Jack Hayford Taught Me To Be A Good Pentecostal

Dear Pastors

Pastor (Dr) Jack Hayford is 85 years old now. He was Senior Pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California until 1999. Since then he has been involved in many other interesting ministry initiatives. I am still enjoying his daily devotional. In my opinion he is an absolute legend. Let me explain.

When I started out as Pastor of Miramar Baptist Church, Wellington in 1983, having come straight from a secondary School teaching job I needed to learn how to be a Pastor real fast and that is probably an understatement. I mean what does a 29 year old with a Business Degree and a Teaching Diploma do leading a mid-size church? Really?

Well I’ll tell you what I did. Reach out to people who knew what they were doing, people who were having success, Pastors who were leading growing churches¹, Pastors who were writing helpful stuff for a rookie pastor and Pastors who I could go and visit.

In my search I quickly ‘bumped’ into Jack Hayford. In fact it wasn’t very long and you could have rightly called me a Hayford groupie...unashamedly so. And interestingly at about the same time I became acquainted with Jerry Cook a friend of Hayford’s ministering up in the Seattle area. Both these men were pastors in the ‘Four Square Gospel’ denomination, a small Pentecostal Denomination found mostly in the USA. Both men were one of the very first to lead very large churches in America, what is now known as the Mega Church (interestingly there were already a few very large Baptist churches). In 1987 Jeanette and I visited The Church On the Way. Then in 1992 I had the huge privilege to invite Jerry and Barbara Cook to Hamilton together with two of my pente mates in town. We ended up having five combined meetings over Easter that year with Jerry as our speaker. That along with one on one time with Jerry and Barbara was life changing for Jeanette and me...no exaggeration². Amongst other things it gave me an even greater love and respect for the Pentecostals which I have to this day. They helped ‘form’ me.

Pastor Jack³ showed me that you can be a Holy Spirit led - sign, wonders and miracle believing Pastor, lead exuberant and expressive worship in your services, pray for people at altar calls AND at the same time be thoughtful (bookish) and sane. In my opinion Hayford’s preaching ranks as one of the very best, his use of language both verbally and written is second to none and his presence on a platform is truly inspirational. I learned so much from Pastor Jack Hayford and we never met personally. In more ways than one he was one of my Bible College lecturers in my early years in pastoral ministry for which I am forever grateful. It helped me become a good Pentecostal and I hope a better preacher.

But I remained a Baptist and I’m glad I did. Today I still love the Baptist family and have the privilege of writing every week to a growing group of both Baptists and Pentecostals and also interact with both groups in a number of other interactions and occasions. I’m excited that there are a good number of ex-pente’s leading Baptist Churches and others who are card carrying charismatic believers. I worry about some of what I would call excesses I see or hear about in the Pentecostal scene and I have deep concerns about some expressions promoted by The Revivalist Sector of Pentecostalism and to a similar degree of ‘The Bethel’ kind that I think incidentally, even Bill Johnson himself wouldn’t be thrilled about in much the same way that John Wimber distanced himself from some of the excesses in the Vineyard movement that he himself had started. But that opens up another big and somewhat controversial subject probably best left to another day.

Blessings

Alan

¹ It has always been a bit of a puzzle to me that so many pastors do not study success both inside and outside their denominations.

² I write more about this in my book that will be published later this year.

³ This is a superb article on Jack Hayford written by Christianity Today back in 2005 entitled, “The Pentecostal Gold Standard”.

ANNOUNCEMENT

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Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.