7 October 1940 A.D. Birth: Rev. David T. Myers
7 October 1940 A.D. Birth: Rev. David T. Myers
Archivists. “October 7: Rev. David T. Myers.” Anglican Ink. 7 Oct 2015. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2015/10/october-7-3/.
Accessed 7 Oct 2015.
October 7: Rev. David T. Myers
Our Primary Author!—On his Birthday, No Less!
Seventy-five
years ago, on this day, October 7, 1940,
out on the wind-swept plains of Lemmon, South Dakota, David T. Myers was
born—the fourth and youngest child of Rev. David K. Myers and his wife
Anne. Rev. Myers was riding the rural preaching circuit at the time,
preaching to and pastoring as many as fifteen small prairie churches in the
newly formed Bible Presbyterian Church. There is little recorded of the
Myers’ family life of this time, other than one story that the Myers children
were known to say, especially during blizzard season, “Now, let us pray for
Daddy if he be stuck!” Certainly this was a product of the faithfulness
of young David’s mother, Anne, whose “determination, steadfast support, and
unfailing labors in the church and home with her prayers,” recalled Rev. Myers
years later, allowed him to “go far in ‘them thar’ hills for the gold of
precious souls who turned to Christ by evangelistic means to receive the
Gospel.”
[Note: David’s father, the Rev. David K.
Myers, wrote an autobiography titled Preaching on the
Plains. For information on how to order a copy of this
most interesting autobiography, click
here. The table of contents, and later, several sample chapters,
were posted here.]
Without
a doubt, David Myers’ early life was cocooned in the message and work of the
Gospel. He must have breathed it in, along with the crisp northern wind,
and been animated by its strength and power in the time before even his first
memory. When David was a boy of three, Rev. Myers took on a new calling
as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. There followed numerous different
postings, including a most memorable three years at the Army chaplaincy in
post-World War II Germany, at the infamous Nazi concentration camp—Dachau.
It
was in Dachau that mankind’s depravity and desperate need for a Savior was
seared onto David’s consciousness. At the impressionable age of eight to
ten years old, David would wander the camp of horror in those first years of
the American occupation, even before the full extent of the Holocaust was known
to the world. He saw bones in the dirt, human ashes in the ovens, and a
gruesome hanging tree, ropes still swinging. David later wrote of the
“breathtaking cruelty” that was apparent throughout Dachau. He would
recall one instance “walking through a shower room with bars of soap, sprinkler
heads, drains in the floor, except everything was wooden, including the bars of
soap. This was a gas chamber, and I can remember hurrying out of there when one
of my older friends with me then mentioned it as that.” All of this
impressed upon the boy with indelible force the inescapable “sinful depravity
of man” and his need for the Gospel.
It
was to that Gospel calling that David would turn as he returned to America and
entered his formative years of study, eventually completing his masters of
divinity degree at Faith Seminary in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, where his
father had taken up a professorship (later, David would add a doctoral degree
from Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri). Then, in 1966, he and his
new bride, Carolyn, began what would stretch to nearly fifty years of faithful
and continuous Gospel ministry—pastoring five different Presbyterian churches,
serving as an “honorary chaplain” at the U.S. Army War College, and engaging in
numerous scholarly work, popular writing, and public engagement ministries.
After
a short stint in Alberta, Canada, David and Carolyn moved to Lincoln, Nebraska
to plant a new church work in the Bible Presbyterian denomination. God
blessed their efforts and as that church grew, David’s ministry expanded in the
community. In 1974, it was reported by the local press that David had
begun, and was serving as President, the Nebraska Association for Christian
Action. “It is the aim of this organization to bring to bear the Word of
God on vital social and political issues, and to engage in Christian witness
and action in public affairs,” David said at the time. The organization
fulfilled its mission during those years as it testified regularly before the
state legislature and advocated on many issues of public concern.
With
the birth of a new, reformed Presbyterian denomination in America, the PCA,
David transitioned his ministry into a new denominational home. Both the
work he began in Lincoln, and the subsequent work begun in Omaha, remain
faithful congregations—with fruitful church offspring of their own—in the
PCA. During this time, David and Carolyn welcomed into their lives and
ministry their only child, daughter Ann Margaret.
In
1986, having seeded the cornfields of Nebraska with a flourishing reformed
Presbyterianism, David accepted a call east and left his beloved Nebraska
Cornhuskers for the hills of Pennsylvania. There, for the next twenty
years, he would pastor two PCA congregations, one in Pittsburgh and one in
Carlisle. While in Pennsylvania, David’s fascination with American
history, and particularly the period of the Civil War, reached new
heights. He began a ministry of research and writing connecting the deep
Christian spirituality of that era to the on-the-ground living history of
battlefields and memorials across the Pennsylvania countryside. His
personal tours through the Gettysburg National Park became renown among
Christian tourists seeking to learn the specific Christian stories of the
war. As always, David never took off his pastoral cap, using history to
illuminate again, the power of the Gospel of Christ. His books [Stonewall Jackson: The Spiritual Side
and The Boy Major of the Confederacy]
on the era do the same.
In
2004, David retired from his period of formal ministry in the PCA, but he has
never retired from the ministry of the Gospel. David soon took up a key
post as an “honorary chaplain” at the U.S. Army Chapel at the Carlisle
Barracks, a part of the Army War College. In this way, David
brought his ministry full circle from those early years as an “Army brat”
witnessing the horrible depravity of man while his father ministered in the
chaplaincy in Dachau. David served as a faithful teacher and occasional
pastor at the Chapel, ministering to some of the U.S. Army’s top brass as they
moved through postings at the War College.
David’s
characteristic wry humor found one of its keenest expressions during his time
at the Chapel. He is known to remark: “It is the most perfect church I
have known. If you don’t like the congregation, they leave every year,
and if you don’t like the chaplain, he leaves every other year!” But
beyond humor, David has continued his life’s work, bringing the light of the
Gospel to everyone around him. For example, in 2012, Col. Randall
Cheeseborough, the chairman of the War College’s department of academic
affairs, told one publication that he and his wife kept returning again and
again to hear David’s teaching: “It was so Scripture based, it was a wonderful
experience. It’s good for me to see an older man’s faithfulness and
dedication. He’s just a wonderful role model.” Another member of
the brass, Col. Bill Barko told the same publication: “More than about any
single person, David has been a huge spiritual influence on our community.”
Readers
of this blog certainly have known and experienced these same truths. In
2010, David floated to the PCA Historical Center the idea of a daily devotion
tied to events in Presbyterian history. Others, including director Wayne
Sparkman, thought it was a fine idea, but were concerned about content
production. Thus, David’s project was given the green light, but on one
condition: that he write an entire year’s worth of daily devotionals before the
project would launch. David eagerly accepted the challenge and for the
next two years, wrote what would become the first 365 of this project’s
devotionals. To date, This Day in
Presbyterian History has produced over 1,300 daily
devotionals from Presbyterian history, is read by thousands around the globe,
and has been cited by many other publications both scholarly and popular.
And
so, on his seventy-fifth birthday, we are honored to wish our founder a hearty
“Happy Birthday!” with his own, well deserved chapter in this collection
recounting God’s abounding grace and saving mercies as they have been deposited
in one branch of his Church. David’s faithful life and work have, without
a doubt, testified to the truth that there is a Savior, and that he is Jesus
Christ, our Lord. David and Carolyn continue to live in the hills of
Pennsylvania, in the village of Boiling Springs, and he can still be seen, from
time to time, leading fellow Christians and history buffs around the Gettysburg
battlefield, recounting stories of faith in the most trying of times. His
daughter Ann lives in Kansas with her husband Caleb, and David’s five
grandsons.
Our post today comes by way of family members grateful for his
legacy of faith.
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