Much as he would shrink from saying so, Dr. Frank Barker is a legend around Briarwood Presbyterian Church and beyond. People of all kinds, ages and races point to him as one of the humblest and most remarkable men they know.
I had the blessing of sharing lunch with Frank a month or so ago. As he told me his story in the busy restaurant – much of which I had read in his excellent biography Flight Path – I was particularly struck by an incident that proved a turning point in his life. Later I called on him in his office with my pen and notebook and prized more details about it from him.
Frank had gone to Columbia Theological Seminary in
After seminary he was asked to plant a church in
But Frank wasn’t satisfied. He was busy and seeing the Lord accomplish wonderful things, but something was missing. While at seminary he had heard one of his professors teach on the Spirit-filled life. He had read the recommended books, followed the prescribed formulae, yet nothing had seemed to happen. Disillusioned, he had given up the idea of the Spirit-led life – at least for ordinary Christians. It might be all right for super-Christians like D.L. Moody and Billy Graham, but it was not for minnows like Frank Barker. So for a time he dismissed the idea.
But the thought kept coming back to him, even as he saw people coming to Christ and growing in faith. Somehow a book by Edmon Raymond called They Found the Secret came into his hands. It was an account of twenty prominent Christians who, out of a crisis in their life, had discovered abundance, freedom and blessing in Christ. One of these people, a British army major by the name of Ian Thomas, made a special impact on Frank. Major Thomas told of an occasion when he sensed the Lord saying to him, “Ian, the life you have been trying to live for me is the life I’ve been waiting to live through you.” From that point on he began to discover what it meant to let Christ live through him.
This revolutionized Frank’s life. Up until that time he had thought of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in terms of fluid in a bucket. To be full of the Spirit, he thought, was much like a bucket being filled with water. In an instant he saw how wrong he had been. The Holy Spirit was not like an inert fluid, but was a Person. Being filled with the Spirit was being filled with the life of Another. It was a matter of having Christ actually living within.
From that moment Frank began to trust Christ to live in his life and to
produce fruit through him. He told me of his first experience of this. He had to preach at a Rescue Mission in
The meeting began as usual with a time of singing and testimonies. Only this time, the singing and testimonies were far from usual. People were overcome and began weeping. Whereas usually it was difficult to get people to share their testimonies, now people were spontaneously standing up speaking of what the Lord had done for them. Even people Frank didn’t think had testimonies wanted to tell others about the Lord!
When it came time for Frank to get up and preach he found he couldn’t do so. He would start to say something, and then begin to cry. Nothing like this had ever happened before. After 15 minutes he gave up and offered an invitation for people to come and receive Christ. Surely, he thought, unconverted people are going to tumble forward and beg Christ to save them. Yet, to his bewilderment, nothing happened. Not a single person responded.
That Sunday a well-known Christian lady happened to visit the church, a lady that Frank described as “the most Spirit-filled lady he knew.” Eager to share with her his perplexity and get her help, he told her of what had happened. Her reply to his story was, “You wanted to see some evidence; he [Jesus] wanted you simply to trust him.”
That was the turning point for him. As soon as he did that – look to the Lord to produce fruit through him and to trust him to do so without necessarily seeing evidence – things began to happen. “I had so much evidence that I didn’t know what to do with it,” he said. “People seemed to be falling out of the trees, coming to Christ and wanting to grow in him.”
He was quick to say that it wasn’t always like that in his ministry. There were tough and seemingly barren times as well. But the principle has remained true. Being a fruitful Christian is not about doing what we can for the Lord, but letting him do what he wants to do through us.