Jack Snell was a gentle man with a gentle and kind voice. He was tall, educated, proactive in areas of social issues, on television with people early in the morning discussing issues of the day with a Rabbi and a Priest in Jacksonville, Florida for years. He was active in the Cooperative Baptist Church, and very active in missions. There are so many good things I could say about him and how important he was to me when I was a chaplain and a struggling female ordained chaplain.

An area he did not give me confidence and blessings were preaching, because women did not preach from his pulpit. It wasn’t just me, it was all the people behind the pulpit being male. He ordained women during his life time, and perhaps women did preach after I left his circle of influence.

He had the opportunity to ordain me. I asked him to ordain me before I asked anyone else, and he encouraged me to get ordained somewhere else. Because he chose that, I was ordained in Milledgeville, Georgia, and I did not ask for help to get into the military. One had to have a position with the title minister or chaplain to get into the military, and no church would hire me in the Southern Baptist denomination in 1988 with the title of chaplain. No ministers were asking me to fill in, no mortuaries were asking me to preach, and I wasn’t invited to be on television with Jack. He and I met in 1986 when I joined his church.

So I applied and went through the physical and passed everything to get into the Navy as a chaplain in 1988 except for the title minister. I never asked Jack to help me because he had passed on ordaining a woman he had known active as a chaplain resident. I had to go to a place that had known me for three months to become ordained and that was truly a miracle. They did not offer the pulpit to me. I have only preached in one church in my life that was Southern Baptist, Sparta Baptist Church, in Sparta, Georgia.

A few years ago, I called him up, and asked him if he would have given me the title of minister and $1.00 a month so that I could have gotten into the Navy in 1988, and he swallowed hard, and said yes. I asked him if he had said no in 1988, where would I have gone? Where could I have worshiped? Maybe then he knew what he had done by passing on my ordination. Maybe he ordained many women, and I was the exception.

So I had a dream. He was yellowed as though he had liver problems, and he was very busy. So many ministers are busy. I was at his office in Jacksonville maybe, and he was gentle as always. He talked to me, telling me good things. Then I told him I had something important to tell him, about something that would help him become healthier, and he told me he would look into it, and then the door was shut, and I sat down in an empty chair that looked like a musical chairs line up and waited. He opened the door again, and we talked again. I knew that what I had to say would be swallowed up with all the things that he was doing, and not make a difference in helping him. With great sadness that he didn’t regard me as important, and what I had to say as helpful, I woke up.

My circle of influence with people is not so large, but the people mean quite a lot to me. I was one of the least of these, and Jack missed me. Maybe he would be alive today if only I really had been one of the least of these to him. What this says to ministers today, is to really look at people, and see them. You might miss Jesus inside the least of these.

(c) 2008 Charlotte Fairchild

Author Bio: Born in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Charlotte Fairchild traveled as a Navy child, and was ordained in 1987 at FBC Milledgeville, GA. She served as a chaplain for 11 years, 7 of which were in a volunteer capacity, including at Emory Parkway Medical Center on 9/11. It was closed 5 months after 9/11, and demolished within two years. She is a writer and speaker of kudzu, fertility, roses, and has preached at a Southern Baptist church once, United Methodist Churches 15 times, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches once each. Fertile Prayers is her first published book. Kudzu Kwestions will help find her several blogs. Fertility and miscarriage are part of her ministries. fertileprayers@yahoo.com is her email address.