The Influence

Chuck Frost

In my early days of church ministry, while I was still learning how to be leader in the church, if I encountered a situation where I wasn’t quite sure what to do, I would ask myself, “What would David do?” That sums up the immeasurable influence David White had in my life. To this day his impact continues, for one of the reasons I chose to apply and enroll in the Austin Seminary Doctor of Ministry program was to continue to benefit from his wisdom reflected in the Leadership for Wonder track.

I met David while in high school after my girlfriend (now wife!) invited me to attend a youth group meeting at First United Methodist Church in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where David was associate and youth pastor. I was not raised going to church, so I was understandably nervous about the whole thing. My first memory of David is him standing in front of the group with a guitar strapped around his neck leading us in the standard youth group songs of the early 1980s. The first song he led was “I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me …” David indeed had a river of life flowing out of him and I, along with many others, benefited from that wellspring of love and joy.

After Christmas in 1984, I attended a retreat called “Break Thru” with David and the Pascagoula youth group. It was there that I discovered the joy of following Jesus Christ and soon after began to sense God’s calling into full-time ministry. David fully supported and shepherded me during my candidacy for pastoral ministry. And when David left Mississippi for Alaska, he continued to take ownership in my calling by inviting me to be a youth ministry intern with him the summer before I attended seminary in 1990.

I have always known David to be a studious and reflective person with a big heart for young people and a life dedicated to their Christian formation. His gentle and thoughtful mannerisms made me conscious of my own way of interacting with others.

David has also been a good example for me in handling adversity. Rather than letting adversity derail him, he instead seeks new ways to live an abundant and creative life. In fact, after a period of adversity in my own life, one of the first phone calls I made was to him. It is my honor to be able to write this tribute on the occasion of David’s retirement since not only is his life and work a gift to me and my wife, Julie, but to the church of Jesus Christ. Thank you, David!

Chuck Frost is pastor at New Hope and Purley United Methodist Churches in Blanch, North Carolina. He has been in pastoral ministry for over thirty years in both Methodist and Catholic settings. He is currently working on his Doctor of Ministry degree at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.