Thursday, August 2, 2007

A man who came to know God

by Clarke Davis

Robert Clark’s passion is working with youth. His first United Methodist assignment after seminary was serving as a youth director in Lenexa.

Now the new pastor of the UM churches in Valley Falls and Coal Creek, developing a combined youth group will be a high priority with one of the core objectives being mission work.

Clark is a veteran of numerous mission trips over the years that included accompanying youth groups to Arkansas to help with world hunger through the Heifer Project, making improvements to a church on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota—the poorest place in the United States—and serving the poor and homeless in downtown Minneapolis where the street people slept in the church.

There are many advantages found in mission work besides the obvious one—helping those in need, he said.

“It [mission work] improves an individual’s relationship with God, one’s relationship with fellow workers, and creates new relationships and understanding of the people you go to serve,” he said.

“People get a bias about the poor and often come to believe it’s somehow their fault,” he said. “What you learn is they are just people who happen to be poor. It’s not because they aren’t as good as you or don’t want to work.”

“Some poor people work two or three jobs and are still struggling,” he said. “One gains a new understanding through service.”

Clark, 54, was also an associate pastor in Lenexa. He then became the pastor of churches in Altamont and Hiawatha for five years each before coming to Valley Falls.

A native of Kansas City—both sides of the state line—he graduated from Ruskin High School on the Missouri side.

His first profession was that of a stage hand and member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local No. 31. In this job he helped set up the lights and sound systems for everything from rock shows to political conventions.

“We worked for all the television networks and even the circus when it came to town,” he said.

Clark often worked 100 feet in the air rigging the equipment on trusses—the most dangerous work but the one that paid the most.

“It was grueling work with long hours and when we got done it was party time,” he said.

It was too much partying and a rebellious lifestyle that eventually brought about a mid-life career change and a reassessement of his relationship with God.

“I had always believed in God ,” he said—but it was a rebellious relationship.

The confusion started early. His father was killed when he was 4 years old and he was always told that “God needed your dad.”

“My response was, ‘Doesn’t God know that we need him?’ ”

His rebellion was against a God he pictured as some power hungry guy pulling strings like a puppet show to make things happen.

“Then I came to know that he makes good things happen from bad . . . He is with us in our suffering.” he said.

“I became disillusioned with my lifestyle. It was self-destructive and not satisfying. That’s when I decided to go to seminary,” he said.

It took Clark six years to complete seminary while he continued to ply his trade, or twice as long as someone who can go full time.

He met his wife, Ann, while working at Starlight Theater. She was a stage manager there at the time.

The couple has four children and he has a son by a previous marriage. Two sons, Lee, 24, and Kenny, 18, are University of Kansas students, and Jordan, 20, lives in Hiawatha and works at a St. Joseph, Mo., chemical plant. Two children still at home are Joshua, 12, and Hailey, 6.

New initiatives the pastor has in mind for this fall are starting a Bible study class and a book discussion group.