Pastor Bill Schroeder entered the joy of the Lord August 14 at the age of 89. Brenda and I had the pleasure of attending a memorial event for him last Friday in suburban Chicago.
William F. Schroeder, it seems odd that a kid would know his pastor’s full name. I do not recall when I first met Pastor Schroeder. I was probably four-years-old. My parents and my younger sister started attending Calvary Baptist Church in Oak Forest, Illinois. My best guess is my family migrated to Oak Forest as my recently married parents tried to establish a new direction for their family. The influence of Pastor Schroeder set my family on a trajectory that continues for generations.
If preachers are given to envy, Bill Schroeder’s legacy might be the envy of many. From his lifelong marriage to Kit came children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who are faithful to Jesus Christ. Beyond the doors of their modest home, the number of faithful women and men across the world led to Christ by Bill Schroeder or trained in the Scriptures by Bill Schroeder are legion. Without exaggeration, there are few regions in the world where someone who received the Word of God from Bill Schroeder has not lived or served Jesus Christ. The extent of his impact is truly remarkable.
He loved Chicago. As a graduate of one of Chicago’s Southside high schools, he was committed to the White Sox and the Bears. As a child, I remember hearing sermons peppered with illustrations from his own football playing days at Harper High School. On Chicago’s Southside Billy Schroeder came to faith at the influence of his fourth grade Sunday School teacher. From there God molded him into the faithful pastor I knew and loved.
Soon after graduation from Bob Jones University, a small group of believers asked Bill Schroeder to become their pastor in suburban Oak Forest. The small white building that served as their meeting place would not hold their numbers for long. Pastor Schroeder was an aggressive and fruitful evangelist. His pulpit preached the gospel, and his routine method of ministry in the community was purposeful “soul winning.” More than a handful came to Christ because of the door to door evangelism of Bill Schroeder.
At his funeral, his daughter Dawn remarked how he never stopped telling people about Jesus. As his memory and strength failed in the last years and months of his life, he remembered to talk about Jesus with medical personnel and caregivers. His standard line to any and all was, “If you died today, do you know for sure you’re going to heaven?”
That phrase was both taught and caught in my home church, so much so that it became my mom’s standard question to people. My mom was soulwinner unlike any I have ever known. She could turn a conversation to the gospel with minimal effort and routinely asked strangers and new acquaintances the question she learned from our pastor, “If you died today, do you know for sure you’re going to heaven?” Like her pastor on his deathbed, my mom redeemed the time made available to her in her final days. As hospital staff from custodial to surgeons entered her room, I’d her say to them, “I want you to go to heaven” followed by her standard question that led to a gospel conversation.
I came to faith in Jesus Christ as a four-year-old boy at the knee of my mother. I am confident my salvation came at the tutelage of her pastor.
The church grew rapidly and steadily under his leadership. New buildings and additional staff were necessary to serve the church family and surrounding community. Some of those ministry efforts were cutting edge. Under his leadership, a K-12 Christian school opened in the fall of 1973 where my sister and I were second and third grade students. He was a visionary saw the potential to reach the masses of Chicagoland through television broadcasting. Our church produced The Chicago Gospel Hour every Sunday night for rebroadcast, with the potential to reach millions over the airwaves of channel 38. A vibrant Sunday School, a bus ministry that brought hundreds of children and many parents to the church building, “Shepherd’s” a ministry to developmentally challenged women and men, boys and girls, and on and on the list goes.
The ministry thrived through the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The 90s brought significant change.
By the summer of 1988, Brenda and I were living in Alton, Illinois, where we served in a local church made possible in no small part by the connection of Pastor Schroeder. My mom and dad continued on the staff at my home church. In conversations with my parents, they conveyed something was wrong in the church. Where unity once flourished, disunity had taken residence. Weekly Sunday morning attendance that was well over 1500 had plummeted. Staff and ministry cuts were necessary. Morale was horribly low. I don’t know what all happened. I do know Pastor Schroeder did everything humanely possible to right the ship and get her back on course. Try as he might, he could not. He would resign his position and leave the people he loved with all his heart.
He did not leave ministry. Instead of trying to resurrect his brand in a nearby community, this one-time megachurch pastor migrated to Northeast Wisconsin where he served a rural church family with the same enthusiasm and faithfulness that he served when in a city of many millions. Humility on display in a grace-filled man is beautiful to see.
Pastor Schroeder was a capable but not extraordinary pulpiteer. Many on his staff and many of his preacher boys surpassed him in the handling of God’s Word, but none have surpassed him in influence. All who taught by him and who served with him recall with appreciation lessons learned from him in the pulpit. One stands out to me.
Pastor Schroeder was preaching in our Christian school chapel. I think I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I did not know then, but he was teaching us worldview. The 1970s were a time when truth and absolutes were under attack and mostly abandoned, and he determined to teach us the nature of absolute truth. Among the absolutes he taught, I recall with clarity this: “It’s never right to betray a friend.” As I have moved into the second half of my life, I’ve witnessed again and again the veracity of that statement, both as a recipient and as a friend.
I owe much to this servant of Jesus. Brenda and I are high school sweethearts, a love birthed at the Christian school he began. Most of my mentors were trained by Bill Schroeder. Dick Baker, Mike Harding, Tony Phelps, and Steve Schroeder learned from him and continue to teach me in the present. My lifelong friendship began in my church’s Sunday School where Mark and I first met. I love the local church because I watched my pastor love the church in times of plenty and in times of need.
My pastor is now with the Jesus whom he loved and preached. He is gone, but the work of Christ continues in the fruit from his tree. And I suspect somewhere in some children’s Sunday School class is another young boy or young girl that our Lord intends to use for his glory and for the good of people. May God bless our children’s teachers who faithfully serve our Lord without knowledge of what God will do with those weekly lessons.
I loved my pastor and have wanted to be like him since my earliest days. May God grant me and all who received from Bill Schroeder the necessary grace to be faithful until the end as was he.
Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision