I never met the late Gardner C. Taylor. He preached for more than four decades in New York City to wide acclaim and profound effect.
It is a shame, my shame; because in my opportunities to invite pulpit guests (and I had many) he was never on the short list. He never got a call from me.
Furthermore, in none of the scores of pastors’ and preachers’ gathering I attended through my own 40-plus years of ministry, his name never appeared on the program. I repent of this; and lots of others need to repent.
So my confession even as the thousands of mourners and admirers find their way home from his memorial service is simply this: I never heard Dr. Taylor preach.
But (and this is a mighty important conjunction) I hear his voice, his echo, his word.
I hear it in the sermons of the young African American preachers who flock to our Festivals and stand to preach. They have heard Dr. Taylor or else they have heard those who did hear the great man. Which is why they come to preach: they want to sound like Gardner Taylor, and stand like Gardner Taylor, and preach like Gardner Taylor–often without knowing the true image of their great ministerial ideal.
No, these Young Preachers don’t say “I want to preach like Gardner Taylor,” not in so many words. But preachers like Gardner Taylor have created the preaching environment into which these talented young people are born, by which these dedicated young preachers are discipled, for which these inspirational young adults are destined.
Which is why these young preachers speak with such skill, passion, and clarity; which is why they make the Word dance and the gospel sing; which is why, when they take a text (as they say), they capture the attention of all the other people at the Festival (including me) and make us which wish we could preach like they do…or, like Gardner Taylor does.
I never heard Dr. Taylor preach, but every year when we gather for the National Festival of Young Preachers (next January in Lexington) echoes of that great man of God, now gathered to his people, reverberate through every preaching hall and from every pulpit. Taylor’s voice–for truth, for justice, for love, for courage, for gospel–has found its way, through a thousand intermediaries, into the minds and imaginations of a new generation of talented, dedicated young preachers. All the rest of us can say, while still in the shadow of the great man’s passing: Glory to God, Glory to God.
Dwight A. Moody
April 14, 2015