Father's Day Tribute

I have nothing but fond memories of my Dad. He was not a large man, but he always seemed bigger than I, especially when I was a child. He was about an even six feet tall, and I, even as an adult, a mere five feet nine inches.

Dad was not an athlete, but he enjoyed sports. I can remember Dad taking us to the swimming pool in Newton, KS. He would get me to perch on his back and he would swim under water while I went along for the ride. He seemed to have powerful breast strokes. He was a good swimmer. Somehow he had perfected a nondescript dive. He would bounce on the board and come straight down, with minimal splash at the end. I was never sure where he learned to dive so cleanly. I couldn't.

Dad enjoyed basketball. When we moved to 1300 West Ninth St. in Newton, he managed to procure a pole and a backboard with hoop attached. The goal was positioned on the east side of our house fairly close to the shelter belt, facing to the south. He never managed to put in a concrete pad, so we had to dribble the ball on the bare earth below the goal. Perhaps that is one reason why I never became adept at dribbling. Moreover, the ball seemed perpetually just a bit flat. Sometimes my Uncle Paul, Dad's only and younger brother, would come to town. Dad, Uncle Paul, my brother John and I would drive to a local grade school and play a pickup game of basketball on a real concrete pad. Uncle Paul was pretty good, and I often could not anticipate his no-look passes. He had been a starter in basketball at Topeka High School, where he grew up.

I can remember many pickup games of softball with Dad out in the yard of our home. Home plate was back toward West Ninth St., and we hit the softball north towards the shelter belt. Of course, a good hit would get lost in the shrubbery and trees. I was never good enough to lose it there often.

Later on we moved to 1001 Lenox in Hutchinson, KS. The folks had a home there with a two-car garage and a basketball goal. By this time we kids were older, and so was Dad. I can remember going up for a rebound right next to Dad. One arm of his was extended and I hit his arm jumping for the rebound. He yelled and winced. I had hurt his arm, and I don't think he played basketball with us too much at all after that. Sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to disable you! Aging is no fun. I call it "Death by Degrees."

At times when I was younger, Dad and his friend Lindy Buller would go for a game of golf. My brother John and I would go along for the walk. Neither of the men used a golf cart. Dad was never a powerful golfer, but pretty accurate. He had a nice swing, and the ball would go straight. Never very far, but always straight.

Later on, I tried to join Dad in golf. I never had formal training, and I developed some bad habits with my golf swing. But occasionally I could hit the ball well, and farther than my dad. Golf was something that my dad and I began to share in common as he climbed up into his sixties and seventies. Neither of us were very good, but the companionship was enjoyable. The last time my dad and I golfed together was on the 9 hole golf course in Newell, IA, where I was stationed as a pastor. By that time in his life Dad had survived two heart surgeries. We went out one fall morning and played a round of 9 holes, using a borrowed golf cart, of course. We came back for lunch, and I asked Dad if he would like to go out for another 9 holes. He agreed. We almost never played 18 holes. When we finished that round, I asked Dad if there were any chance he might like to play another round of 9. We never did that. To my surprise, he agreed. Later I head him tell someone that he agreed because he didn't know if he and I would ever be able to golf again. Those words were prophetic. That was the last time I ever played golf with Dad. To this day that is the thing I miss most about his departure. He was my golfing buddy and, in a way, that cemented our relationship together.

You have to understand this about my dad. He was not particularly adept at working with his hands. In a shop class in high school he had made a nice circular end table. I was always a bit amazed that he could have done that, for he was certainly no carpenter. We had a hand saw and a hammer and a couple of screw drivers in our house, but those were about all the tools we had, and Dad hardly ever used them. My dad was not a carpenter, not a mechanic, not a plumber, not an electrician, not a hunter, and not a fisherman. None of the above!

An accountant is what he was. He and Mom and borrowed money, I believe from Uncle Herb and Aunt Nell so Dad could attend Kansas University after World War II. There he got his Bachelor's Degree in Business with a major in accounting. That was his persona. Growing up in Newton, KS, he always worked at NFIC, Newton Finance and Investment Company. He was their accountant and there were bookkeepers there working under him. Sometimes on cold winter days during my seventh and eighth grade years in school, I would complete my paper route and pedal my bike up to Dad's office. I would warm up inside and wait for him to finish his work. Then we would load my bike into the trunk of our 1950 Pontiac and head the mile and a half home without having to fight the elements.

Dad was almost always, it seemed, the de facto Treasurer for our church, Newton Bible Church. He and mom and several other couples had decried the liberalism of the then General Conference Mennonite Church in Newton and started Newton Bible Church (NBC). That was the main church I knew growing up as a child. I can remember sitting in the very first service, which was held in the farm home of John B. Wiebe, out near McClain, KS in the country. Since Dad was usually the Treasurer, he always had people counting money with him in one of the offices off the front of the platform at NBC. He would get a tally, then bring it back home and recount it Sunday afternoon, after our Sunday dinner. (And for us out in the Midwest, dinner was always the noon meal and never the evening meal. The evening meal was supper.) So after dinner Dad would sit at the dining room table and recount all the money. There was always some change in the offering and he would count the various coins by two, dragging them off the table with his index and middle finger into some container in his lap.

Dad was a great lover of music, and predominantly, classical music. Sunday dinners consisted, very frequently, of roast beef, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, and some kind of vegetable, often green beans. There would often be a jello salad. My favorite was orange jello stocked with carrots, raisins, and pineapple. And always, there was music. There was a music station, KSAL, Salina, that always played classical music beginning at 1 PM on Sunday afternoons. Dad always tuned in to that station, and so we kids received a classical music education.

In his younger days, Dad was quite a musician. He had learned to play piano. He played for the Newton Sr. High orchestra, and, much to my mother's later chagrin, I am sure, he played for a dance band. He also played tympani. His stock piece, when asked to perform, was "Rustles of Spring." Dad didn't really keep up with the piano too much, although we always had one in our home. As the years rolled by, his skill level and memory level on "Rustles of Spring" dropped off. Sometimes he would play hymns for Sunday School if no one else were available, but not very often.

Dad loved to sing, and often sang bass for a men's quartet that we had at Newton Bible Church. Dad was probably more of a baritone than a bass, but he was the best bass we had at NBC. Each of my siblings and I inherited our musical abilities and love for music more from our Dad than from our Mom. Dad always sang in the choir, and in my Junior High days, I joined the church choir, singing tenor. Singing in the church choir certainly elevated my skill level in reading music. Dad started both my brother John and me on the piano. For some reason, John took to the piano lessons as a duck takes to water. I did not. The piano became torturesome for me, and Dad asked if I would like to play a musical instrument. I jumped at the chance, and in the fourth grade, took up the trombone. I still have that same beginner Olds trombone. I credit my Dad's influence and exposure for my love for music. I made sure each of my four children took up a brass instrument, so in my family we have two trombones, a tuba, a trumpet, and a French horn.

Just as Dad was a pronounced musical influence on me he was a dominant spiritual influence. To be honest, Mom was probably more of a spiritual influence than Dad, but a well-rounded Christian family needs two influencers. Dad took the initiative to pray for every meal. We all ate breakfasts together, and he would pull out "Our Daily Bread," read the appropriate Scripture passage, along with the related text in the devotional guide, then lead us in prayer. Frequently we would have family devotions in the evening, always led by Dad. We would do some family singing. Then Dad would read from the Bible and perhaps make a comment or two. Sometimes Dad or John would play the piano, but more often than not we would sing songs in four-part harmony a capella. To this day that is a trademark both of my extended family and my own family -- singing hymns in four-part harmony a capella.

For about as long as I can remember, Dad taught adult Sunday School classes. Our church must have used a standard Sunday School curriculum. Dad would come home from the office in the evenings, and, while waiting for Mom to get supper on the table, would pull out his copy of "The Sunday School Times," reading the explanations about the upcoming Sunday School class. Dad was a regular reader of the Bible. For many years he endeavored to read through the entire Bible in a year. He had a Bible-reading plan that required perhaps three OT chapters and two NT chapters daily. He was typically a little behind, and would have to catch up. He would frequently fall asleep in his chair while he reading the Sunday School Times and his Bible, but I could tell, without his ever saying so, that the Word of God was important to him. Some things are picked up more by osmosis than by direct command.

Dad was a proponent of the Scofield Reference Bible and a dispensational, literal understanding of the Scriptures. That was my heritage, and with a few adaptations, I adhere to that theological framework. A great many in Christendom scorn dispensationalism, but I think it is they who are wrong, not my father and I. As far as I am concerned, Amillennialism, which does not interpret prophetic Scriptures literally, but metaphorically, is a great curse upon Christianity. There are some amillennialists who insist they interpret prophetic passages literally, but they don't. They merely assign a metaphorical definition to the term "literal."

Dispensationalists are ardent students of Biblical prophecy and the "end times." My father was no exception, and I believe I inherited my love for prophecy and the end times from Dad. I have the sense that his father, my grandfather, Paul Bartsch, Sr. was also interested in Biblical prophecy. I can remember sitting with my Dad and his dad in the dining room in my grandparents' grand old house in Topeka, Kansas, listening to the two of them discuss prophecy and current events. I hung on every word.

In the ecclesiastical structure of the church in which I grew up, Newton Bible Church, there was a sole pastor and there were deacons. In effect, the deacons of that church served as a mixture of elders and deacons. My dad was always well respected in the church, and in broader Christian circles. When we were in Newton he served on the board of the Newton Bible Conference. Every year the committee would arrange for respected Bible teachers to come and give a week-long series of special meetings. I enjoyed that. Later in life, he moved to Lincoln, NE and served as Accountant for Back to the Bible Broadcast.

My parents thought it important for their children to attend a Christian high school, Berean Academy in a small rural town fifteen miles to the east of Newton. My brother John and I, and for one year, my sister Carol and I rode the school bus every morning and evening to and from Elbing, Kansas to attend Berean Academy. There, too, Dad was respected. He served on the Board of Directors of Berean for a number of years. Later on, he also serve on the Board of Directors of Grace College of the Bible, later Grace University. In fact, it is my understanding that my father took the vacated seat of Rev. A. H. Schultz, my wife's father on the Board of Grace. I can remember traveling with my father periodically on Sunday afternoons to attend a prayer meeting for Berean Academy. Sadly, Grace University has now been disbanded.

My father was a man of integrity. I never caught him doing anything dishonest. I am not saying he was a perfect Christian or a perfect father. He was neither. My other siblings can attest to that. I think Mom probably had a more sensitive conscience than my dad, and I think she would occasionally speak to him in private, suggesting that perhaps he had been too harsh on one or more of us children. I can remember a number of occasions on which he apologized to us children. I cannot remember a single harsh word between my parents. They obviously loved each other and were committed to one another.

The Scriptures give some pretty rigid qualifications for aspiring Deacons and Elders. A couple of these passages include 1 Timothy 3:1-16 and Titus 1:5-9. I can honestly say that my dad met these standards, in my opinion. I believe he was qualified to be a Deacon and qualified to be an Elder. He was a man of integrity and spiritual character. He kept his children under control. He was adept at teaching the Word of God. He was a one-woman-kind of man. No philandering or "checking out the menu" or pornography with Dad.

I never had the opportunity of pastoring a church which my parents attended. That is probably just as well. But if I were to have had that opportunity, I would have no hesitation in joining the other elders in appointing my father to the position of elder. He would not have been a perfect elder, as I am not a perfect pastor. But he would have been a good one. I would feel honored to serve with him in that capacity.

I miss you, Dad. I would love to sit down and discuss theology and politics with you. I am certain that you would be appalled at the state of our nation, the state of our world, and the state of Christendom, as I am. But one day, by the grace of God, we will see each other again. We will both have clear minds, whole bodies, and natures confirmed in righteousness, unable ever again to sin. We will have great fun discussing the events of the past and anticipating events in the future. And who knows? Maybe we will even be able to play a few rounds of golf together again!