By Lynn P. Clayton
Editor
At the beginning of his 40th year as pastor of First Baptist
Church, Zachary, Wayne Barnes did what most people who know him well thought
he would never do – he retired.
Barnes commitment to ministering to people as a pastor,
and the lengths to which he would go to fulfill that commitment, are legendary
among his congregation and friends. It seems wherever the church family of Zachary
First Baptist were in need, even a days drive away, Barnes would usually
find his way to their sides.
By Lynn P. Clayton
Editor
At the beginning of his 40th year as pastor of First Baptist
Church, Zachary, Wayne Barnes did what most people who know him well thought
he would never do – he retired.
Barnes commitment to ministering to people as a pastor,
and the lengths to which he would go to fulfill that commitment, are legendary
among his congregation and friends. It seems wherever the church family of Zachary
First Baptist were in need, even a days drive away, Barnes would usually
find his way to their sides.
Few people can imagine him not expressing that commitment in
ministry and they are probably right. While Barnes has retired as a pastor of
a local congregation, he is far less likely ever to stop being the consummate
minister to people in need.
When Barnes relationship with the Zachary church began
in 1962, Zachary was little more than a small “semi-bedroom” community
of 3,000 souls near Baton Rouge. A paper mill was also located there and the
petro-chemical plants that dotted the Mississippi employed many others.
The congregation had 570 members and owned “two or three”
acres of land with inadequate buildings in downtown Zachary. Total annual church
receipts the year before the church contacted Barnes, were $40,535.
J.L. Pollard, Barnes uncle, was a long-time Louisiana
Baptist Convention Executive Board employee and knew that Barnes was finishing
his Doctorate of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He wanted
Barnes ministering in Louisiana.
“He gave them my name,” Barnes recalls, “and
they contacted me. I had served one other church as pastor. I had gone in early
1953 to serve as pastor near Eagle Lake, 70 miles west of Houston. I was their
first pastor. The first time I baptized, I baptized in the Colorado River and
baptized 12 adults.
“I had just been offered a position teaching in the University
of Corpus Christi,” Barnes said, “and I was struggling with that.”
The call to the pastorate won out and Barnes moved his young
family to Louisiana.
The growth of the church since that day in the community that
has grown from 3,000 to 12,000 has been impressive. At Barnes retirement
in April of this year, the church owned 12 acres of land – “Weve
had to buy house after house” – and buildings valued at $16,000,000.
Membership has grown from that 570 to 3,139. They gave $208,492 to the Cooperative
Program last year – 8th in the entire Louisiana Baptist Convention –
out of an annual budget of $1.8 million. And some 2,086 people have been baptized
by the church in the 39 years.
In addition to giving money to support missions, Barnes eagerly
talks about the churchs direct involvement in missions.
Members of the church have formed mission crews, almost always
led by Barnes, of all kinds and have been to several states and even foreign
countries. They started a Baptist church in New York state and built numerous
church buildings in Montana and Washington State.
In the middle of Barnes tenure with the church, he experienced
a “serious family situation” when his wife at the time decided to
leave their marriage.
“No pastor could have had a church that would have been
so supportive in every way,” Barnes wrote in his letter announcing his
retirement. “You supported me in a way that probably no other church would
have. I will ever be grateful to you. And God has blessed us with a loving,
harmonious fellowship that has grown and prospered in every area of ministry.”
Barnes still becomes emotional when talking about the support
of the church during that difficult time.
Years later, Barnes married a young widow in the church, Joyce
Fitzgerald East. They have been married 20 years.
The Barnes now with four boys and three girls and nine grandchildren
are a missions family. Barnes wife, Joyce, is the past president of the
Louisiana Baptist Convention Womans Missionary Union and a popular missions
speaker. Daughter Leyette and her husband John Johnson and their daughter Kayla,
age 7, and son Aaron, age 2, are in Campinas, Brazil, studying language to serve
as missionaries in the Amazon basin under the appointment of the Southern Baptist
International Mission Board.
A staggering amount of the construction of building for the
church in the last 39 years has been done by volunteer labor donated by members
of the church.
The churchs educational building burned and they built
it back larger (66,000 square feet) and they built a large family ministry center
(34,000 square feet) that now gives them more than 100,000 square feet of educational
space. Their worship center, built in the last 25 years, seats approximately
900. Barnes always assumed he would lead the church in building a new, larger
worship center to combine their two times of worship, but retirement time arrived
first.
A lesser love of Barnes during the last 39 years has been travel.
He has visited Israel 28 times, most of them as a tour leader, and more than
100 other countries.
Barnes describes his traveling as a
“passion.”
“I just want to see what is down the road,” he explains
with a smile. “I enjoy helping other people see it, too. I had rather see
things with other people.”
Barnes says his retirement will provide more time to lead more
tours.
“I have used vacation time to lead tours,” he said.
“Now I will have more time and lead more tours.”
The travel agency he owns in Zachary will be his base, and
Joyce will accompany him on the trips.
His travels have led him a long way from the days he graduated
from high school as a lad who had just turned 16-years of age in east central
Texas. He went to Victoria College for two years and then graduated from Corpus
Christi University before studying theology at Southwestern.
Many of his travel stories are what to others would be fantasies.
For instance, he talks about visiting the headwaters of the Amazon River just
after the Auca Indians killed five missionaries.
“Thirty years ago, we flew in on an old
DC-3. As far as you could see, there was only green,” Barnes recalls fondly
in his soft-spoken voice. “No roads, no nothing. Rachel Saint, whose brother
had been killed by the Indians, met me in Lema-cocha. A missionary couple was
working there. Isolated. Giving these people a written language. We sent them
a motorcycle and a sawmill.”
More names roll off his lips names of distant places and dedicated
missionaries he has visited.
In addition, Barnes has been involved in the work of his local
associations, and the state and national conventions. He was been a trustee
for Louisiana College on several occasions and Golden Gate Theological Seminary.
He has also served on the state convention Executive Board. He has also served
on the Southern Baptist Convention Committee on Committees and Committee on
Nominations. He was the alternate to preach the annual message for the Southern
Baptist Convention when it met in Miami, Florida in 1975.
He has been active in civic life and recently received a flood
of resolutions of appreciation from civic groups and town, parish and state
governments. He has become such a part of the community that he and Joyce estimate
that 40 to 50 percent of the people to whom he ministers now are not part of
his local congregation.
Above all else, Barnes has remained a dedicated pastor.
When asked what the most difficult thing about being a pastor
has been, he answered after great thought, “There is not any of it I really
dislike. I guess keeping a balance has been the most difficult. There are so
many aspects of being a pastor, any one of which could take all your time. I
have tried to keep a balance.”
After thinking another spell, Barnes reflects on pastoring,
and sees it in terms of ministering to people.
“A lot of people you should have gone to see, a lot of
needs you didnt get met. You go to bed at night thinking about them. I
guess that is why I have focused the most on a pastoral approach. And, I have
always tried to have a good Biblical message when I preach.”
Barnes has developed strong convictions about being a pastoral
leader.
“I knew more when I started than I do now,” he says
with that reoccurring smile. “A church has to have strong pastoral leadership,
or they are not going anywhere or accomplishing much. I dont mean being
a boss kind of thing. But the number one thing they are calling is a leader.
Not a promoter. Not an administrator. Not a preacher. A leader. Someone is going
to lead you, and it needs to be the person God calls to do it.”
Wayne Barnes has stepped down as a fulltime pastor, but he
will not step down as a minister. At 66 years of age, he is stepping into another
foreign land, the land of retirement. “I always assumed I would retire,
not preach until I die. But (when) it has been so much a part of your life,
you assume you will always be there.
“I told the deacons two years ago that I would give them
notice, and I did a year ago. Its been hard. Ive nearly backed out
two or three times.”
Barnes retirement seems to be a bittersweet time for the congregation.
He has baptized many of the members and the vast majority have come into the
church under his leadership. For many, he is the only pastor they have known.
He performed the marriage ceremony for couples, and then their children, and
some cases the grandchildren.
Members also know him as the man who worked tirelessly beside
them as they constructed education buildings, the family life center and mission
buildings. In all of this, they learned to listen to his soft, sparse words.
Part of this strong love is reflected in the retirement gift
the church gave him – almost $125,000 plus $750 a month for Joyces
insurance until she reaches 65 years of age. They also named him Pastor Emeritus.
But now the retirement bridge has been crossed. Still, Barnes
knows what he is still about. “Im still going to pastor people.”