The last Monday in May is a unique holiday. Memorial Day does not generate as much holiday enthusiasm as Christmas, Easter, or Independence Day, perhaps because it is more an observance than a celebration. This important holiday is not just another “day off” but a day to remember those who have lost their lives in the military service of our country. This is a day to remember those who, according to Henry Ward Beecher, “hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.”
In a culture that is increasingly attention-deficient, remembering is a painful but necessary discipline. Remembering historical facts should help us to remain consciously aware of the harsh realities of global conflict. Revisiting stories from the battlefield may enable us to learn from both the successes and the failures of our national ancestry. When we remember the fallen we keep alive the individual and corporate legacies of valor and courage that inspire and challenge us to be responsible citizens of the free world.

To fail to remember is to develop a convenient amnesia that eventually robs succeeding generations of acquaintance with our national heritage. To fail to remember creates a contagious apathy that leads to a neglect of both our freedom and our citizenship. To fail to remember can produce a false sense of protection and a perceived exemption from future warfare. A loss of memory eventually leads to a loss of national identity. Remembering is a painful but necessary discipline, a discipline that forges vision from memory, and a discipline that extracts wisdom from knowledge.

In The Roadmender Margaret Fairless Barber suggests that “To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.”

This year take time to observe Memorial Day…A day to remember the past with gratitude and to look to the future with hope and faith.

Dr. James Pleitz departed for his eternal home on Sunday evening. He was ready to go and looking forward to the trip. Dr. Pleitz told me that over and over again. I told our congregation last Sunday morning that Dr. Pleitz was “sitting on the launching pad awaiting liftoff.” The launch sequence reached zero shortly before 8 o’clock.

While we have no doubt about his destination, he will be missed. In addition to serving as a legendary pastor at both First Baptist Church of Pensacola and Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Dr. Pleitz spent his final years as our Pastor Emeritus. He fulfilled the responsibilities of that role more effectively than any emeritus pastor I know.

“Pastor Emeritus” is an honorary title given by a congregation to honor their founding or long-time pastor. It means, “We know you are retired, but we still look to you as a senior shepherd.” With that honorary title comes an extremely important job description, which includes encouraging the congregation, supporting the current pastor, and utilizing his or her influence to advance the ministry of the church.

A few of my pastoral colleagues around the country have had the misfortunate experience of serving alongside rogue emeriti….that is, emeritus pastors with control issues, inflated egos, or a bad case of “retired preacher syndrome.”

Dr. James Pleitz could have written the book on how to be an effective and influential emeritus pastor. He encouraged the congregation in every way imaginable, even giving me words of encouragement to share with them during his final days. He was my number one encourager, always sending me handwritten notes and placing well timed phone calls to inquire about my family or to ask how my week was going.  He would often stop by my office unannounced….request a cup of coffee…one cream, two sugars…and once the door was closed, he would say, “I just wanted to come by and pray for my pastor.” He would lay his hand on my shoulder and pray in way that would lift my soul heavenward and fortify my confidence for the day. He will be missed.

And he was an ambassador for the kingdom. He knew how to work a room by learning names and listening to stories. One of our associate ministers said, “Dr. Pleitz had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in his life at the moment he was speaking to you.”

Although there is a great reunion occuring this week in the heavenly realm, there is a great hole in the heart of First Baptist Church of Pensacola and their pastor because our pastor emeritus is no longer with us. His presence will be missed but his influence will be felt for generations to come.

And I hope that other retiring pastors around the country will learn from Pleitz’ example of how to be a great Pastor Emeritus, and how to be the new pastor’s best friend.

(Several years ago, in warning the First Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida, not to turn into “a submarine,” Pastor James L. Pleitz gave this submersible parable.)

Once upon a time in the twentieth century there was a church that became a submarine. It wasn’t as difficult as it might seem. One day it just shut the hatch on the outside world and submerged into its own sea. Occasionally it ran up the periscope to see where it was going.


Once the captain got a real vision through his periscope and when he demanded that they get back to the surface and fast, the crew quickly developed the bends and the sub stayed down.


While submerged there was a lot for the crew to do. In fact they were kept on alert and asked to make maximum efforts. They tinkered with the machinery constantly. They overhauled their kitchen. They inventoried their ammunition at least once a week but they never used it. They paid salaries to the officers and went through endless drills occasionally interrupted by prayers that no depth charge would disturb their isolation. The air got stale too, so did the routine, but they put up with it because the alternatives were too demanding. Several committees even decided the stale air was good for them.


One of the members who had sneaked a look through the periscope suggested a change in course and the giving away of their surplus supplies. He was immediately eliminated for mutiny.


The last entry in the captain’s log book read, ‘Have probably set a new record for being submerged and maintaining predetermined course. See no reason why we should change directions. Crew continues to give maximum effort. We did sight an enemy and appointed three committee members to study the situation.”

(Dr. James Pleitz is the beloved pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida)

On Palm Sunday in 1994 a tornado touched down near Ragland, Alabama and cut a trail to Rome, Georgia, demolishing hundreds of homes, destroying five church campuses, and taking 29 lives before leaving that area.

The unthinkable happened on the first day of Holy Week. Entire communities were in disarray. I lived in one of those communities hit hard by the storm. My home was one of those damaged by the storm. The church I served became a Disaster Relief Center. And we learned a lot of lessons.

The Williams Community is a rural settlement located about five miles northeast of the city limits of Jacksonville, Alabama. It’s a place where the church is still the center of community life and it boasts a general store where you can buy your overalls and work boots just a few aisles over from the sweet milk. The Williams Community began as a settlement of farmers and educators, and those influences are dominant to this day. With its picturesque pastoral landscape and its Mayberry-like hospitality, it would have been an appropriate setting for Norman Rockwell masterpieces had Rockwell lived in the south.

On March 27, 1994, church services ended at 11:00 a.m. Following services many families who would normally have eaten Sunday dinner at home had gone to a restaurant in town or to visit relatives on Palm Sunday. At 11:24 a massive barrel cloud tumbled over the horizon from Webster’s Chapel into the Williams Community steamrolling homes and carving a path that looked liked a clearing for a new highway. In the Williams Community lives were spared…some miraculously. In fact, one family who had taken shelter in a small bathroom, fell from their air-born home into a lake just seconds before remnants of the home slammed into a hillside.

But just up the road a piece a different story was unfolding. At 11:39, the F-4 tornado slammed the Goshen United Methodist Church while worship was in session collapsing the roof and taking 20 lives, mostly children.

Throughout that fateful afternoon, as emergency workers were scrambling to respond to calls and as local residents were digging out their neighbors, another wave of storms dumped several inches of rain on the area further hampering rescue and recovery efforts. When Monday dawned, residents were faced with a haunting reality. Life would never be the same. But for most, at least, life would continue.

Following that tornado, our community learned a lot about patience and perseverance. We learned a lot about grace and hope. We learned the importance of looking forward and not backward. We learned that our dreams trumped our nightmares. We learned a lot about faith and life.

Here are five of the crucial lessons our community learned after the Palm Sunday Tornado that helped us to move forward:

1. We learned that you have to grieve quickly, then get to work. Once the initial shock of the devastation has been absorbed, it’s time to channel all of your energy to re-building and moving forward. Despite the grief over things lost, there is a unique kind of joy that arises when you begin dreaming of the new things you can build…together. And interestingly, the work of re-building had a healing effect.

2. We learned emphatically that God doesn’t exempt folks from tragedy just because they have faith. I remember someone asking me, “Pastor, why do you think God let that tornado hit five churches on Sunday morning?” Since I can’t imagine God sitting in heaven and pushing a “Create Tornado” button, then hitting “Send” to a specific address, I remember responding, “Try drawing a line 55 miles in any direction on an Alabama map without hitting at least five churches.” The Bible says something like “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Since most churches are comprised of some combination of just and unjust people, I take that to mean that there is no place or people group who are given a free pass from natural disasters.

3. We learned that when the going gets tough, people of faith mobilize and work together cooperatively. After the Palm Sunday Tornado, the First Baptist Church in the Williams Community served as a Red Cross Relief Center. We partnered with the Cherokee Electric Cooperative, Bellsouth, and FEMA, and each of them did admirable work, eventually. But we also hosted Builders for Christ, Campers on Mission, Mennonite Response Teams, Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief Teams, and a Latter-Day Saints Team. The volunteers from churches and faith-based groups organized quickly and went to work, while the professional and government groups were slowed by paperwork and red tape restrictions. I distinctly remember many of the professional workers who partnered with us telling me how they admired the work ethic, the productivity, and the cooperative spirit of the volunteer teams from churches and faith-based organizations.

4. All kinds of talents and skill levels are needed. We were fortunate to have a huge corps of skilled personnel who managed chain saws, dozers, cranes, and front-end loaders. However, we also needed folks to cook food, drive trucks, pick up debris, run errands, care for children, visit the elderly, sweep the floor, manage communications, and do household cleaning. In disaster relief, every job is important and every volunteer has something to offer. Never underestimate the importance of doing all the good you can, where you can, when you can.

5. Relief work builds community. We learned that remarkable bonding occurs in the field. The sense of community born among those who work together following a storm forges a spiritual kinship that lasts for a lifetime… or longer.

Seventeen years later, another wave of tornadoes has wreaked havoc across the state of Alabama, storms even more powerful and more destructive and more fatal than the tornado that struck on March 27. And one of these post-Easter tornadoes followed a similar path as the Palm Sunday storm of 1994 hitting Webster’s Chapel, the Williams Community, and Goshen.

People there are hurting, even grieving over the loss of life and the destruction of property. But those good rural people are not just weathered storm veterans. Like so many Alabamians, they are a determined, hard-working, and faith-filled people who do not back down from a challenge. They are already drying their tears, rolling up their sleeves, and getting ready to repair and rebuild, because there are some things deep inside that the strongest storm cannot destroy.