George Weaver, 1927-2002

George Weaver served two terms as bishop, 1969-1977. He was known as a strong, even imposing bishop--a man who got things done, a leader. He was gifted in preaching, administration, and writing (for many years he wrote a delightful column called "Musings" in the denominational magazine). Those privileged to know him at the personal level saw a man of warmth, compassion, and wisdom.

He was a mentor and confidant of his own pastors. David Robertson, pastor of White Oak Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, the church the Weavers attended since 1992, told of meeting with Dr. Weaver on a weekly basis for nine years. Dan Young, now pastor of Faith UB in Findlay, Ohio, tells of similar meetings when he was Dr. Weaver's pastor in Findlay.

Over the years, George Weaver suffered a series of heart attacks and endured several cardiac operations, but he always bounced back. But on February 15, 2002, he finally succumbed to the latest heart attack.

Bishop Weaver served just before my time; I never really knew him, though we crossed paths often. But as I listened to people talk about Dr. Weaver at the funeral, and as I read his self-written account of his life in United Brethren Bishops from 1889-1997, I was saddened that I hadn't become better acquainted with this man. Besides, we share something very, very uncommon: we both spent part of our childhood in the small San Joaquin Valley town of Pixley, Calif.

G eorge Weaver was born in 1927 in McCloud, Calif. He was only a couple years old when his mother died. Just after George's fifth birthday, his father left him and younger brother Rolland with Morris and Maud Weaver. "George and Rolland, this is your new daddy and mother," he told them. "I'm giving you to these people because they want you and will take good care of you." Then he said to George, "Someday you will understand. Take good care of Rolland." And that's the last George Weaver saw of his biological father.

The Weavers owned a ranch outside of Pixley. But a few weeks after George and Rolland arrived, the place burned down. The home, sheds, equipment--everything was lost. Within a month, the family had been forced into a migrant worker existence, harvesting fruit, vegetables, and cotton in California and Oregon. George worked the fields with his parents.

After three years of this, Morris began tending an orange grove in Porterville. The family lived in two tents with wood floors, electric lights, and water carried from an irrigation canal. George wrote, "For the first time in my life, there was some permanency" (United Brethren Bishops from 1889--1997, Vol. 2).

In 1939, the family moved back to Pixley. "It was the first time in seven years that we did not live in a tent," George says. Morris and Maud officially adopted George and Rolland in 1941. The next year, four more children were brought into the family.

"Our home was far from being happy and secure," George wrote. His mother was dominating and verbally abusive. His father, beginning in 1940, worked 150 miles to the north in Stockton and came home only once every six weeks. But, "I loved my adoptive parents and developed a strong feeling of obligation to them. They had provided a home for the two of us at a time when I was convinced that our birth parents did not want us. Only the intervention of God could have changed the person I was becoming and affirmed the one He would make of me."

W hen he was in seventh grade, George began attending Sunday school at the Pixley United Brethren church, and Pastor Jack Fix greatly influenced him. During revival services in 1943, he went forward to pray along with the other teens. "For the first time, I considered my relationship to God. There were few sins to confess. I had not been immoral, did not smoke, drink, dance, play cards, cuss, or go to the movies--such behaviors that labeled one a sinner. Uncertain about what I was being saved from, I did relate to the invitation to 'let Jesus come into my heart,' and decided from that moment that I would love God with all my heart and life. That was my silent prayer." Later that night, the terribly shy boy surprised himself by telling the other youth, "If God wants me to preach, I will."

George enrolled in Pacific Bible College, where he obtained some important basic Bible knowledge and grew spiritually. Then, just before his 18th birthday, he enrolled in the Navy, aiming to become a pilot. However, World War II ended as he was finishing boot camp, and he was discharged in 1946 after 18 months of duty. Upon returning to the States, he learned that the Pixley church had granted him a local conference minister's license and had recommended him to California Conference for an annual conference license. He taught sixth grade in Pixley for a year, and then headed off to Huntington College in time for the 1947 fall semester.

By Christmas of 1947, halfway through his freshman year, George Weaver was engaged--to Bette Mae Young from Chambersburg, Pa. They wed the next summer. They honeymooned in California and spent the summer there, then moved into a 19-foot trailer parked at the edge of the ravine behind the old Huntington College gym.

George graduated in 1950, having already served a student pastorate in Decatur, Ind. He and Bette Mae then moved on to serve five other UB churches scattered from coast to coast. They experienced "the disappointment of rejection" in Wichita, Kansas. They "enjoyed the acceptance and nurture" of the UB church in Philomath, Oregon. Then clear across the country to State Line, Pa., followed by a return to Huntington as interim pastor of the Grayston Avenue church. And then it was back to Pennsylvania, where the Weavers served ten years at the Otterbein church in Waynesboro.

While in Oregon, George and Bette adopted two California children, Beth and Robert. Daughter Lynn was born in 1958.

Perhaps Dr. Weaver's first love was preaching. He developed a sermon plan a year in advance so he would have "ample time to live with a passage and to bathe it in prayer before presenting it before the congregation as God's word for their lives."

The period at Waynesboro was interrupted by two years (1957-1959) back in Huntington as editor of The United Brethren magazine and of the UB Sunday school curriculum. "I had neither particular training for the position, nor any inward urging to accept," he says. "Furthermore, I did not respond well to being confined to a desk." But the church had asked, and he saw it as God's leading.

I n 1965, George Weaver was nominated for bishop, but lost to Robert Rash on the fourth ballot. Soon after that, he was considered for the Huntington College presidency. "I was honored by the nomination, but the board correctly selected Dr. E. DeWitt Baker." Nevertheless, he was disappointed; his passions had become theological education and local church administration, and the presidency "would have involved me in the denomination's only program for training pastors."

Bishops Clyde Meadows and Robert Rash retired in 1969, and the General Conference decided to increase the number of bishops to three. So three brand new bishops were chosen--George Weaver, Duane Reahm, and Raymond Waldfogel. Once again, the Weaver family moved from Waynesboro to Huntington.

Weaver describes his eight years as bishop as "paradoxical: both satisfying and disappointing, joyful yet sorrowful. The two terms included experiences of both progress and regression, of cooperation and contention." He continues, "Very few understood my tears at the time of my election. The tears were prompted by emotions both positive and negative. I was humbled by the realization that I, who always wrestled with the risk of rejection, had received the highest expression of respect and confidence by my peers. But I dreaded the necessity of disciplining myself to risk relationships with a host of people whom I did not know in circumstances which I perceived as threatening."

He writes frankly about his years as bishop. "I remember giving more time and energy to accomplishing the business of the church than being engaged in its mission. 'Administrator' is the most accurate description of my tenure as bishop. There was a raging inner tension between my vision of the bishopric and what seemed to be the reality of administering the program and business of the church. There were matters that culminated in an endless progression of decisions. I did not like having to make them, and others did not like their outcome....Many viewed me as caring more for the process than for persons--both the mark and the curse of the administrator.... Realization set in that I would be unable to do all that I had envisioned to accomplish....

"Although I may have missed the mark in giving too much attention to administration, I rejoice [that] God gave me great joy and satisfaction in many of the personal relationships which developed during those years. I remember the nights of driving through Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania with the various conference superintendents as we returned from meetings. We talked and shared and prayed together. My anxieties about personal rejection were smothered by their genuine expressions of concern, good will, and Christ's love....How could I not rejoice in such experiences?"

I n August 1977, having completed two terms as bishop, George Weaver became president of Winebrenner Theological Seminary in Findlay, Ohio, a seminary operated by the Church of God of Findlay. After 28 years as a United Brethren minister, he now found himself training ministers for another denomination. "Head over heels in administration again, I believed I was where God wanted me to be."

The seminary, which had almost closed in 1969, prospered and grew under Weaver's leadership. In May of 1987, he informed the seminary board that he would be stepping down, possibly within the next year. But on August 31, he underwent a five-bypass heart surgery and spent 83 days in the hospital, 67 of them in intensive care. He wasn't able to return to the classroom until February. He officially resigned as of July 31, 1988, but continued teaching until 1992.

"The circle was complete--pastor, bishop, teacher, and always, whether I wanted it or not, administrator. God's affirmation of His call and purpose for my life sustained me through 44 years of leadership. My life in Christ was full."