Jeremy L. Berg

How serendipitous to have preached and shared a sermon this week on the significance of mentors, and to get to hang out with these three remarkable men of God last night! My cup runneth over!

Last night I felt like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, spending some precious moments with Elijah, Moses and Jesus in a cloud of sacred storytelling! (I’ll let you decide who is who, but all three would blush if assigned the Jesus-role.)

“In those days there were giants in the land” (Gen. 6:4) and in the early 90s there were giant clay footed leaders spilling the wine of the kingdom all over Robbinsdale high school gymnasium.

We met at David Johnson’s house (pictured on the right in photo), now retired pastor of 38-years at Church of the Open Door, where my faith was lit on fire in college whose fingerprints are all over my ministry and the culture we have tried to cultivate at MainStreet Covenant. We have very different personalities, but the same Spirit and Word energizing us.

“The wine of the Kingdom was flowing at Open Door,” David Johnson recalled. “But we struggled to find wineskins to hold it. We spilled way too much wine in those days.”

The other “old” guy is my current mentor and spiritual father, Keith Meyer (left in photo), who was Dave’s right-hand man and executive pastor at Open Door for 16 or so years. So fun to sit back and listen to Dave and Keith share some lesser-known inside-scoop stories from the Open Door journey.

In his recent book Gasping For Breath, David Johnson tells of his “Sabbatical From Hell” where one disaster after another tried to prevent Dave from finding the renewal he sought. One such disaster was his house being struck by lightning! Keith lived across the street in those days and said he heard the loud explosion while sitting on his toilet! Dave then recalls seeing the silhouette of Keith coming across the street in a cloud of smoke, like the prophet Elijah with his finger pointing at Dave and saying in a booming voice, “See, Someone is telling you to get back to work!” (As Dave was not sure if he wanted to or could continue leading the church in that moment of burnout.)

The other younger handsome bearded guy is my friend David Brickey, the new lead pastor of Open Door, doing the impossible with such grace and giftedness: succeeding David Johnson and leading Open Door into a bright new future. Brickey and I were friends 20 years ago in college, and this was our long-awaited reunion! The Spirit of Jesus oozes from this man, exuding a soft confidence and supernatural attentiveness to the Spirit in others. You get a sense that his EARS are even more gifted than his LIPS, and that’s saying a lot because dat boy can preach!

So, with Brickey eager to absorb all the stories of the church he now leads, and me filled with nostalgia for the church that launched my faith to the next level years ago, we listened to Dave and Keith reminisce. Priceless.

They recalled some of the strange characters who found their way to the squeaky bleachers of “Church of the Open Sore” in those early days. For example, the unruly violent man the pastors had to subdue in the back hallway — one of the pastors literally smacking him over the head with a Bible to settle him down! Or the lady who casually walked up the stairs onto the stage during the sermon, sat down and lit a cigarette. “When you preach amazing grace,” Dave said, “the broken people will find their way.”

I teared up because I was just a 16 or 17 year old high school kid when I first started attending Open Door, and somehow that spirit of messy grace and holy vulnerability, that come-as-you-are atmosphere, got deep into me way back then and would shape the culture of the church I lead 25 years later. And we’ve spilled a lot of wine, too. (On the other hand, many churches have perfectly engineered wineskins, i.e., organizational structures, that never spill a drop, but their wine doesn’t taste like the Kingdom.)

At some point in the conversation, after one of many “oopsie” stories of less than stellar leadership, there was a lull in the conversation. A pregnant silence. Then Dave Johnson said, “God has always been so gracious with us.” Another long and grateful silence.

Friends, it makes little sense that this grasshopper was given the fourth seat on that patio last night with those humble giants. All I know is that I will always cherish it, and selfishly pray it won’t be our last time together. The time flew by and when it was time to leave, like Peter I wanted to propose we put up tents and camp in that holy circle forever.

But the holy cloud eventually must lift, and the disciples must go back down the mountain and get back to living out the Kingdom in our everyday lives, with the dance partners God has given us for learning the unforced rhythms of grace.

I will cherish that evening in the cloud for a long time. Thanks Dave, Dave, and Keith for giving me a seat on the patio. Let’s do it again.