Dr. Harry Reeder III of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1982. He had the great privilege to study under Edmund Clowney and Palmer Robertson. His written works include The Leadership Dynamic and From Embers to a Flame. This summer, Dr. David Garner, Academic Dean at Westminster, sat down to interview Dr. Reeder about his coming to faith, his call to ministry, and the various ways God has blessed his labors at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. To listen to the full-length interview, please visit wts.edu/Reeder.
David Garner: Harry, welcome! Why don’t you start telling us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and how you came to faith in Christ.
Harry Reeder: I grew up in a Christian home. My family was very much intertwined with the Graham family. We attended Calvary Independent Presbyterian Church in Charlotte but moved frequently due to my dad being in minor league baseball. In fact, I went to 11 schools in 12 years! We eventually moved back to Charlotte and were very much engaged in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. But I did not become a believer. My granddaddy was on the original Billy Graham team. My dad and mom were believers. I became a Christian out of a drug problem—my dad and mom “drug” me to church every week. But I had another life, and when I went away to college it no longer was a secret life.
Eventually, the Lord brought me to an end of myself. I came to see the emptiness of the life that I was pursuing. So, I came to Christ under the ministry of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod. I was then called to the ministry. So, I left East Carolina University and went to Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. I spent some time in the Reformed Baptist Association and had the wonderful blessing of learning under Walter Chantry and pastor Al Martin. While in seminary, I had a student pastorate part-time. Subsequently, I had the great blessing of finishing with Westminster Seminary in 1982.
DG: Tell us a little bit about your experience at Westminster. You are one of those unique students who didn’t study right here in Glenside.
HR: Yes, I got the professors, but I didn’t get the Philadelphia city environment nor the weather. . . The faculty from Westminster would come down [to Westminster South] in the summer and in January for two-week intensives. . . so I got Dr. Palmer Robertson. . . Robert Godfrey, Dr. Clowney. . . I love that model of the academy and apprenticeship together. . .
I was there for three years and then the denomination asked me to go and plant a church. They gave me 10 cities. I was essentially a guinea pig for what they call the flagship church planting program. I ended up going to Charlotte and planting Christ Covenant from which there would be a Presbytery. And, now two presbyteries have been planted there. And my dear friend Kevin DeYoung pastors the church there. In 1999, after being there 17 years, the Lord called me to follow Dr. Frank Barker, who had planted Briarwood Presbyterian Church. And so, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and I’ve been there.
DG: Harry, you made mention of the academy and apprenticeship. Talk a little bit about why you think that model is important as this is what we’re doing right now at Westminster in the Master of Divinity pastoral track.
HR: This is taking basically taking what Calvin was doing in Geneva and connecting it to the Westminster legacies like Murray, Van Til, Clowney, and many others. We’ve got all this wonderful scholarship, but how do we educate men in the context of ministry? That’s what Jesus did. He had the classroom, the moving academy, and then he had ministry. I believe Westminster Seminary is doing something that is cutting edge; it’s going back to the way Jesus trained pastors, the way that Calvin trained pastors, and the way institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge are set up. So, the first couple of years you will have class with hours of mentoring surrounding it, cohort relationships with pastors in the area, and relationships with our faculty.
I believe Westminster Seminary is doing something that is cutting edge; it’s going back to the way Jesus trained pastors, the way that Calvin trained pastors, and the way institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge are set up.
In the last year you’ll go into an apprenticeship in a Westminster-type ministry, in a church that will support what you’ve been learning. You’ll continue with intensive courses during that time, but you’ll be going through a residential program like a doctor. As you’re exposed to preaching leadership, Christian education, small-group discipleship, evangelism leadership, implementation, how to impact culture, you’ll be able to absorb and see and begin to be tested. What kind of ministry is the Lord calling me to in this pastoral ministry? To that question, you can get the input of a pastor and a session while you’re, as it were, tying the bow of the educational process.
DG: Well said. And as I hear you talking about that, in this generation of the life of the church in the West, and maybe even globally, what are the issues that you find most concerning and why does this matter so much at this particular time?
HR: Dave, I have a burden in this area, and have written and preached on it. I have been donating Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism because liberalism is, at present, a virulent enemy of biblical Christianity. Indeed, I think we’ve kind of got a Christian Liberalism 2.0, and that’s progressive Christianity. Even the same slogans are used. They seek to “rescue the evangelical church from the dustbin of history and save the church for the next generation.” Ultimately it is in arrogance that we think to make the church relevant, and then we take the church into a new mission of cultural transformation. Now let me be the first to say I want cultural transformation. But I don’t believe that’s the mission of the church. That’s the consequence of the church staying on mission, on message, and in ministry. And I think it’s very important that we educate young men who are called to the pastoral ministry, and men and women for leadership throughout the church to participate in a ministry with godly character, biblical content, and honed gifts for the ministry.
Now, why is this important? Because whatever the functional mission and motivation of the church is will eventually determine its message. So, for instance, if the motivation and mission of the church is church growth, then you end up with a pragmatic gospel to get the numbers; if it’s self-esteem, you end up with a therapeutic gospel; if it’s success in life, you end up with a prosperity gospel. If it’s cultural transformation, you end up with a cultural accommodation of the gospel and, therefore, a dilution of the gospel. That means the message is going to be an accommodating message to the culture. And that’s exactly what happened in liberal Christianity, because they wanted to be culturally relevant and culturally transformational. They lost the true doctrines of the supernatural power of God. And today, what is lost is not merely biblical inerrancy, but the sufficiency of Scripture and therefore the sufficiency of Christ and the sufficiency of the gospel. It is in this context that the church’s pulpits begin to highlight the issues that the culture says to highlight and become strangely silent on the issues that the culture tells us to be silent about, such as the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of sexuality, and the sanctity of gender.
Today, what is lost is not merely biblical inerrancy, but the sufficiency of Scripture and therefore the sufficiency of Christ and the sufficiency of the gospel.
Considering this and the initiatives at Westminster, I believe that Westminster is uniquely positioned to turn out pastors who can keep the church on mission, on message, and in ministry, making disciples with a comprehensive message of a gospel wrapped in the whole counsel of God, which will then turn out Christians who know how to do biblical justice, walk humbly with God, and love mercy.
DG: Harry, some might take issue with your juxtaposition of classic liberalism with progressive Christianity, saying “Harry, I believe in the one, way, truth, and life, Jesus Christ. I believe in the bodily resurrection. I’m no liberal.” How would you respond to that being a false connection in as much as many people might see it?
HR: Well, firstly, let me agree with them. I don’t believe that the same doctrines that were targeted in liberal Christianity are targeted in progressive Christianity. For instance, foundationally liberal Christianity targeted the inerrancy of Scripture. Progressive Christianity, I believe, targets the sufficiency of Scripture. I also believe that I can safely say that in many cases there is the claim that we are in concert with historic biblical confessional Christianity. But as I said, when you get to the terms of debate, you find out we don’t mean the same thing. For instance, take the term missional. I have people now calling me, “Pastor, can you give us names for pastors. . . we don’t want one of those missional guys because they seem to have capitulated to the culture.” And I say to them, “No, no...really you do want a missional guy. Missional is merely describing the lifestyle of a leader who is surrendered to the mission.” The problem is, ultimately, you’ve got the wrong mission. Me, personally, I am missional in my drive as a pastor to make disciples through my various ministries.The key to all this is the gospel, not merely a half-gospel approach. Progressive Christians often preach the gospel with its declarative blessings of justification and adoption, but they do not believe in the transformational blessings of the gospel, that you can break the power of sin.
DG: Many today would say that they can accept the fact that we need to be on mission, but we should abandon that old “dinosaur” model that doesn’t really change people. It just doesn’t change culture. Can you speak to that?
HR: We were having a sanctity of life Sunday, where we were asking the Lord to impact the culture in this area. We engaged the Bible to see what it says about life as a part of discipling a congregation in the context of a worship service. This was an effective ministry as we were able to remove all the abortion centers in Birmingham. This became a comprehensive ministry. It’s almost a quilt-work: Doctors for Life, Alabama Policy Institute Lawyers for Life, Nurses for Life, the best adoption agency, foster care ministry, and abortion recovery counseling ministry by one of the young ladies in our church. While speaking to the executive pastor, Bruce, we realized that these ministries were primarily begun by members of Briarwood. Things were changing all around because we discipled these people. They became salt and light of the earth.
Perhaps my favorite ministry development was when we got a phone call from the Commissioner of Prison and Corrections agencies. There was a prison called the “bloody bed.” And there’s a reason it’s called that. And there was a dorm, they call Fallujah. It was filled with racial violence, gangs, segregation, violence, lethal weapons, pornography, and sexual promiscuity in the prison. There’s a reason the guards called it Fallujah. The commissioner of the prison said, “Harry, I want you and Briarwood to come in and do what you did in my life when I was in high school. That’s all I’m asking for.”
So, we went in there, and now, three years later, Fallujah has been rated by the United States Marshalls 34 times, and there is not one piece of pornography, not one lethal weapon. There are no gangs. They all sleep in the dormitories. There is now a library and a small chapel. We started Birmingham Theological Seminary that has a cooperative relationship with Westminster. We started a cohort of classes for certificate programs. Many of the inmates are in for life, but if they sign a paper when they graduate, they will join another inmate and move to another prison and start a cohort there for a seminary class. We now have graduated two cohorts and some of them were able to move on now to credentialed degree programs in our seminary. There was a time when one of the graduates gave a lecture on Bavinck and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We also planted a church. It’s called the Church Behind the Wire. I’m in there giving a lecture on systematic theology and right there in front is a white guy and a black guy, both in for egregious crimes. They’re best friends. They studied together, and are now mentoring another group of guys going through the cohort.
DG: That’s wonderful to hear, Harry. A number of our alumni, perhaps prospective students, are likely reading this. What would you say to them is the greatest need for ministers today in this 21st century context of ministry in view of what you’ve said already? How would you encourage our guys to think?
HR: You need to be a man of God. Like Paul instructs Timothy, we need men who are equipped with the sufficient Scripture, who believe in the power of the gospel, who believe in the power of the means of grace, who believe that God’s word has power, in the hands of God’s Spirit, through the preaching of the word in worship and all the means of grace. When it’s put together, we need men of God who believe that and who model that.
DG: Harry, throughout our time together, you’ve referred to several things that drive in one direction about the man of God and his community. Many of our alumni perhaps are serving in solo pastorates in places and it can be very lonely at times. I know in your own experience, you’ve had a group of men that you have gathered with every year, and you pray together, you hold one another accountable. How would you encourage our alumni now who are maybe feeling very alone and unsure how to create that sort of dynamic?
HR: In my book, 3D Leadership, I discuss that question in great detail. I believe you learn by imitation, instruction, and encouragement. And so, for imitation, you need models for your life. I think you ought to get them from history. I’ve got five models from my life as a leader and five models from my life as a pastor, and I have done the deep dive on those five men. I try to fix my eyes on Jesus by using these five men as signposts to point me to Christ. Secondly, you need mentoring. I have been extraordinarily blessed to have five significant mentors in my life. All of them but three are with the Lord now. It’s hard for me to say how much that has meant in my life. They are, as it were, my band of brothers, and we have been meeting and praying together, anywhere from six to two times a year depending on the challenges that we face, and whether our families are close. We’ve been meeting together now for 38 years. And we pray for each other. We can hold each other accountable while we pray with each other. And that has been of inestimable value to me. Again, it’s hard for me to express how much that has meant to me and my life. So, you get your models from history, and your mentors (unless you know how to channel!) from the present.
You get your models from history, and your mentors from the present.
DG: As you are at this stage of your life and ministry with many years behind you, what would be your greatest desire as you move across the finish line to however many years that God gives you?
HR: Wow. I just want to stay in the fight. The Christian life is a battle. William Gurnall wrote the 1600-page volume on Ephesians 6:10–19. He felt the Christian armor text was the Christian life. There is a lot of truth to that. We need to stay in the fight. So as long as I can stay in the fight, I’m not interested in counting shells on the Gulf coast. That’s not really what I’m interested in doing. I tell Briarwood, listen, you’re going to peel my hands off the pulpit and put me in the grave, but here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to be Briarwood’s pulpit. In other words, as long as I can serve, to whatever level of service I’m capable of physically, mentally, and spiritually, I want to stay in the fight till I go home. And so, I’ve asked the Lord that wonderful verse from the hymn that says, “do not let me outlive my usefulness to you.” I love the passage in Acts 13:36, when it says that David, after he had served God’s purpose in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers. This is what I want. I ask the Lord to let me do it, to stay in the fight. And then I’m ready, ready to go home.