Mac Brunson probably thinks we are crazy, and we have never (really) met
The Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
In my family, there is a long-running joke that involves Mac Brunson, my daughter Molly, my preaching ability, and my wife Dana behaving erratically in the cramped confines of a national monument.
When I was attending seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, Brunson was the pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, TX. The church services were broadcast on our local TV station, and we would often watch. By the time I came to pastor Central Baptist Church of Waycross, GA, Brunson had become the pastor of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, FL. Waycross is about an hour and a half from Jacksonville, and our local TV stations are Jacksonville stations. So again, his church's services were broadcast on our local TV station, and we would often watch. Beyond watching his preaching on TV, the only other connection I have had with Brunson was attending the FBC Jacksonville preaching conference and hearing him preach at denominational events. Brunson is an excellent preacher, but I had not followed his ministry closely.
Then in February 2015, my daughter, who was just shy of her 8th birthday, gave me some preaching advice. It was early one Sunday morning while we were still at home getting ready for church. First Baptist Church of Jacksonville services were on our TV, and Mac Brunson was preaching. Molly said to me as she watched Brunson preach, "Dad, what you need to do is write down everything that he says and just preach that." I guess she recognized that his preaching was better than anything she had seen me do. I was a little wounded and asked her what she thought the difference was between his preaching and mine. Her response was simple and direct. She said, "Well, he is a pro."
And with that, a family joke was born. I told the story of our conversation during my sermon later that morning at church (watch the video here) and have told it many times since. Since then, whenever someone in our family wants to acknowledge someone's achievement, they call them a pro. Likewise, whenever someone recognizes a personal shortcoming, they say, "I'm not a pro." So, by the summer of 2016, being or not being a pro was a well-established family trope.
Each summer in June, my wife and I attend the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The 2016 annual meeting was held in St. Louis, MO. The two main gathering areas at this event are the room where the meetings take place and the exhibit area where ministries and organizations related to Southern Baptists have exhibit booths. The exhibit area is also where those attending the meetings often catch up with old friends and relax between meeting events. While Dana and I were in the main meeting room, Mac Brunson walked past us on the way to his seat. I recognized him and whispered to Dana that if we saw him later in the exhibit area, we should ask him to take a selfie with us so that we could send it to Molly and say that we had met the "Pro."
When Dana has a mission, she is tenacious about completing the task. If you need to find something rare and obscure, she will happily search the world over to find it. So, when I made this lighthearted suggestion, she took it on as a personal mission to find Mac Brunson and take a selfie with him. I have no doubt that if we had approached him in the exhibit hall and told him why we would like to take a selfie with him, he would have been glad to oblige. However, to Dana's disappointment, we never saw him again in the meeting room or the exhibit hall.
We generally plan some fun events for us to do after our meetings, so on Wednesday, after our meetings concluded, we planned to visit the Gateway Arch.
The Gateway Arch is an impressive and iconic structure. There is a museum below the Arch, but the most breathtaking experience is to ascend to the top and take in the view from America's tallest monument. Because the Arch does not have vertical space within it to install an elevator, it has an ingenious tram system that follows the curvature of the Arch to ascend visitors to its 63 stories high observation area. The tram has "pods" that seat five persons and rotate approximately 155 degrees as they make the 4-minute journey to the top of the 630-foot-high Arch. The tram very much captures the 1960s space-age modern aesthetic. However, the space-age look and impressive engineering do not accommodate anyone with physical handicaps or those who struggle with claustrophobia. The door to the pods is rather small and requires adults to significantly bend over to enter. Once passengers are seated in the pods, they find themselves toe-to-toe and knees-to-knees with the other riders. When the pods arrive at the top, passengers are again required to bend over to exit the door. It takes a moment to acclimate to the new surroundings as you emerge. Once you step out of the pod and straighten up, you realize that the passengers queued up to ride the pods back down are standing inches from you. A narrow path allows arriving passengers to walk past the passengers waiting to make the trip down.
Dana and me beside the pod doors at the top of the Gateway Arch
We climbed into the little pod and made the 4-minute trip to the top. When we arrived, Dana was the first to emerge from the pod. When she stepped out, straightened up, and took in her new surroundings, she was surprised to see that Mac Brunson was standing next to her. He was the first in line waiting to ride the pod back to the bottom. Somewhat disoriented from emerging into this new environment, she was now standing face to face with the man she had been looking for since the day before, and it caught her off guard. As I was still emerging from the pod and not fully acclimated to the new surroundings, she excitedly turned to me and said, "Here is the pro! Here is the pro!" Finally, her goal of finding Brunson seemed to have been achieved. Her euphoria in finding Brunson turned immediately to determination as she redirected her full attention to Brunson. As soon as she declared, "Here is the pro," she must have registered Brunson's confusion, and she realized he did not understand her excitement. The efficiency of the tram system requires that arriving passengers quickly exit the pods and step aside so that the departing passengers can enter the pods. Undeterred by the abbreviated opportunity, Dana began to spit out words as quickly as possible to try and explain the whole back story. She started with Molly's preaching advice and how we called him "The Pro." She was desperately trying to explain the entire story and how we would like to take a selfie for our daughter as we and the other arriving pod passengers walked up the stairs past those waiting in line to go back down. Most of the people waiting in line looked as bewildered and confused as Brunson did. All of this happened in a matter of seconds before we walked on up the stairs, and Brunson and the other riders got in the pods and began their descent.
When we reached the top of the stairs, the exhilaration of finding Brunson began to give way to the reality and awkwardness of what had just transpired. Dana turned to me and said, "He must think I'm crazy." I agreed, and we laughed at what he must have thought when she stepped out of the pod, looked at him, and said, "Here is the pro!" From his perspective, the experience must have been strange indeed. For the rest of the day, I had great fun teasing her that I was watching his Twitter feed to see if he tweeted about the crazy lady that shouted at him "Here is the pro" at the Arch.
A few weeks later, after we had returned home, we thought an explanation might help explain this unusual meeting, so we sent an email to Brunson through his church's website but never received a reply. He probably has someone to screen his email to cull out the crazies.
In recent weeks I had two conversations where at the conclusion, my attitude had significantly changed from what it was at the beginning. In both cases, I began the conversation with assumptions about the other person, which led me not to want to give much time or attention to their concerns. Yet during these conversations, I chose to relax my posture, actively engage in the conversation, and give the other person time to share their concerns. As a result, they had the space to communicate themselves more fully with the gift of time, and I was blessed by it. Unfortunately, we live hectic lives that often give little room for unrushed conversations. But the truth is that to hear someone truly; you must be willing to wait, listen, and engage with them before the actual substance of the conversation begins. Small talk often precedes real talk, but we seldom wait for it and often miss it. Ministering to others requires listening and engaging, not efficiently scheduling.
Our meeting with Brunson at the Gateway Arch was doomed from the start. No matter how fast Dana talked, she would never be able to communicate all that she needed to say in that time-limited moment, and he had no chance of understanding why she was so excitedly calling him "the pro." Many of our daily interactions are equally hindered. We may be saying all the needed words, but we are not intentionally providing for the needed time to listen and be heard.
One day we may again run into Mac Brunson, but I promise that unless it is a moment that affords adequate time to introduce ourselves, we will just politely nod and move on even while we whisper to one another, "Here is the pro."
Update June 2024
At the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis, IN, Dana and I were walking out of a dinner meeting when I spotted Mac. I whispered to Dana, “There is the pro.” We asked him to take a selfie, and he graciously obliged. After waiting eight years, Dana has finally completed her goal of taking a photo with the pro.
Clip from a sermon titled Repent and Be Saved, Acts 2:37-40 preached on February 15, 2015, at Central Baptist Church, Waycross, GA. Molly gave me some advice to improve my preaching. Skip to 1:12 to hear her advice.
