Well Done, Tim Coop

The little church I grew up in had a contest each year for the young kids in church.  Learning memory verses, attending Sunday School, involvement in “Jet Cadets,” doing acts of service and other things I can’t remember added up points to award the winner with a free week of church camp.  My Dad told me he would pay for a week of camp and if I won the contest I could go for a second week.  Game on.  I won three years in a row.

Those weeks of camp were key building blocks for my young life.  Ministers and church leaders volunteered their time as counselors to build into me and so many other children, some of whom are acquaintances to this day.

Dick Alexander, Ron and Alan Gallaher, Les Christie, Dona Rindahl, and a host of others served as camp leaders to help make me who I am today.  One of those ministers who gave of his time was Tim Coop.  Little did I know the influence Tim would have on the remainder of my life.

Since my parents were very involved with the camp, there would be camp planning meetings at our house from time to time.  I got to meet people like Tim up close and personal.  As a preaching major at Pacific Christian College, Tim Coop was my preaching professor.  For the summer of 1982, I followed Tim’s every footstep in my ministry internship.  When it came time for my ordination in October 1983, it was Tim Coop whom I asked to join with the elders of my church to ordain me into ministry.

As a young minister, it was Tim Coop who was my “go-to guy” when I needed help to answer tough questions that a young minister isn’t prepared for.  When I was no longer in local church ministry, Kathy and I decided to move to Corona so we could attend the church Tim Coop was pastoring.

In my work at CDF I made loans and raised investments at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California, Pantano Christian Church in Tucson and The Crossing: A Christian Church in Las Vegas.  What did these churches have in common?  Tim Coop pastored at all three of them.  I traveled with Tim to leadership training events for ministers across the U.S. as part of CDF’s national expansion, and our friendship grew and flourished.

Every time I encountered Tim, he would welcome me, arms open wide, and then would encircle me with a hug of love and tenderness.  I wasn’t the only one who got one of those hugs.  In fact, Tim reserved those hugs for every person he encountered. Every person Tim encountered experienced the love of Jesus.

Tim’s catchphrase was that to tell someone the story of Jesus, you had to “earn the right to be heard.”  That has been a guiding principle in every area of my life.  I have made a career of “earning the right to be heard” in telling the story of CDF and how our work leads to life transformation.  Who would think that making an investment in a financial institution could end up changing individuals so completely that their lives would be “transformed”?  It’s true.  That’s what happens.

When you take a pastor like Tim Coop, and you put a tool in his hands, like a church building, things change.  People’s lives change.  People encounter God in a way they never have before.

On Christmas Eve, 2016, Tim passed from life on this earth into eternity with Jesus.  The legacy of his ministry will be passed on through so many Christians that he mentored: pastors, elders, teachers, moms and dads, everyday people, all of us who encountered him.

Buildings don’t transform people. Jesus transforms people.  Jesus uses people like Tim Coop, and people like you, to touch lives through the work of His church.  Thank you, Tim, for touching my life.  I am looking forward to that big hug when I walk through the “pearly gates.”  If I hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master,” it will be because of people like Tim Coop.  God bless you, Tim. There will never be another like you.