Jack Stevens, Hero

Jack was a hero, but I didn't know it until long after he was gone.


I knew him as a man of an earlier generation, kind, simple, hard-working. But there was more.


In her well-researched book "The Communion of Saints," my friend Vesta Dunlop Mullen profiles men and women who were ordained ministers of the Reformed Baptist Church between 1888 and 1966. (My father is one.) Thanks to Mrs. Mullen for the information below.


Jack Stevens was one of fourteen children, born in 1926 in New Brunswick, Canada. Dropping out of school at 16, he enlisted in the Canadian armed forces. World War II ended before he could be deployed to Europe.


He experienced a spiritual conversion at 24, and became a devoted follower of Jesus. Believing God was calling him to be a pastor, he made plans to attend Bethany Bible College.


But that summer Jack's father was killed in a farm accident.  The oldest unmarried son, he was given the care of four younger siblings and an ailing mother. Yet he still believed God wanted him to proceed to college in the fall. 


Jack gathered firewood for the upcoming winter and put storm windows on the family house. By the time he arrived at Bethany, classes had been in session for a month. He was allowed to complete his high school requirements and begin ministerial training. Sometimes he was virtually penniless, but Jack trusted God to provide, and he experienced God's provision.


Completing his studies, Jack moved his invalid mother and four siblings to Norton, New Brunswick. He was challenged to restart a small church that had been closed for several years. 


Jack began visiting people in the community and restarted the church with a small congregation. He was not a singer, so congregational singing was led by a record player. He held meetings in two "nearby" community churches, each about ten miles from Norton. Since he had no vehicle, he walked the distance (!) .


Over five years he scheduled evangelistic meetings, held Vacation Bible Schools, and baptized new converts. Since he had carpentry skills, he repaired the old church building. After buying his first car, he filled it with teens and traveled 25 miles to hold church services in Grey's Mills.


Jack loved kids. He envisioned and built a playground at Beulah Camp, the beautiful campground and camp meeting operated by Reformed Baptists (now Wesleyans) on the Saint John River. He dismantled an old church building in Westfield and reassembled it (15 miles away) at Beulah Camp for children's ministry.


At 34, he married Merle Otis, a good, godly, precious woman. Over the years they raised six children to whom they were devoted.


Later, Jack was Business Manager and Dean of Men at Bethany Bible College. He pastored two churches in Nova Scotia and another in New Brunswick before he died of cancer in 1978, just short of his 52nd birthday.


When I knew Jack best, I was a teenager and he was almost my father's age. I liked what I saw in him, but little did I know of his greatness.


God grant us to know many others like Jack, people of integrity, full of determination, possessed with a love that cannot be quenched and a dream that cannot die.