I first met John Weber, the

pastor of Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in

Peachtree City, Ga., at a minister's breakfast at the old

Riggins Barbecue in Tyrone. Riggins had the best country

breakfast I had ever eaten and its passing was intensely

mourned. My first impression of John was that he looked

like Stacey Keach, who played Mike Hammer years ago in

the television show by the same name. John was warm,

friendly, and made me, the new kid on the block, feel

right at home.

Over the next several

months, I learned a good deal about Pastor Weber. John

was one of the few Lutherans I had ever met who was a

church planter. A church planter (one who plants a new

church) has a difficult road ahead of him or her.

Normally, the pioneer pastor is sent to an area to build

a church out of nothing. That's exactly what John did.

Peachtree City was in its infancy when Weber came to the

community to build the city's first Lutheran church. The

church was built the old fashioned way - John went

door-to-door inviting people to be part of a new worship

community. The going was slow, but, eventually, Christ

Our Shepherd would grow to become one of the largest and

most influential congregations in the city.

Weber also gave himself to

community service, serving as a volunteer with the

Peachtree City Fire Department and serving as the city's

emergency services chaplain. John served as the chaplain

for both the fire and police departments and, today,

"John Weber Station," located on Peachtree

Parkway, stands as a visible testimony to the respect he

earned from those who serve those in trouble.

It was in this capacity as

the city's emergency services chaplain that I really came

to love and appreciate John Weber. In April 1984, after

only having been a resident of the community nine months,

disaster struck my family.

Our new music minister and

her husband were visiting with us as our two older sons

played outside to give us a few moments of privacy.

Suddenly, an automobile just outside our home struck down

John, my 9-year-old son.

A scream from outside

shattered the calm spring day, the door slammed open, and

John, covered with blood, ran into the living room and

collapsed in the floor. My oldest son, Jason, 11,

followed right behind him and he was followed by the

distraught woman who had run over John in the parking

area.

The next few moments were a

blur as 911 was called and as my wife, a registered

nurse, fought through the panic to attend to our son.

Almost instantly, the emergency services personnel

arrived and took charge. John Weber was right behind

them.

Within moments, our John

was loaded into the ambulance and Cindy climbed into the

vehicle with him. As the vehicle pulled away, sirens

blaring, the music minister, Paula Muncey, and her

husband Tom, took charge of Jason and our 3-year-old,

James, and ushered them back inside our dwelling, leaving

me standing in the parking lot feeling like the loneliest

man in the world. John Weber put his hand on by shoulder

and told me to get into his car.

Pastor Weber, knowing

perhaps that ministers have no one to minister to them

during such times, took me to the hospital and stayed

with my family during the long hours ahead. He gave no

pat answers, knowing the futility of such words, and let

me weep for my son.

In those hours, when I was

no longer the spiritual leader of a congregation but only

the terrified father of a terribly injured child, John

became strength, a friend, and a pastor. Eventually, my

son would recover from his injuries, but I would never

forget the horror of the moment or the compassion of John

Weber.

Two years later, the church

I served would experience a fire that would destroy our

sanctuary. There, in the awful darkness of that early

Sunday morning, standing in the smoldering rubble of what

had been our church, surrounded by the mist of fire hoses

and the flashing of blue and red lights, John Weber put

his hand on my shoulder once again.

"What are you going to

do, David?" he asked. "I don't know, John, I

really don't know," I replied.

John offered the sanctuary

of the Lutheran church to us and, at 2 a.m., we assembled

a team of people from our church and began to make

telephone calls. At 8:30 a.m., just a few hours later,

our congregation met in the Christ Our Shepherd sanctuary

and began to recover and prepare for the future. For 10

months, we met on Sunday morning at McIntosh High School

and on Sunday evening at Christ Our Shepherd. Both John

and the people of Christ Our Shepherd were wonderful to

us.

John's example would serve

as a model for us and we would, eventually, loan our

sanctuary to several temporarily "homeless"

churches in the years ahead. I would become a police

chaplain and follow in John's footsteps, hoping that I

could help people in the same way he helped my family, my

church family and me.

John continues to

faithfully serve his city and his church and, hopefully,

is many, many years away from retiring.

Sometimes, pastors look

over their lives and wonder if they have made a

difference, if they mattered at all. Men like John Weber

matter a very great deal. They matter to their church, to

their community, and - in the case of John Weber -

they matter to me. I just thought that it was time

someone else knew.

[Father David Epps is

rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church.

He may be contacted online at [email protected] . The congregation meets Sundays at

10 a.m. in the chapel in the Carmichael-Hemperley

building on Ga. Highway 74 in Peachtree City.]