11/06/2021
Remembering Pastor Allan Springer
By KELLEY WALKER PERRY
“Ministry could simply be about loving the person in front of you.” – Heidi Baker
If a quote could sum up Allan Springer’s life, that’s the one. He posted it to his page on September 24. In less than a month, he was gone – leaving behind an enduring legacy in his well-loved family and countless unrelated others whose lives he impacted.
He was my pastor, my counselor, my friend. As someone whose life was touched by his, my grief is outmatched only by my gratitude. His positivity, kindness and love without measure were an uncompromising testimony of his faith.
Anyone who met Pastor Allan encountered his wide, genuine smile; he was the embodiment of joy. If you asked him how he was on any given day, his answer was always the same: “Fabulous!” And you know what? He meant it.
Each Sunday, Pastor Allan sang to the Lord with his whole heart, filling our little church on St. Joseph Street with his booming voice. It was a bit like attending services with George Beverly Shea, the powerful gospel singer who toured with Billy Graham’s evangelistic crusades.
His exuberant spirit was refreshing. As a longtime believer, my faith was never in question – but it had become lackluster; much of the joy I knew early in life had gotten lost somewhere along the way. By the time I met Pastor Allan a few months ago, I was world-weary and felt a constant, crushing weight on my heart.
Then a coworker invited me to visit his church. I put it off, because I’m a bit reclusive and avoid socializing whenever possible. But my persistent friend mentioned it again, and at just the right time.
Still, several unpleasant past experiences had left a deep bitterness toward all things church-y; while I love God, sometimes His kids can be real jerks. My teenage son and I made a skeptical pact.
“We’ll just go once,” we agreed, on our way to Christian Life Centre. “If we can’t stand it, we don’t ever have to go back.”
That first Sunday morning and every week afterward, it was as if Pastor Allan welcomed us into his own home. He always told my son and me that he loved us – that he was glad we were there.
From our first visit, he had no problem wrapping us in a bear hug and kissing our foreheads like we were family. My son and I were emotional refugees, unused to such demonstrative affection at first; but we both quickly grew to appreciate it.
Pastor Allan would invariably stop to ask how I was doing after the service ended. Unlike most of us, he truly listened – not with the intent to respond, but to understand and offer help. His wisdom and discernment brooked no guarded responses. If he decided my superficial answer warranted deeper questioning, he’d sit and pray over me long after others had left, always hugging me before we parted.
Such warmth and genuine concern were often my undoing. I’m not publicly expressive, preferring to stash my feelings until about 3 a.m., when I’m alone in the darkness and it’s more appropriate to ugly-cry. I remember apologizing once, in the middle of one such unlovely event in my back-of-the-church pew: “I’m so sorry – I cry all the time here! But…I never cry!” He just chuckled and hugged me even tighter.
Pastor Allan believed in miraculous healing. Maybe that’s why simply knowing him brought health and rest to my exhausted spirit. His effect on my life was a miracle in itself.
But I am even more grateful for the blessing of his positive influence on my son.
As a young boy, Wyatt picked up a 2” x 3-1/2” card at a different church we attended and absently stuck it in his wallet. The Man Card is imprinted with 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, a scriptural passage specifically addressing men. It states: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
Over the next few years, my son took that card out of his wallet from time to time, read the passage and pondered its meaning for his life. What should he be watching for? What does it look like to stand firm in the faith? How do real men act? How can a man demonstrate love for others, yet remain strong?
No one was able to show Wyatt those verses in action quite as well as Pastor Allan and his son, Joel. And, while his time under their inspiring, masculine mentorship was painfully short, I will forever be grateful for such an unexpected gift. How I cherish the precious memory of the Sunday morning that these strong, Christlike men prayed over my son at the front of the sanctuary!
Not long afterward, Pastor Allan went to Heaven. Another quote he posted to his Facebook account on September 24 was prophetic, in retrospect: “Death is not a tragedy! Death is our passport to glory! Death without Christ is the tragedy!” He wasn’t ill yet with the disease that took him home, but something in his spirit must have sensed an urgency to preach the gospel of hope one more time.
So yes, I grieve his loss deeply – for myself and my son, for our church and for the Springer family. But I’ll shed no tears for the man himself. Nobody was more prepared to meet Jesus than Pastor Allan. When his eyes closed to this world, his heart was still wide open.
Courtesy of The Addison Times
