secretary's wage. Between the two of them, they would earn enough to get by.
That depended on some income for epm, however. Eventually, book royalties could make a substantial contribution. For the present, however, the Alcorns would have to depend on the support of people who believed in their passions.
They sent out a letter to about 90 families, mostly from their church, appealing for support in the lowest key possible. The response warmed them. They had felt very alone, but evidently their church fellowship cared for them deeply. With such support, they believed they could make it. (An anonymous donor paid the girls' tuition at Good Shepherd School.)
Fruitfulness
"We have suffered nothing," Nanci Alcorn emphasizes. "But I have suffered many things in my mind."
For years after beginning epm, the Alcorns lived with the possibility of losing their home. A second suit found Alcorn responsible for $8.2 million in punitive damages. His lawyer warned that if the clinic pursued aggressively, the Alcorns could lose what little they held in Nanci's name, including the house.
Gradually the anxiety died, however, as their antagonists failed to pursue their assets. Alcorn's books began to sell, and royalty checks came in to epm. In 1994 he published his first novel; five more have followed.
Alcorn's books have reached a growing audience. He has spoken to wider and more influential audiences across the country, sticking to his passions of generosity, missions, and defending life. It has been years now since epm needed contributions to pay its modest expenses; instead the organization has become a de facto foundation, passing on all royalty checks to mission causes. In the last three years epm has given away $500,000.
Meanwhile the Alcorns live and do business in the same modest three-bedroom home. (Four years ago they added an office to the garage.) They drive used cars that are donated to the organization. Alcorn still receives the minimum wage, plus speaking honorariums. He has not used an atm or written a check since 1990.
The clinic still has eight years in which to collect on the $8.2 million judgment against Alcorn. The Alcorns don't much care.
They do not see themselves as heroes and are quick to say that they have made few if any sacrifices. They also emphasize that not everyone would be able to follow the same path. "It would be a lot harder for a carpenter."
The Alcorns more often talk about all they have gained. "It would have been very difficult to leave the pastorate to become a writer and speaker," Alcorn says. "Suddenly I had no choice."
Though he suffers some nostalgia for the pastorate, he approaches his current work with gusto. He loves writing. He loves giving away money to ministries far and wide, and he loves his chance to influence people nationally.
Furthermore, he feels obvious pride in his grown and married daughters. They gained a lot, he believes, from living through difficult choices. For one thing, "our kids are givers, and I don't think we ever could have lectured them into that."
Last year author Alcorn began revising his book Money, Possessions, and Eternity, which came out just as he became involved in prolife rescues. "In pastoral ministries you sometimes have to preach on things that you haven't learned that well. If you're going to preach on prayer, you better do some praying this week!"
The same principle applied to his writing on money and possessions. Fourteen years haven't changed his mind on much, but as he reread his own words he recognized truths he had not much experienced at the time he wrote of them.
For example, he wrote, "I may 'know' that I will receive a promotion and pay raise in September, but God has not guaranteed me that. Plans change . . . " They do indeed. Within a year of the book's publication, Alcorn had lost his job and "owned" nothing beyond his clothing.
"It used to be we would say that my name was on the bank account, but God was the owner. Well, now my name's not even on the account. There's not even an illusion that anything belongs to me."
There's another noteworthy line in the book: " 'All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!' We sing it, but do we mean it?"
In the book that question relates to the question of a lifestyle built on debt. It might, though, have served as a more general question for the Alcorns, as they stood unknowingly poised on the edge of an abyss.
The question can be answered now. They sing it, and they mean it.
Nathaniel Fischer followed up with asking Illbay: You're a Mormon, aren't you?
It's the LDS church, of which included my ancestors and current extended family members, which has advocated no political position on abortion to its church members...which has told its bishops in its Handbook on Church Instruction that it's OK to get abortion for reasons of disability or health (which can mean anything--and the abortionist determines what "health" means). Odd for a church that believes that spirit babies are up yonder waiting to inhabit bodies here on earth. The LDS folk should be the most pro-life of any "tribe."
Actually, I invoke Psalm 137:9 whenever I encounter a prominent pro-death spokesman in print. Even as these people prosper by killing other people's children, I pray that they may be deprived of their own children. The New Testament application of this sentiment is -- a prayer for the conversion of their children. The Rock is Jesus. I pray that the Savior will alienate the children of abortionists by converting them to the service of the Lord of Life.
Do you know this Pastor personally? I'm just wondering because the article shows a man with a lifetime commitment to God, yet you insist he protested for a few minutes of publicity. Perhaps you could share your personal knowledge with us.
Although I have been called "useless" because I refused to support the killing of abortion doctors.
I missed the part where the Pastor said he advocated killing abortion doctors....Is this more personal knowledge?
I like your tagline....so, how are you part of the solution?
Isn't the answer obvious? Because the believes in standing up for the helpless innocent who cannot stand up for themselves. When the State or Federal Law is contrary to universal moral laws from God, it CAN and SHOULD be broken. Question for you: The germans near Buchenwald obeyed the law and sat passively buy while thousands were led to their deaths...which is more important - obeying the law or doing what is right? hmmm?
He might have a line in the sand somewhere, but it's really hard to see.
Again, Jesus dying for our sins--or even becoming a man to begin with--was an extreme, outrageous act. The word "radical" comes from the word "radix"--which means roots. To be radical means just to return to our roots, which is God, Himself--a God who will do outrageous, extreme things because His love is outrageous and extreme.
it gave the abortion crowd a bullet for their magazine. We shouldn't be loading their guns for them.
Neither should we would elevate our reputation over the very lives of babes. We have two choices: Either engage in self-survival--do things according to what will protect our individual and corporate (pro-life movement) reputation--or doing things Scripturally: Become expendable. Become self-sacrificial.
Let's not save the pro-life movement at the expense of babies. Let's save the babies at the expense of the pro-life movement. As Bonhoeffer said in 1933: "I guess we need to start an emergency league within the emergency league." In other words, let's have a movement that will urgently protect life in deed, not just name only.
Yeah, I went through this battle-- not the same one Mr. Alcorn did, but one like it-- and unlike it too. I stood outside a clinic and watched women go in to kill their children. I saw them cover their faces so they couldn't be identified. I waited until they came out, pale and crying but still scared of being recognized. When the police came, I didn't fall down and refuse to move along like some of the others, I grumbled and walked away, only to return another day to witness it all again.
Then one day I witnessed it in another, even more painful way. I and a woman I loved had made a baby. We weren't married and she didn't want her co-workers to know, so she decided to have an abortion. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant. I enlisted the help of friends whom she knew and trusted. She would not be swayed.
Prior to the actual abortion, she had an examination which included an ultrasound scan. I asked to be there and got to see my child squirming and fluttering in the womb. She wouldn't look at it nor would she allow me to keep the small photo the technician used to gauge the age of the child. The next day she was late coming home from work. Her appointment at the clinic was for 6 pm. She finally arrived home at 7:30, pale, crying and bleeding.
To this point I have not mentioned our other child, a daughter who was four years old at the time this was taking place. She's fourteen now, a freshman in high school and more beautiful than I can describe. But on that dark winter night when her sibling was killed, I decided to see to it that she wouldn't go down that same road her mother had traveled. I choked back my feelings, made a sort of peace with the woman who had simultaneously killed her own child and my love for her, and conciously chose to stay with her.
Perhaps these last ten years are my penance for living in sin in the first place. Maybe it's for not taking more forceful action to save the life of my child. I don't know, nor do any of you, though some will undoubtably quote scripture or civil/criminal law in an attempt to prove you do. All I know is that I live reasonably comfortably with a woman I can't love and a daughter I can't confess to. Because of insurance considerations we were married a few years ago, but we sleep in separate rooms, go to different churches and have different friends. We share a house, some bills, a daughter and a lifetime of distrust.
Pro-abortionists try to de-humanize the offending 'fetus' in an attempt to claim that no one is hurt by abortion. Pro-lifers claim that a baby is killed and a woman is emotionally scarred. But others suffer too.
opinions based upon hearsay rather than firsthand experience
Seeing an aborted baby in a casket in 1989 indeed helped to frame my worldview. Twelve years later, picking up my miscarried son (11 weeks gestation) off of the bathroom floor reinforced it. Yes, tis too bad that too many folks base their worldviews upon sloppy sloganeering and not the reality of humanity.
"Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
First off, the abortion industry should keep its muffs off the pre-born child. Dismemberment of God's worksmanship in the womb is not recommended in light of the final judgment.
Secondly, an attack upon God's creation is an attack upon Jesus, Himself (Matt. 25:37-46).
Thirdly, an attack upon those who would protect the innocent (the church of Jesus Christ) is an attack upon Jesus, Himself ("Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me " (Acts 9:4)
Fourthly, the assets of a Christian protecting the pre-born belong not to Caesar or a subsidiary of Caesar (e.g. Planned Parenthood), but rather to God (Ps.24:1: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it"). We cannot always know where our $ spent is going to be used, but when we can trace it precisely we should consider the injunction not to "share in the sins of others" (1 Tim. 5:22). If I had a babysitter who was taking $ to pay for drugs & I could trace the connection, I would do what I could to cut the bridge between my wallet & her drug habit in the name of (tough) loving that person. Remember, love rejoices in the truth (1 Cor. 13:6).
Bingo. How many anti-war or save-the-spotted-owl malefactors have you seen commit far more egregious acts (destruction of property; booby-trapping trees) than Randy Alcorn and get a small fine, a few days in stir, or . . . a stern admonition never to do it again?
RICO's author, G. Robert Blakey, has often commented on the zealous misapplication of his statute:
Ironically, one of the chief framers of the RICO legislation suggested the [initial Scheidler] verdict is inappropriate. G. Robert Blakey, a law professor at Notre Dame University, said the act was designed to thwart organized crime and drug cartels.
“This case is a nightmare for anyone who wants to picket,” Blakey told the Associated Press. He said pro-life organizations, which do not profit financially from the public witnessing against abortion, should never be subject to anti-racketeer legislation.
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