The Pastor in The Arena
We have run a gauntlet. Beverly Heights has emerged from the end of it, bruised, bloodied, but not defeated. We can walk with our heads held high largely do to the leadership of our Pastor, Nate Devlin. Nate had everything to lose. His position as Teaching Elder, that he had toiled so hard to obtain, his reputation, integrity, his health, as well as his family’s financial and emotional wellbeing, were all on the line. Nate and the session had to answer to the Presbytery for a plethora of complaints and false charges that snowballed into the formation of an Administrative Commission appointed by the Presbytery. The Commission’s job was to investigate the complaints, and to come alongside of the leadership of the church to restore “peace, purity and unity” to the body. Nothing could have been further from the truth, the commission sowed division and further discord in the church. In September 2023 the Administrative Commission blind sided Pastor Nate with a public reading of their “actions and recommendations report” in front of the Presbytery.
Not one teaching elder came to Nate’s defense publicly as he was eviscerated, slandered and humiliated in front of the Presbytery. He was openly mocked by members of our own congregation who were delighted to pile on. What good is there in belonging to a denomination where fellow Pastors don’t stand up for one of their own, when a gross miscarriage of justice is taking place in front of their very eyes? Standing on the sidelines and saying nothing when you could stand for the truth is cowardly. Nate was forced into the arena to defend his reputation, integrity and his core beliefs. A lesser man would have capitulated to ‘Caesar’ and violated his conscience to survive. Not Nate, he stepped into the arena to give his all, fighting the good fight, win or lose.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from a speech given by Teddy Roosevelt famously known as “The Man in the Arena” speech. We have a leader in Pastor Nate that has been tested in the Arena and won. As for me I would follow him through the gates of Hell and back. He is an inspiration and a courageous Christian role model for all to emulate.
‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat… Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.” ‘ (Teddy Roosevelt, April 23, 1910, “Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris)
