Personal and Private Thoughts on Wade Taylor the Man and His Ministry
On February 28, 2012
Wade Taylor Passed Away
We will sorely miss our brother in the Lord. If there was any man that I have ever met that embodied what it means to be a pastor it was Wade. Tirelessly every day he answered phone calls of former students of his, people that he had met during the almost 40 years that he was president of Pinecrest Bible Training Center. Calls from people he met as he traveled up and down the east coast to churches, retreat centers, and conventions, as well as the the preachers and teachers that called him for prayer, advice, counseling, to ask what God was saying, to relate to him the dealings and working of God in their lives and to ask where they might go from there.
I first came to really know Wade during the last two years I was at Pinecrest (During the 1980 and 1981 school years) At a time I was very intensely seeking God generally from 9 PM to the wee hours in the morning. As was his habit at 1 AM or so he used to walk the New Yorker, Jersey Manor, Penn House and the Fellowship Hall turning out lights in l the hallways, the cafeteria, the chapel, the library, fellowship hall and the classrooms. At first it was terribly embarrassing to be found on the floor praying in the first year classroom. So when Wade would come in the classroom to turn out the lights and check that the thermostate, I would get quiet and pretend I was not there. After a while he would stop and say a few words to me. Months later after I was done seeking God I started going over to Wade's office (Then located on the first floor in the New Yorker) usually this was between 2:00 and 3:00 AM.
Wade was alway warm and welcoming when I would drop by. We would spend some time talking about scripture, about his visitations from the Lord, about articles he was currently working on for The Banner, and about a thick notebook of articles that I had hand copied from the Elim Pentecostal Herald between the 1920's to the 1970's. Depending on the night he might have laid hands and prayed for me or visa-versa I would pray for him seeking to lift some of the heavy weights and burdens that so troubled him so in those days.
It was there one night Wade said he was convinced that I would have a ministry with the written word. He told me this on at least one other occassion. He beleived this so much that he made me an editor on the sly for The Banner having me rewrite a number of old articles from Ivan Q Spencer, Wade greatly desired these particlar articles and hoped that they would bless and inspire while going under the radar of Carlton Spencer the President of Elim Bible Institute at the time (Who for over decades was in a state of war with Wade and Pinecrest. At issue was when Wade left teaching at Elim in the Summer of 1967 and a number of Elim students (8-12) followed him over to Pinecrest of their own volition. Carlton saw that as Wade stealing his students. And then perhaps most odious of all to Carlton that his father IQ Spencer had been spirited away from Elim one night in the fall of 1969, not only coming to the dedication of Pinecrest Bible Training Center but that IQ had layed hands on Wade Tay;pr and giving to Wade the mantle he had received from the Lord some fifty years earlier) A few years later Wade happily told me that the vendetta that Carlton Spencer had against him had finally ended that when they met, they laughed, and cried, and prayed together before departing from each other.
Back to Wade in his office at Pinecrest at two and three in the morning; Wade was continually personally answering each letter he received, and for each donation he received. (At the time this garnered great respect from me to see such devotion and dedication to those who God had placed in his hands to shepherd and teach) I also saw night after night how he used to struggle through the articles for each upcoming issue of The Banner which he had long felt was the greatest tool he had for outreach from Pinecrest.
Sometimes I would just sit and watch him for a half hour to an hour. Many times he would take personal phone calls between 2-3 AM which I found quite amazing, as he did have an answering machine, which he did not like to use, unless he was away. .
The calls I witnessed were from former students, and preachers who may or may not have been affiliated with the school, at each call he would set aside what he was working on and give the caller his full attention as if they were the only person on the earth. After he would answer he would direct me to either stay or go depending on who it was and what issues needed to be discussed. After he finished the phone call he would come and fetch me in the lobby and say "Come on in" Sometimes he would relate to me the issue he had spoken of without name and ask that I pray for them, and other calls quite understandably he would not mention a word as he absolutely did not at all want rumors spread about these people's serious bouts with sin, their falling away from the Lord, or the malicious attacks and anguish some suffered at the hand of others usually in the minsitry..
Wade was not the first preacher that allowed me to sit in their office and observe them at work preparing their messages, discussing their counseling and trouble with rebels in the church, or teaching me about things surrounding a ministry to prevent it as much as possible to stay above reproach, from church members, church elders, and from unsaved relatives of church members. I still cherish these times I spent in these offices and the things there that I was allowed to see and hear.
Concerning Wade's teaching I beleive he would most want to be remembered for teaching on Developing a Deep Abiding Personal Relationship With Jesus Christ and the Father. On teaching about The Manifest Presence of God, on Teaching about the different aspects of Prayer; Waiting Upon the Lord, and Intercession. On speaking about his days as a student in Green Lane Bible Institute under Walter H.Beuttler. On the life transforming experiences he had witnessed during the greatest revival in 1958 and manifestations of God that he had witnessed there. His testimony of how in 1959 God turned him around when he was on the way to Philidelphia to pioneer a Chruch, and God instead had Wade go to a small out of the way Italian Assemblies of God Bible School in Upstate New York which was called Pinecrest. Of Wade's unquestioning obedience to the voice of the Lord. Of how in October of 1959 while Wade was in his appartment alone in Penn House he caught up before the throne of God. Of which Wade testified how at the time he was scared out of his mind so that he could only remembered a few bits and pieces of it that event. And of how God came again in December of 1959 while Wade was working on top of a ladder changing lightbulbs in the New Yorker, during which he testified that he held on for dear life as every cell in his body became a voice box and God began to speak to Wade of how He wanted a bible school. a place where He personally could walk, touch and impart to the students as He pleased, a school where academics would not be the lead factor, but it would instead it would be a place where the students would learn to know Him, His holiness, and His Voice so as to prepare them for end time minsitry.
This was the Vision of the Lord for Pinecrest Bible Training Center
In this visitation the Lord spoke to Wade that He was going to give him the Italian Assemblies of God Bible School lock stock and barrel. Wade testified that at the time he beleived that this was imminant that at any moment God was going to give the elders of the bible school the revelation that all of it was to be Wade's. But that did not happen. Though we only know bits and peices of this time we do know that Wade was so poor at that time that they were forced to go to the school dump, and pick through the food thrown out by the bible school, and that he and his family were eating salvaged peices of squash for breakfast lunch and dinner. After that the school finally made Wade Taylor leave the campus and told him not to come back. We are relatively sure that by that point everything that Wade had thought and beleived about the school had finally died.
Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone
As it was Wade next pastored in Endwell for a number of years, wondering no doubt where it all went wrong, until in the summer of 1967 he went to a convention at Elim Bible Institute where one of the respected elders prophesied that Wade was to teach there. The elders at the time were shocked and Wade said he was shocked as well, they called him aside into an office and they asked him what kind of experience did he have. To which Wade shrugged, as he answered their questions that he had not been a teacher, he had not been a missionary, he had not pioneered a church, and that he did not have a lot of the other things that they were looking for. Wade said that the elders looked at him, and he looked at the elders not knowing what else to say, because he knew he was completely unqualified for the position according to their standards. They abriptly ended the meeting and sent Wade off while they confered among themseves about this enigma that stood before them. But in the end God had clearly spoken so they decided to give Wade a chance.
It was here that Wade first came into contact with the founder of Elim IQ Spencer who by that time had been sent out to pasture and was not allowed anymore in his own school to have contact with students, pray for them, or bring them into all that Holy Ghost revival stuff. IQ Spencer was designated as the school farmer, planting and growing crops, and overseeing the school's animals. And yet there were a group of students that would sneak out in the dead of night to the barn and meet IQ there and God would mightily manifest himself to these hungry and thirsty students.
To the chagrin of the elders of Elim God would come into Wade's classroom and manifest himself at times knocking out the entire classroom. One former student told of a powerful experience when Wade went and served Holy Communion in the Classroom. He testified how he saw Christ in Wade that day and was astonished.
So the bells would then ring Wade would pick up his books and the next teacher that was to have class, would be faced with a classroom of knocked out or drunk in the spirit students all over their desks and the floor leaving no room for the next batch of students to come in. We know that during this time Wade was repeatedly called into the Academic Dean's and School President's Office to explain all the disruption to Elim he (Wade) was causing, and told in no uncertain terms to cut out whatever he was doing and just give the lesson.
One story related to us was that it came to the point that Wade's class was being supervised to prevent anymore of these things from happening, So in the story Wade came in and opened his bible and read the first part of a verse of scripture, the power of God came into the classroom like a thunderbolt and in an instance all the students were laid out crying out to God.
During these days Wade Taylor was at the pinnacle of his ministry as he was walking closely with the Lord. And as it is recorded in scripture "God blessed him with signs following as God confirmed His word" and Wade's ministry and calling.
At this time someone came to Wade and told him Pinecrest had shut down and that there was someone interested in letting him have the school. That man turned out to be Pat Robertson owner of CBN. There were some discusions of how this would be done as Wade was broke, and had no base church or congregation to support such a purchase. Iin the end the terms were that at the end of every year Wade was to send Pat a check for 1000 dollars for the school and property and that on January 1st Pat would return the check uncashed. This arrangement lasted a number of years until the entire school and property was turned over to Wade.
Moving forward here to Wade's final years of his life he lived in a small appartment in Washington D.C. By this time Pinecrest was dead and gone, The Banner was also dead and gone, Yet despite these things Wade Taylor was yet the embodiment of what it was to be a true pastor and shepherd. In his eighties now, he still answered every letter he received himself. He wrote to everyone who sent him a gift or offering. and he still took personal phone calls all day and late into the night many times to two and three AM (I know this for a fact as we spoke many many times during that time period. I live in Alaska and he was DC with four hours of time zones between us, during which others would call me regularly also)
Wade became the closest friend I had, and the only tie back to Pinecrest and all those who I had met and known from that time. Our final friendship began when I had an earth shattering personal and private visitation from the Lord beginning in November of 2002 and then well on into 2003 at that time Wade spoke with me for hours at a time (We are talking six to eight hours in a day) to hear what God was doing and speaking. He greeatly helped me so to speak to my feet during this time, confirming the word of the Lord and strenghtening me so that I would communicate those things to others. It was through Wade that this website ever came into being a few years later. Without him it might not have ever come to pass. From 2007-2010 we built and administered his website which drew us together even closer as we communicated almost daily on articles and page design. We spoke on personal matters, we spoke on revelations concerning church history and the protestant movement, we spoke on things concerning the founding of Pinecrest and the ultimate direction it went. Specifically addressing where things went wrong at Pinecrest along with the hows and whys. He spoke of the 1974 revival and why he shut it down.
Wade did have his foibles one of them was his beleif that by his taking holy communion daily (By himself) that he was partaking of eternal life so that he was going to live on right to the end when Christ returned. Wade personally stated this belief to me on a number of occasions, a notion which we could not find in scripture as stated, to which we openly told him we disagreed with when brought up.
Despite his steadfast belief in Eternal Life Now through taking daily Holy Communion, in 2008 Wade was faced with his mortality and that really shook him up. He desperately called me one night to tell me that he had gone to the bathroom and the toilet was filled with blood. (An experience I was familiar with myself) He was rushed to the hospital examined, he had a number of tests and after a day or so returned home. The doctor ordered a diet change and for Wade to slow down and keep as stress free as possible. After this Wade never mentioned he was going to live on because he had essentially found the fountain of youth in taking communion daily.
As to the doctors orders Wade was like a moth to the stress flame and the overwork flame as in his heart of hearts he knew that things in his life and ministry were wrapping up and wanted to get as much out as as possible he could before that time came. I understand well his feelings here as I have been near death a few times in the last few.
We have no promise of tomorrow, and need to work while it is day, despite the limitations in our lives that come and go like the wind.
Some are grateful for Wade burning the candle at both ends as in his last years he penned three new books, and a myriad of new articles for people to read. While these things were important. It is one's personal relationship with Jesus Christ, one's personal prayer life, and one's time spent waiting upon the Lord that is most prescious, and must be guarded over with great jealousy. For the eight most fearful words in the New Testament are: DEPART FROM ME, FOR I NEVER KNEW YOU. Wade did know the Lord and more importantly the Lord knew Wade.
There is one other matter that Wade upon his passing wanted me to relate to you.
About two years before Wade passed away he spoke to me of a private personal dealing of God. Over a period of two weeks or perhaps a little longer God made it know to Wade that he was not to impart His mantle to another. (As IQ Spencer had done with Wade some decades earlier) But God required Wade to return to God what he had received back in 1959. Wade told me this on two seperate ocassions, and wanted me to keep this secret as long as he lived. I do not know who else he may have told this to. But at the time he was very afraid that some people were going to appear at his door and demand that he give them his blessing and mantle for their ministry. Wade told me that he could not with clear conscience do so. I had the distinct impression that things had been said to him on the phone to get him so worked up. Wade then spoke of the night of his surrendering his mantle. The first time he spoke of it he said it had occurred two nights previous. He thene described his mantle as being tattered, soiled and stained. Wade had seen by the spirit for the first time the sorry state of what God had once entrusted him with. It had once been perfect and pure in 1959, but Wade told me that night that he had done things over the years that had marred, and ripped, tore and tattered that which was most precious that he had been entrusted with. Wade told me that the night that he privately in his DC appartment returned his mantle to the Lord he was greatly saddened and repented over many things, and once it lifted Wade said he felt greatly relieved as the pressure he had long felt lifted. He said he felt greatly lightened and more importantly to him he said he felt peace wash over him. After that when Wade came to grips with the meaning of his loss of his mantle he struggled to find meaning in his new emptier life.
One day he was greatly excited when a woman in england who worked in some government office was thumbing through index cards with names and numbers and found one concerning a British citizen, the card read Wade Taylor 1959. He talked about this for days as it graatly encouraged him that though he no longer had his mantle God still regarded him and their meeting in 1959.
Some people have had a high and holy view of Wade believing him an Apostle, a Prophet, or something along that order. More than one occasion in the last ten years I personally witnessed Wade standing against a preacher and or a ministry that were teaching these sort of things about Wade, so as to turn around and use Wade Taylor's name, his testimony and his reputation to lift up and exalt themselves to a place they neither were nor deserved.
And this is the reason that Wade wanted this to be known after his death. So that writers would not make him out to be something he was not, that men and ministries would not create a cult around him, when he would no longer be able to speak out and prevent such a thing from happening, and that corrupt and self-seeking men and ministries would not be able to use his name and claim they had received Wade's personal blessing or his mantle for their own gain and power.
Wade had publicly acknowledged before all, though few could hear that he had gone from being Mary to being Martha
Wade did not go into details at that time on the events and things that had brought him and his mantle to this state, but on other occasions he had told me several important things about the school's founding that where he had trusted in the arm of the flesh instead of the Lord.
I recall Wade testifying every new school year that one day some years earlier that a terrible event took place that might have shut down the school, (A little girl, the daughter of some students had wandered off while she was babysat, and was found drowned in the sediment pool that was next to the pump house, which was then filled in. The case was one of negligence on the part of the school as it had been encased in a building which unmaintained caved in and after the building was cleared away no fence or baracade was erected around the pool. The husband was going to sue and bring Pinecrest down, in the situation there was nothing that Wade could say or do to molify the husband, but then suddenly the husband changed his mind) but that God had miraculously intervened. After which God told him that all the praying Wade had done on his stool had now been used up.
This acknowledgement of Wade [Sidehandedly saying he had ceased using his stool] passed over many of the students heads year after year. But after I was at Pinecrest for a while one day I awoke to understood for the first time the full import of Wade was saying. That some time after Wade had come to Pinecrest he ceased praying and waiting upon the Lord, the thing that had built him and made him. That some time after Wade obtained Pinecrest he no longer attentively waited upon the Lord. Not because of any perniciousness on his part, but because he had just plain become too buzy in the day to day nuts and bolts of Pinecrest and his ministry. Part of which was what I complimented him so for as being the consumate Pastor. But not to pushing asside of one's prayer life and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That is a bad thing, a really bad thing.
In 2003 when Wade and I reunited, being mindful of this stool problem we immediately set to work as God prompted to get Wade back on his stool, He also had another person in DC that was working closely with him to this same end. The other person strongly beleive that Wade could be restored to his pinnacle and regain all that he had lost in his first visitation in late 1959. We did not at the time feel in the spirit that this would occur but kept silent on this issue. Which sadly was borne out as it did not come to pass. However on the positive side of things over that ten year period there was a point that Wade did get back onto his stool and began once more in earnest to pray and wait upon the Lord as he did as at the first.
Wade truly had a big heart if you were allow to see it. Wade truly walked humbly before the Lord and desired that his name of minsitry would not be lifted up and exalted. He rejected all those who sought to name him as an apostle, or a prophet. And refrained from leaving anything that could later be used to lift up and exalt other people's ministries by making use of his name.
Wade was my closest friend, in the beginning he insisted much to my surprise I call him Wade, later he insisted that he was not my pastor or teacher but that we were brothers on equal footing. So that while I accepted calling him Wade instead of Brother Taylor, I never could wrap my head around the idea of our being equals. While I have received some substance from the Lord in recent years, I still feel weak and empty and badly in need for more of the Lord and His impartation towards what He has for my life and walk.
Many times Wade asked me for advice. cousel, examination of his articles, as well as personal prayer. At times I felt like he was asking the wrong person for these things but I bore with what he wanted at those times. I can say that the Lord seemed to work with us together, but concerning myself I have always strongly felt that there are others that are far more qualified than me to preach teach write or minister to other peoples s needs, and particularly concerning Wade's needs those last years.
In all we are happy to say that we stood fast with Wade through his darkest hours, vigorously defending his name and ministry, and that we were able at that time to pray and minister to him along with a small band of others that were able to see beyond the man's faults and know that he was most beloved to the Lord.
We will sorely miss Wade Taylor, but hope to see him again one day.
Additions: June 10, 2012
After Wade's funeral in early March, there were actually two held. One that was private for family and those that knew Wade best, and a second funeral for former Pinecrest students and those who Wade had touched during his ministry. I was emailed by a few people that attended these.
Within a matter of weeks Wade's wife Mae Taylor passed away also. I understand that she had been more or less bedridden for her last year of life. So we consider it a blessing that she was released from her pain and suffering to enter into peace and rest.
Wade's remaining family decided that he and his wife were to be buried in a small cemetary in Salisbury New York. where a number of former Pinecrest students and former Pinecrest staff members were buried. I was really touched by their decision to bury him and his wife among friends and peers. I was really struck with the thought a few nights ago that Wade's and Mae's final resting place was in a place where they could symbolically watch over his life's work Pinecrest.
There is one verse of scripture that became central to Wade's exile from the bible school that God promised him and gave him. It was a bible verse that came up time and again in our converstations during that painful period of time.
John 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Wade and Mae have now physically become that corn of wheat concerning the vision of a school of the Spirit to prepare a people for the end time. They died in hope, and now rest in hope, waiting to see God bring forth that which Wade could not do, that is to bring forth the school of promise, a school of the Spirit not built with hands of the flesh but a school of the Spirit that is made without hands.