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Editor’s note: In May, 2011, Rev. John Grob was named Pastor Emeritus at Lebanon First UMC. The following reflection was written by his dear friend, Conrad Steinhoff, for that occasion.

John Grob – A Reflection

By Conrad Steinhoff

   For all of us, John Grob is who we see before us. For some of us, John is someone we have known for many years, stretching back to 1986 when he became pastor of this church. I met him in May of 1987, shortly after Margaret and I moved to Lebanon. John showed up at our door to invite us to church. Besides his engaging manner, I recall he was wearing shorts. It was a warm day. He pointed out the long red line on his leg where a vein had been borrowed recently to fix his heart. You might say he presented himself as a man with heart. We’ve been part of this congregation ever since.  

   To a few of you, his family and friends, John is much more than the former pastor of this congregation. But probably none of you knew John when he was 17, a senior in high school. That was when he received his “call to preach.” John was one of about 100 youth at the Camp Eldorado Youth Institute. At one of the worship services, he went down front and turned his life over to Jesus. Jesus has been running his life ever since.

   The first step he took into ministry was to obtain his Local Preacher’s License. The next was to enroll at Greenville College, his mother’s alma mater. That’s where he started singing in the choir. He’s been doing that every since, too. He auditioned for the A Cappella Choir and got in. Robert Wood was the director. It is he who told John he is a tenor.

   Bob Hollis was John’s room mate. Bob was also an aspiring preacher. They became close friends – they still are. John’s friendships are not fleeting. Greenville is a Free Methodist school. Bob told John they would be smart to transfer to McKendree College in their third year, since they aspired to serve in the United Methodist Church, with which McKendree is affiliated. So they did. They remained roommates at McKendree. During his two years at McKendree, John received his first appointment. He was student pastor at Grace Methodist in Washington Park.

   But John’s greatest moment at McKendree was meeting Connie Parrish. John once pointed out to me the concrete bench on the McKendree front campus where he and Connie sat together as young lovers. They became engaged about the time he received his appointment to Grace in Washington Park. The McKendree Review newspaper sported the headline, “John gets Parish, Connie Gets John.” They’ve been partners in ministry ever since. They were married August 7, 1953 in Connie’s home church in Chester.

   Ed Hochman was John’s theology prof at McKendree. Ed was also a graduate of Drew Theological Seminary in Madison New Jersey. He convinced John and Bob Hollis that Drew was the place for them. When they graduated from McKendree in 1953, it was off to Drew for John and Bob. It was there John met Ray Porter and Bill Lewis. They became part of his circle of friends. Both of them have also been a part of the lives of many of us.

   While at Drew, John had another student pastorate, this one at Ashokan, New York, a small town about sixty miles north from Madison. John told me the previous pastor at Ashokan had died while mowing the church lawn. The church trustees bought a power mower for the new pastor. He spent half the week at Drew, the other half at Ashokan. The route from one to the other couldn’t be explained, John said. You just had to learn it. There was something about hedgerows, fences, and windmills. At first John was uneasy about leaving Connie alone while he was gone, but she did just fine. She started a mid-week Bible study for the church members.

        When John graduated from Drew he didn’t know what his final grades were. He found out when he and Connie got back to Illinois and he saw them in the Greenville Advocate. He had graduated Magna Cum Laude.

   John’s first appointment was to Christ Church in Fairview Heights. It stood where the Blockbuster Video store stands today. The congregation was new. The town of Fairview Heights didn’t exist yet. The church stood surrounded by corn fields.

    After Christ Church, John served as associate pastor at Centralia First, then to Mt. Olive. It was while they were at Mt. Olive that Andy and Paul were adopted into the family.

     Later, at Mt. Carmel, John became part of a charismatic movement led by the local Presbyterian pastor. They met at the Methodist Church. John estimates there about 50 people participating. The group was religiously diverse. The local Catholic priest was one of the leaders. It was during this time John experienced the Baptism of the Spirit. Looking back, he thought it was odd to receive the spirit well into his ministry, but then, so did John Wesley, so he was in good company. He said some in the movement spoke in tongues. “That never happened to me,” he said.

     At Sparta, both Andy and Paul graduated from high school. It was at Sparta that he decided to preach without notes. He did that for a year. No one seemed to notice, so he went back to using notes. It was also there that John had his first heart attack. He was 48.

     John came to First UMC in Marion just after the town had been devastated by a tornado. John told me of a previous pastor who had retired in the community. He and his wife lived in a retirement facility which was badly damaged by the storm. In the parking lot was a pile of rubble from which came a woman’s voice calling, “Lord, help me! Rescue me, Lord!” It was the retired pastor’s wife. Her grand nephew Carl Hearn came on the scene, and called to her. “I’m here, auntie. I’ll get you out of there.”   She replied, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

   John came to Lebanon on July 1, 1986. The parsonage wasn’t ready for them to occupy, so Bob Treat, then the District Superintendent, took them in. In September 1986, John became acquainted with a young man who was working the check-out at Prescription Plus which was at that time located where Dr. Cioni’s office is now. He was a student at McKendree. His name - Sylvester Weatherall. Sylvester told John he was preparing for ministry. “I want to join your church,” he told John. John welcomed him and made a place for him as his student assistant. Sylvester recalls his first Sunday at this church. He came wearing all his gold, his zoot suit, as he called it, and his big Afro hair style. Sylvester considers John his mentor who ran interference for him in those early months, and guided and inspired him through his years at McKendree and on to Eden Seminary.

   John was scheduled for his second heart bypass in January 1987. Christine Brewer was choir director at that time. At one rehearsal, shortly before his surgery, she was about getting the choir to breathe properly. “Open up your rib cage,” she told them. John started to laugh, and everyone else, catching on, joined in.

   The family had been able to buy a summer home at Bay View Michigan in 1967. It is called Heart’s Ease. The name had been conferred by Francis Willard, founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, who had been a guest there in earlier times.   Over the years John and Connie have opened their hearts and their Bay View home to countless friends. Many of us here have experienced John and Connie’s gracious hospitality at that wonderful place.

   John has enriched the lives of countless people over the years. He has loved many, including many of us here, into deeper relationship with God and the Church of Jesus Christ. He was my pastor when I took my first step into the ministry of the church as a Diaconal Minister. He encouraged me on that journey. He has been a true friend. His integrity is impeccable. His devotion to God’s service has never wavered. And he has done it all with deep humility and a wry sense of humor that we all treasure. If you’ve every heard him sing, “Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble,” you’ll recognize the truth of what I say. Thank you, John. Thank you.

Photos courtesy McKendree University, Lebanon IL

Posted December 19, 2011