Everybody needs a Betty

Recently I got to see one of my all-time favorite people.

I met Betty in 1988 when I became her pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Tucumcari, NM. I was fresh out of seminary and went to pastor a church where most of the members were older than my parents. Truth be told, a pretty good number of them were close to the age of my grandparents.

Betty was one of the younger ones (about the age I am now).  My first memory of Betty was at our church’s Christmas dinner in a local restaurant.  I had been at the church for a couple of weeks and was still learning names.  Thelma shouted across the room for Betty to pass her a tortilla. 

Betty did. 

Like a frisbee.

Across the room.

I knew these were my people.

My very favorite memory of Betty—a story I have shared many time with pastors—happened a few months later.  We needed to start a new Sunday School class for younger adults.  Our youngest class at the time had an age range of more than 50 years from the youngest to the oldest.

Trinity was 50 years old that year, having started as a split from First Baptist Church fifty years prior AND having split two more times in the subsequent decades.  All but a few of the rooms were just filled with junk—hollow reminders of better days.

I identified the best room in the building to start this new class, but it was absolutely jam-packed with—let’s use a kinder word—stuff.

On this particular weekday, I was downstairs trying to figure out how to deal with the stuff.  Betty was there, working on organizing the “flower room.”

I was so young and inexperienced as a pastor, that almost everything that came up was a learning opportunity.  But I was smart enough to know that if I just went in and got rid of someone’s “treasure,” I could quickly be a young, inexperienced, unemployed pastor!

I told Betty what I had in mind and my fears. At that point she uttered two of the sweetest words any pastor has ever heard: “Go home.” I wasn’t sure how sweet those words were until she repeated them with a special twinkle in her eye.

I went home.

The next day, I arrived to an empty room. Betty had provided me with plausible deniability. I could honestly say, “I don’t know where that stuff is.”

And she never told me.

Betty is the only church member from those days that I have kept in touch with for the past 28 years since I left Tucumcari. Of course, most of them graduated to heaven years ago. She lives in Amarillo with her daughter now.

So on a recent Sunday evening, they drove to Hereford to hear me sing and preach at Avenue Baptist Church, where I was leading revival services for the week.

Every pastor needs a Betty. I’d even say that every leader needs a Betty. Someone who loves you, supports you, protects you, and helps take care of small things so you can focus on doing what you do best.

My very special friend, Betty, is a reminder to me that our lives matter to God. He arranges friendships that help us all to grow.  Who’s your Betty?

Be amazing today, my friend.