Sixty Plus One: The McAlisters
  

In two previous blogs I have spoken of John Shepherd and the Andersons as great examples to follow for those 60 and older when it comes to how to utilize ones gifts and experience during what are commonly referred to as "the retirement years."  In this entry I want to put rhe spotlight on my dear friend, Alan McAlister.

     Now Alan and I have so many significant shared experiences in ministry that

  it would take a novella to tell them well. So I will try to focus on the topic at hand. 

    
    I met Alan in 1986 on the steps of the library of the Mid-America Baptist Seminary. He had already graduated and was preparing to move back to Henderson, NC to start the Central Baptist Church. I was preparing to transfer to SEBTS in Wake Forest, NC, which is located just south of Henderson.

     I had seen Alan around campus but never spoken to him. As we passed each other at the entrance to the library, the Lord told me to speak to him. So I did and started the conversation by asking him what his plans were. That's when he told me about his plans to return where he had been living to start a church.

  I told him I would soon move nearby and would give him a call as his church planting plans interested me greatly. I mean how can one move overseas to be a church planter if he has never helped start one in his own culture?

     I called Alan about a month before we planned to move to NC and asked him if he remembered our conversation. He said he did and had two questions for me. Could I work with children and youth and could I lead music? I told him what my experience in both areas was and as a result he asked me to travel to Henderson and have a look about and see what his strategy was.

     Well, to make a long story short, the Lord ended up calling us to join their team. We had a marvelous time in Henderson, albeit it was one of the busiest times of my life, I.e. attending school, working at Carolina Freight in south Raleigh and doing all I could for the new church.

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     The Lord bonded our hearts together through all we experienced. Once we moved to Kenya to work among the Maassi, Pastor Alan started to come out on an every other year basis to help us with evangelism efforts.  Through the years he involved a lot of Central members. Those teams really helped our work.

     After we began to work with John Shepherd and CRM, Alan and John became very close friends. Thus when John died in Sept of '13, CRM's board asked Alan to consider taking on the role of the group's presidency.

     Now at that time, Alan was the pastor of another Central Baptist, but this one in Clovis, NM. It is a large church and Alan already had enough to say grace over. Yet despite all the demands on his time, he agreed. And oh yeah, Alan was already 60+.

     Under Alan's innovative leadership, CRM's ministries have expanded in scope. The story cloth is now literally being used all over the world. Hundreds of public school teachers have been taught how to use it in religious education classes. Alan completed John's dream of having a second cloth on Acts and set up a great web site for the cloth www.Historycloth.com.

    Alan retired as Central's pastor last December, and it will be interesting to see what happens now that he is able to give CRM's various ministries his full attention. 

     I was with Alan in Arusha, TZ last January. He had a second hip replacement done not many weeks before making the trip. As I walked behind him at the airport and noted how he limped, I sent a note to self. "Self, if you are ever going to walk the AT you better do it sooner than later, because who knows, if a strong guy like Alan is in such shape at 65, who am I to think I will be able to do it in 5 years?"

     So Alan, to some extent you are responsible for my AT hike at this period of my life! Ha..!

     Bottom line, Alan and Peggy both are an inspiration to me and I am sure to many others. Their example has encouraged me to stay focused on Kingdom advance even after retiring.

Uncle