My Mentor, Wayne Henthorn

Yesterday, I had the privilege to speak a few words at the funeral of my mentor and friend, Wayne Henthorn.  I was asked to speak from the perspective of a staff member of the church.  I was blessed to serve alongside of him for over 20 years.  During that time he passed on to me much of his life and calling. 

If Pastor Keith, the man I wrote about last week, taught me how to pastor, Wayne taught me how to lead selflessly, and love sacrificially.  Given the few minutes I had to speak, I could in no way capture all of what Wayne meant to me, and to the church where he invested his life, but I tried. Here is what I shared.

Not long after I came on staff at Bethany I started meeting with Wayne for mentorship.  We met for years. In our times together, Wayne imparted his knowledge of the church, what he had learned about leadership, and what he was still discovering about following Jesus.

Some of what he shared was simple and practical like: Do the hard things first, there was no reason to be worrying about them all day long. 

Some were convictions like: Purpose over preference.  What was unique about Wayne’s leadership was he did not call people to give up their preference, without being willing to lay down his own. No one gave up more of their own desires during Wayne’s tenure as elder chairman than he did.

Then there were the things Wayne was willing to die for, like Unity.  Having endured the hurt of the church split in the early 1980’s, he never wanted the body to go through that pain again. 

Wayne would say splits do not happen because of the congregation, but because of the Elder board. Maintaining unity at the board level was his highest calling. I remember planning for the construction of the Foxhoven Ministry Center.  At the meeting where we first proposed the project, one of the elders had significant reservations.  We did not make a decision that night. Wayne fully supported moving forward, but he was unwilling to run over a fellow Elder to make it happen.  After the meeting, I asked him what we would do if the man could not bring himself to support the proposal.  Wayne’s answer was emphatic and immediate, “We will not build it.”  He knew unity was more important than getting what he wanted.   He also knew as the Elder Chairman, he had to lead by example.

Wayne’s leadership created a very stable environment in which the staff could carry out our calling.

Wayne often said his job as Elder was to remove barriers for the staff.  Sometimes this meant building walls in the pastor’s office to make room for a sectary.  Sometimes it meant taking the hard meeting so the pastor would not have to.  Sometimes this meant, as Wayne would describe it, blocking down field so the staff could move the ball.  Because of Wayne’s willingness to serve the staff in this way, he took many hits on our behalf, in the process he freed us to do the work of ministry. 

What many may not know is how creative and funny Wayne was.  He supported the church and his bride by building many of the sets for the Children’s musicals.  He built backdrops for the worship services and made sure his house was appropriately decorated for any party which was thrown there.  Few knew the care and creativity Wayne would put into creating a space where people could hear the Gospel and celebrate with one another.  Sometimes, he was also roped into being the MC or doing a monologue at a church event.  He had a dry, witty sense of humor which could fill the room with laughter

After Wayne’s passing, someone said to me they hoped to finish as well as he did.  I smiled, remembering Wayne tell me how he drove the bus for Bethany in the early 1970’s, bringing hundreds of Children to Church.  While they were in Sunday School, he and some of the other drivers would skip church and go to breakfast.  I was shocked, the Godfather of Bethany skipping church.  I was also encouraged to know this dark secret of Wayne’s past.  It meant he not only finished well, but he finished better than he started. 

Maybe you have driven by the Bethany over the past few years and seen Wayne standing in front of the church with a hose in hand.  Taking care of the flowerbeds was anything but a demotion for Bethany’s finest elder chairman, it was a very tangible opportunity to walk in his father’s shoes, the man who had modeled for Wayne what it was like to lead, serve and die to himself. His father served in leadership at Bethany at the board level, but he would also come down on Saturday nights to water the plants and sweep the front sidewalks.

While Wayne was tending the flowers, he was also thinking about this church.  As he tilled the soil, he prayed for the ministry, leaders and people of Bethany.  This church and its people were always in Wayne’s thoughts and prayers.  In them, he had invested much of his life, for to them, he had given his heart.

While Wayne will be missed, his legacy lives on in those into which he poured his life.  I am thankful to have been one of those people.