Dr. Frank Barker - The Green Chairs

As you know, Dr. Frank Barker passed away this past week. There are so many things that could be said about Dr. Barker that it’s difficult to even know where to start. Three traits that stand out to me were his humility, love for evangelism and commitment to prayer.

I’ve heard the story of the “Green Chairs” a few times and to me, it epitomizes his life and ministry. Many years ago when Briarwood met in a storefront in Cahaba Heights near where the Barkers lived, Frank would go all over the local neighborhoods meeting and talking with people about Christ. He lead many to the Lord that way and this was likely the single most effective way that he grew Briarwood Church.

One day Frank met a man named Hilton Piper who came to him with some problems that he was having. Hilton wasn’t a Christian and had only come to church because his wife dragged him there. Frank told him that he needed to start praying about his problems and the man just couldn’t accept that as an acceptable solution. He didn’t believe in God and certainly not in the power of prayer.

Frank invited Hilton to come to their Wednesday night prayer group. He reluctantly came but made it clear to the group that he didn’t believe that God answered prayers but that he needed help from somewhere. The other men asked what they could do to help him and he said that he needed help believing before he could turn to prayer as a solution to his problems. He needed to see how God answers prayer.

He asked the men what they had been praying about and they had been focusing on growing church attendance. It was Summer so attendance had been down due to families traveling and such. Hilton suggested that maybe they could pray that God would fill the church, specifically, this coming Sunday. The men were reluctant to go along since it was Summer and they had not been close to being full since Easter. But they decided to go along with this approach and trust God with the results. They needed to define what “full” meant so they agreed that it would be when they had to bring out the green wooden chairs that had only been used for the Easter Sunday crowd.

Sunday came and Dr. Barker walked up to the pulpit for the opening prayer. There was a good crowd there but not quite an Easter Sunday attendance. However, he did notice as he looked out of the storefront that there were still cars streaming in. He decided to have an extra long opening prayer to give everyone time to arrive. As he finished, the green chairs were being brought out to accommodate the late arrivals.

Hilton Piper gave his life to Christ that day and went on to become a fixture in that Wednesday evening prayer group and Briarwood Church. This simple but powerful story is but one of hundreds where God worked through the life of Frank Barker to accomplish Kingdom work.

Dr. Barker was certainly a talented man but, more than anything, he was willing and available. At the graveside service, we were all touched and inspired when his daughter said that he wanted to be buried in his camel hair blazer with his Briarwood name tag affixed to the lapel. This was his work uniform where he faithfully reported for duty every day. It was perfectly fitting for a man that never stopped living out God’s calling in his life.

Thank you Dr. Barker for creating Briarwood Presbyterian Church, Briarwood Christian School and for showing us what a life of Christian service looks like. Our family has been profoundly impacted in more ways than we can count.

Stay hungry,

Big E

Matt. 5:6