In the early 1960s at Dallas Theological Seminary, a young student named Chuck Swindoll was advised, “Be on the lookout for a professor named Howie Hendricks. He’s a man worth getting to know.” That advice led to a mentoring friendship that continues to shape the lives of both men.
Hendricks is celebrating his fiftieth anniversary at the seminary. Swindoll is now the school’s chancellor, after seven years as president, even as he continues his Insight for Living radio ministry and pastoring Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas.
Mentor and student were reunited as Leadership‘s Marshall Shelley asked them to reflect on their relationship and what it takes to keep yourself growing.
Howard, what do you remember about Chuck Swindoll as a student? What was your first impression?
Howard Hendricks: What impressed me about Chuck was he sat right under my nose right in the first row.
Chuck Swindoll: Within spitting distance.
Hendricks: He needed an umbrella. (Laughter)
Chuck always asked perceptive questions, always took copious notes. He would follow me out of the classroom and continue to pick my brain.
I love that in students. I have an intense interest in students and their learning, and I feel I am doing what God put me on the planet to do. I couldn’t care less what a student already knows. I want to know if he or she is interested in learning. If he is, I’m going to give him everything I’ve got, the best that I’ve got.
Swindoll: That came through in his classes. I didn’t sense he was trying to grade me. In fact, I don’t know that my grade was ever that important to him. He put his finger on what would go with me the rest of my life—if you learn to study and learn to love it, you’re going to do it.
What was the best thing you learned from Howard?
Swindoll: The best stuff I learned from him I couldn’t take from my notes—there’s no course on wisdom. The best stuff is not in a curriculum. I had no idea there would be someone on this campus who would believe in me before I ever believed in myself.
Let me tell you a story that will show you why I came to love him. Between semesters in my fourth year, Cynthia and I went to Houston to see our parents. While driving home from church on an icy Sunday in January, we were hit by a drunk driver: totaled our car, threw our son against the windshield and broke his jaw. Cynthia was thrown against the gearshift and began to hemorrhage. She was carrying our third child. Our second we had lost in a heartbreaking miscarriage.
My world collapsed. I came back to Dallas—no car, no money, and now I didn’t know if the baby would survive. I was discouraged and heart broken, not knowing if I’d be able to finish school. I needed someone to talk to.
That night I remember walking along a hallway among the profs’ offices looking for a light under a door, any door. When I found one, I knocked. The prof opened the door just a little and said, “You’re interrupting me. What do you want?”
I said, “I don’t want anything from you,” and I walked away. He watched me leave and closed the door.
I walked down the stairs and out on the campus. Howie had just finished teaching a night course, and he saw me. He said, “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry.” He put his arm around me. We sat down on a bench, what came to be known as the Hendricks bench.
He asked about Cynthia. I told him she was hemorrhaging pretty badly and the baby was in danger.
“We’ve lost babies,” he said. “I know that feeling. I don’t know what I can do, but Jeanne and I will do anything to help you through this time.”
The very first thing the next morning he came to me and asked, “How are you?”
How much is that worth? Just about a four-year course on how to deal with people. I learned in those moments how to work with people in grief.
Hendricks: I love the statement, “He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.” We look back, all of us do, and remember the people who marked our lives.
They weren’t the brilliant people who spouted all their knowledge and tried to impress me with it. They were the guys who really cared about me, wanted me to learn, wanted me to develop.
Swindoll: This is especially true in ministry. It’s the caring that builds the bridge. That’s what we’ve had through the years.
I knew that night after the accident that Howie cared about me. I loved that quality in him, and however he got it, I hoped maybe it would happen to me, too. That’s mentoring at its best.
Hendricks: You tend to do what has been done to you. One of my mentors was Merrill Tenney, my New Testament professor at Wheaton College. I used to preach in local churches, and Tenney would always show up. I used to think, What’s worse than having a New Testament scholar sitting in your congregation?
Swindoll: The one guy you don’t want!
Hendricks: That’s right. But Tenney would jump out of his chair like crazy. He’d tell me later, “Now that’s what I call good preaching.” Tenney put his arm around me one day and said, “Howie, I want you to know I’m on your team. I believe in you.”
How do you choose someone to mentor? What do you look for, brains? Drive? Charisma?
Hendricks: I look for someone who is teachable, who’s got a heart for God—ready and available. And I look for somebody who is willing to take the initiative.
Some students say to me, “The faculty doesn’t want to spend any time with me.”
I say, “Let me ask you one question. Did you ever invite a faculty member out for lunch?”
“No.”
“Did you ever make an appointment with one?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell me they don’t want to spend time with you. You’re not taking any initiative.”
The people who take the initiative are the people who get your time. It’s just that simple.
Howard, you’ve been giving of yourself in this way for 50 years, and in one place. What does it take to be a long-tenure individual who stays fresh?
Hendricks: Teaching keeps me on the edge. It keeps me in contact with young people who come out of an all together different society than I came from. I have made a conscious attempt to study postmodernism, for example, and ask, “How can I get into that citadel and be accepted?” Not because I necessarily agree with the worldview, but I do want to understand it—and the people immersed in it.
Swindoll: Howie reads as widely as anyone I know. Way outside his field. Inevitably he’ll give you a quote from an author you’ve never even heard of that’s so incisive you know Howie’s read the book.
What’s your reading plan?
Hendricks: I try to read everything that’s published within the core of my field. Right now, my field of specialty is leadership. Then I read selected things from contributory fields, such as history and biography. And finally, I make sure to read a few things totally unrelated.
For instance, I read a book a few months ago on architecture. I don’t know the front end from the back in architecture, but it is amazing how what you learn stretches you. Great illustrations, great insights come from cross-fertilization.
That’s why I think C. S. Lewis, a linguist, was a better theologian than most theologians. He didn’t come from a narrowly focused theologian’s perspective. He came to theology as one who had read widely, and that gives a whole new twist on things.
So you identify your core interest, the area in which you need to be well-versed, but then you—
Swindoll: Leap.
Hendricks: Yes. And almost always on the basis of a recommendation. I force myself out of the boundaries of what a person in my field would be expected to read.
Another thing I have learned is “the 40/20 rule.” I read for 40 minutes, and I reflect for 20. It’s my judgment that the average person spends all of his time reading and doesn’t reflect enough.
Then I make sure to use what I read. Part of remaining fresh is a sanctified discontent with saying things the same way I’ve said them before. For instance, I revamp my courses from stem to stern every semester I teach.
Swindoll: How long are you going to keep teaching?
Hendricks: Until you fire me. (Laughter.) Or until I can no longer perform at my level of expectation. Then I’m taking off.
You also need to know I’m a restless individual. That’s the reason I have never taught summer school. I’m out of here for those four months to get out in the field or to go overseas, to get in touch.
Since I’m preparing these guys for ministry I want to know what it’s like out there. What are the problems they’re facing? I often say to a student, “I may not have all the answers, but I do know what the problems are.”
This brings me back to the classroom with my shirttails on fire. I come back and say, “Let me tell you what real life is about, because this is what you’re going to do. Let me tell you what’s happening out there.”
Swindoll: What is it Jim Elliott said? “Wherever you are, be all there.”
When Howie travels, he pays attention. And his favorite places are the Third World countries, far away from five-star accommodations. He gets in touch with an alumnus or two who’s given his life in the middle of nowhere, then he comes back all motivated again.
Howie returns with more than a story about a missionary in the bush. He tells a funny story about a monkey or something, and you think, This guy is enjoying life. All of that teaches. That’s a real education because the student learns that he, too, can be a real person and a real minister.
Hendricks: A layman said to me some time ago, “I love my pastor.”
I said, “Really? Why?”
He said, “He’s had a brush with reality. I’m so tired of hearing guys come out of a seminary talking about nothing that has anything to do with where I live.”
Well, I want to know where they live.
Looking back over 50 years, how would you describe your life?
Hendricks: You’re looking at a completely fulfilled human being. I really feel that way because of the people I’ve been privileged to mark, people who will be making an impact for Christ long after I’m gone.
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