December 08 2025

Please note that because of the winter weather in Roanoke today, the memorial service at Rainbow Forest Baptist Church for Nancy Young has been moved to Tuesday at 1pm.

Monday December 08

A Life Well Lived

Ephesians 4:11-16

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Welcome to Pastor's Chat today. I pre-recorded our chat today back in Sneads Ferry NC, in my office there, because I knew that today I would be in Roanoke, Virginia participating and speaking at a celebration of life service for a dear, dear saint of God, Nancy Young. I’ll tell you more about Nancy’s and her life that was, “A Life Well Lived”, later in this blog.

Matter of fact her life “measured up to the stature of the fullness of Christ”, that Paul desired for every believer here in Ephesians 4. Today we begin looking at this next section of the chapter where we learn about the “growth of unity” in the local church. From verse 11 we are told this growth takes after, “He Himself gives some apostles, and some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.” He does this for the purpose which we find in verses 12-16. (Please read these above verses again.)

This is a very special passage of scripture that gives us exactly what the pastors and leaders of the church should be doing. That is equipping the saints for the work of the ministry and for the spiritual growth and maturity of the individual members.

Over my 50 plus years as a pastor, if I ever knew someone that was a part of coming to the fullness of unity in Christ, coming to a place of full maturity in the body of Christ and building up the body of Christ, and doing their part to make sure the church of Christ, the body of Christ, was the kind of church it should be, it was Nancy Young. I've had the privilege of being her pastor for the past thirty-some years now. As I think about the ministry we had together in the local church there at Rainbow Forest Baptist Church, of which she was a faithful member for the last 40 years, I watched as the Lord used Nancy in a wonderful way to touch the lives of so many people.

Many of you probably didn’t know that Nancy grew up in Africa with her parents, who went there in 1945 when she was 3 years old. They were first missionaries in the Congo, and then in Burundi, where during their ministry, there was a terrible genocide taking place. In her personal eight-page typed testimony that she recently wrote for her RFBC Sunday School class, she said from birth she was taught the Word of God by her parents and had memorized Psalm 23 by the time she was one year old. How amazing is that!!!!

Nancy grew up in Africa up to the time, when as a teenager she went to Wheaton College back in the states. It was at Wheaton College that she developed a passion to teach children God's word. Not long after college, that she got involved in WRE, (Weekly Religious Education). Now for over 55 plus years, every week you could find her teaching children the Bible in the public school system, usually meeting in a small trailer across the street from the school, like she did at Colonial Elementary School near where I lived.

I just am so thankful for her faithful dedication to this ministry because many of my grandchildren sat under her Bible teaching. Nancy actually taught my daughters-in-law, Crystal Floyd Grooms when she was a girl. Remember Crystal, (and she won't mind that I say this), today is in her 40s. Yet when she was a little girl at Colonial Elementary, she sat under Nancy's teaching.

Nancy is a wonderful example of someone who loved the Lord, loved her husband, loved her family, loved ministry, loved teaching God's Word, and had a grasp of the Word of God in its entirety. She truly was an example of a mature believer who lived in the fullness of Jesus Christ. Oh, what a blessing it has been to be her pastor. We're celebrating her homegoing tomorrow (Tuesday) with her family. We're excited about how God's going to speak to the lives of many even in the service.

I trust you have been encouraged by her testimony that I have shared in today’s chat. I trust that you are being equipped for the work of the ministry like Nancy Young was. May the Lord also use you to affect and influence the lives of hundreds of others as He blesses and leads you.

God bless!