[1]MILL VALLEY, Calif. (BP)–Eighty-year-old James Austin Williams Jr. was one of 60 students who received degrees from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary at the winter 2006 commencement ceremony.
That’s right, 80 years old.
As Williams tells his students at the Frontier Baptist Seminary in Juarez, Mexico, “I’m as young as you are. My only problem is my body gets old. I don’t feel like an old man.”
And Williams doesn’t much act like one. In addition to his role as director of the seminary, he serves as a volunteer missionary for northern Mexico, commuting from El Paso, Texas, to its Mexican counterpart, Juarez. And for the past three years he also has been a doctor of ministry candidate at Golden Gate.
Williams says his initial reason for pursuing a D.Min. was “mundane.”
“One of the requirements for our seminary in Juarez to receive accreditation was that at least three of the faculty needed to have a doctor’s degree,” he explains in a soft voice with little of his native Texas accent. “So I said, Okay, I’ll do it.”
The initial motive may have been simple, but he said his experience in the program has been life-changing.
“It was so rewarding to be in a group of my peers, to be in a classroom of people who were all on the same page of study,” says Williams, who was a student at Golden Gate in the early 1950s when it was in Berkeley, Calif. “A second reward was all the journaling we had to do. That discipline helped me focus, helped me see what I needed to cut out of my schedule and how to zero in on one or two main things I can actually get done.”
[2]Williams says he felt like being in the D.Min. program “opened up a whole new world, like I was standing on the threshold of so many things I didn’t know.”
Halfway through his studies, he told Bob Royall, director of the D.Min. program, that he had rediscovered a desire to learn from the wisdom of others.
“He held up his Bible and said that he had determined early in his ministry that it was the only book he needed to read, so he threw away all the books in his library,” Royall recalls. “But then he said, ‘I have learned that I was wrong. I have learned so much in this program by gaining insights from other Christian writers, along with God’s precious Word.’”
Williams already had an extensive resume: fluency in Spanish; pastorates in California, Spain, North Africa and Mexico; ministry as a traveling revival evangelist; and administration at Frontier Baptist Seminary.
Williams’ goal is to plant 100 churches in Juarez in 10 years. While he was persuaded to whittle it down to one house church in six months for the purposes of his ministry project, the bigger fish is still in his sights.
“With commitment and spunk like that, we could not but help him and want to see him succeed,” Royall says.
Royall did confess that he knew the program would be a challenge when, on the second day of orientation, Williams took him aside and quietly asked, “Where are the typewriters?”
“But James persevered and, with his field mentor’s help, he came through and finished well, despite being caregiver for his wife who has advanced Alzheimer’s,” Royall adds.
Williams had planted new churches before, but it was always the “old-fashioned way” -– buy land, build a building and send in a paid pastor – whereas in the D.Min. program he learned about house churches and indigenous church planting.
“Jesus did what He needed with 12 people,” Williams reflects, “and I think that’s a good rule of thumb to start a church.”
Another new twist for Williams was being required to train and mentor someone else in carrying out the ministry, rather than doing it all himself.
“I’ve been a lone ranger for a long time. Learning to work with others in a team is almost like getting a new ministry,” Williams says. “I feel like a kid with a new toy.”
After about 10 months, the new church is small and struggling, but on the last Sunday of 2006 Williams baptized a new believer.
“We won several adults to the Lord, but we didn’t get the 12 people together we wanted to start a house church,” he says. “Another problem was that the houses in that neighborhood are so small, you’re completely crowded with more than six people. So we found an old store building and that’s what we’re using now.”
Between the new church in Juarez, the grand goal of a church planting movement there, bringing a seminary up to accreditation standards, being a student, and providing care for his wife, Williams, at 80 years old, is more active than many people years younger.
Says Royall, “He is simply irrepressible. And obviously, he is a lifelong learner!”
So much so Williams is even now talking about pursuing a Ph.D. through Golden Gate when the program begins in the fall. He’s also taking Greek online.
In an academic community, all of this may be why Williams received a lengthy, standing ovation at the commencement ceremony in December.
Or it could just be the phrase constantly on his lips: “I plan on planting churches until I die.”
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