Reflections on the Life and Ministry of My Father
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of my father’s passing. I shared with the upper school students in morning assembly yesterday that it saddens me that so few of them knew him. In fact, it is so difficult for me to get my mind around the fact that most Chapel Field families and even some faculty, did not know “Coach,” as we all fondly called him. He was a larger-than-life person whose imprint and influence were on every nook and cranny of the school. He and my mother poured their entire lives into the formation and growth of Chapel Field.
If you have listened to my eulogy from his funeral, which you can listen to here if you are interested, you have heard the stories like the one of his taking the furnace out of our house and putting it in the school that first year in order to get the certificate of occupancy in time for the opening. I remember my childhood, prior to the formation of the school, flying with my dad on the weekends as he had his commercial pilot’s license. I remember going to St. Maarten when I was 10 on, what was an amazing family vacation, and my dad renting a plane down there and taking us flying around the Caribbean. I also remember that once the school started, the flying stopped, and St. Maarten was a thing of the past. Vacations became much more modest and weekend activities were more commonly filled with mowing, painting, and working on the campus.
My parents dedicated all of their resources to the formation of the school including 100 acres of their 150-acre farm. Of the remaining 50 acres, they lived on fifteen and eventually sold the remaining 35 acres in order to keep the school afloat during a rough patch in the late 90’s. That is not at all to say that life became more bleak with the formation of the school. As a family, we were all in on the importance of the calling and my father had a way of making us feel as if we were co-laborers in the work of the ministry. Chapel Field became our life and as kids we watched our parents model what service in the kingdom of God looked like.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, our school-wide theme this year is that of Piety, the virtue of reverence and honor for those things that are appropriately worthy of it. The passage that we used in the upper school to launch the theme this year was from 1 Corinthians where Paul asks, “what do you have that you have not received.” It is a question that prompts deep introspection of our lives, and which will inevitably leave us concluding that there is, in fact, nothing that we have which we have not received. It is good for us as a school community to reflect on the bountiful blessings that we have from the Lord through the sacrificial work of Mom and Coach. They had a passion for kids to know and serve the Lord Jesus Christ and they dedicated their lives to seeing that it happened. It started with kids in the inner city of New York and eventually settled into the Pre-K through 12 school that we have now.
I personally thank God that my siblings and I had the privilege to be raised by a mother and father who loved and served the Lord Jesus Christ. They were a tremendous model to me and my children, but also to the hundreds of kids who passed through the halls of Chapel Field. Coach would often say to the school kids and to us as his own children, “Serve God with your life.” He would cite the words of the Poet C.T. Studd, “only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” Or the words of Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” In the end, he simply wanted to train young men and women to become servants of the Lord. My Father would often recite Mark 8:35 and when the school was established, he had it painted on a sign which was the last thing you saw as you left campus. “If anyone seeks to save his life he will lose it, but if anyone loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s sake, he will save it.” While my dad was an imperfect man, I truly believe he lived out the life Jesus calls his disciples to in that verse. As we reflect back on his life and rejoice in the fruit of his faithfulness, may we also reexamine our lives. May we recommit to being faithful servants of the Lord in the fields he has called us to.
Bill Spanjer serves as Head of Schools and Chairman of the Biblical Studies Department at Chapel Field.
