All I Ever Needed to Know About the Ministry
I Learned From Hayden

        Here are 10 of my favorite things learned from Hayden Stewart during the 50 years I have known him.

1.     How to set up a room for an event.

As President of the Baptist-Disciple Student Fellowship at the University of Washington, I would arrive early for meetings. Hayden and I would set up the room,
arranging the chairs. He had a feeling for group dynamics, before the term had ever
become known. It made a difference to him how many chairs were set up and in what
arrangement, because it made a difference in how people participated. For all the years of my own ministry – now approaching 50 years – I have paid attention to the way a room is arranged for a particular event. I learned that it makes a difference.
2.     How to play ping-pong.
Hayden was a wicked player. He put a terrible spin on the ball so you could hardly get it back on the table. He “offered” to play us left handed, and we still couldn’t beat him. We should have let him play right-handed. He was left-handed. We played many a game together in my late teens. During those games we came to know and appreciate each other in ways not usually possible otherwise.
When I became a Youth Minister, and later a Senior Minister, it was ping-pong that often broke the ice between me and kids in the youth groups. The first piece of equipment I insisted on in the youth room was a ping pong table. I wouldn’t do ministry without it.
3.     To be ecumenical.
“Ecumenical” was a new word to me – and to most people in the 40’s and 50’s – but not to Hayden. Denominations were too small for him. He had us participating in inter-church events. I could never think of our denomination as having exclusive superiority in any way. Through Hayden I met some of the greatest ecumenical leaders in the world, like John R. Mott, E. Stanley Jones, Frank Laubach and Toyohiko Kagawa.
4.     To be different.
When going into a profession the tendency is to look around to “see how it’s done,” and do it that way. That was not Hayden’s style. He did it his special way and encouraged others to do their lives in their own style. I can see that I learned this from him in my writing, and in my thinking (although I can never be as nearly “left-handed” in my thinking as Hayden), and in my career. Like Hayden, my career track has been outside the typical ministerial system. He showed me that being different is quite OK.
5.     To be suspicious of institutionalism.
He recognized the inevitability of institutions but bucked against their ism’s. They get in the way of getting things done. They often run over people. They tend to exist for sake of their own survival. Jesus and Hayden were very much alike in their dismay at the way institutions put themselves ahead of people.
6.     To trust intuition.
Hayden is uniquely intuitive. We all could be more so if we acted on our feelings as he does. He followed his hunches. In counseling he listened with a “third ear,” and often could center in on a real problem immediately. In doing his life he would get a feeling that he ought to do or say something, even when there was no apparent logic for it. It worked.
I have found that when I follow my hunches it usually turns out good that I did. And when I don’t follow hunches, I am often sorry. He taught me to trust my intuition.
7.     To be open to this moment.
It is so obvious a thing as to be trite, but most of us still don’t get it. But Hayden seemed to have the ability to be in tune with the present moment. The greatest gift we get from another person is the gift of presence. Hayden was able to be present more than anyone I’ve known.
Perhaps it is this that caused me to name my organization, Moment Ministries. I base it on the idea that I’m not trying to build something or plan something for tomorrow, but to respond to what presents itself now. I believe that was the style of Jesus. It tends to be the style of Hayden.
8.     To accept people’s differences.
If you look at the people who relate to Hayden you note an unusual variety. We are often people that more traditional people would have no interest in. His range is from celebrity to unknown, from achiever to failure, from high life to low life. He sees something of value in everyone. Everyone is someone. He shows acceptance that each feels. The slightest attempt at doing something, making something, performing something is appreciated with “Isn’t she wonderful!”  As the song says, “Everyone is beautiful, in their own way…” That’s the way Hayden sees it. I have tried to make acceptance a major principle of my ministry.
9.     Listen for the “still small voice.”
A life-long practice for Hayden is to spend a period of each day, usually in the morning, in silence. Those little insights for which is so well known came mostly out of thos times.
Hayden taught me to seek the Spirit within me by quiet waiting, to listen to it, then to respond to it. What is more central?
10.    Stay in touch.
As we see in his “pre-memorial parties,” Hayden is in touch with all sorts of people. Actually, those present are only the tip of the iceberg. Whether by intuition or what, Hayden is only a phone call or note away from people who might consider themselves long forgotten. We stay connected because he connects with us in a way that will not let us go. What I have realized is how wonderful it is to have someone who wants to stay in touch. In my own ministry I have made an effort to stay in touch. When you know so many people the task is really impossible. Still I try. I respond to every note or letter. I send a note or make a call when I hear of someone in crisis. I try to drop by as we travel. My e-mail list keeps growing and I have contact with people across the country. What a supportive thing it is to be in touch with someone who wants to be in touch with you. “Reach out and touch somebody” is a human thing to do. Everyone can do it, though most don’t. I learned from Hayden that it’s a good thing to do.
      One thing I’ve never learned from Hayden is where he gets those wonderful, bright shirts he wears. I don’t know whether they would look good on me, but they are outlandishly appropriate for him. I’ve never aspired (yet) to wearing a Santa Claus beard or hair-do. It fits him well. I’ve paid attention to his youthful aging. In mind and spirit the man has remained ahead of all of us in insight, wit, spirituality and hope. I hope that if I reach 90 I will have the gumption to write out a plan for my life in the decade of my 90’s as Hayden set out to do. All I have to learn from Hayden I still have not learned.
Art Morgan – Spring, 1998 at "Mirari, Vancouver BC