Lawson Murray strives to ignite excitement for the Word of God
The first time Lawson Murray's eldest child Christie brought home the man she would one day marry, Murray playfully put his daughter's suitor to a test, asking him if he knew the definition of "supralapsarianism."
Mercifully, the young man had a sense of humour. "Josiah thought it was hilarious," Christie, 25, now chuckles at the memory. "Fortunately he was staying all night in my dad's study, so he had access to all his books to find out what it actually meant."
"It was a silly thing," she says, her voice warm with affection. "But it was also to see what kind of man my [future] husband was."
Yet the anecdote reveals far more about what kind of man Lawson Murray is, for it demonstrates the value he places - not only on his children and their happiness - but on education, excellence, fullness of life and learning and understanding the things of God.
They are fitting priorities for a man who's been a pastor and church planter, and who currently leads both Scripture Union Canada as president, and SGM Canada as national director, two distinct Bible agencies that encourage engagement with the Scriptures.
"Engagement is connecting with God's Word so that we encounter Jesus Christ," explains Murray, "and our lives are progressively transformed as a result."
If encountering Jesus ignites the fire of transformation, then for Murray, 52, education is a sustaining fuel; from the moment he determined to follow Christ as a first year university student - working toward a four-year bachelor of education degree - he's been committed to a life of study.
"He's been involved in education his whole life," says Christie. "My mom and him met at teacher's college. He's a lifelong learner. He loves to learn. And in his ministry as a pastor, he has a strong teaching mode in the way he preaches."
He has a strong teaching mode in general.
The first time I speak with Murray, it's by telephone. He is at home, scraping mud off his boots, having just come in from outdoors. It's pouring rain. In fact, it's been raining for days.
But Murray says he's been planting his garden. When I express surprise, he shares a memorable rhyme, one of countless practical lessons he's learned from years of growing good things in the earth.
"Plant in mud, they'll bloom and bud. Plant in dry, they'll whither and die," he recites, his voice light-hearted, infused with generosity and the South Africa that reared him. I've never heard the rhyme before, but it takes root in my mind. I resolve to try planting my own garden in the rain.
Murray began his working life as a high school teacher - teaching a range of subjects from geography and physical education to religious studies, woodwork and metalwork. But throughout the decade that he taught in South Africa, he says he became increasingly aware of God's call on his life to move into vocational ministry.
"My wife, Karen, and I looked all over the world for a suitable seminary," he recounts. "Eventually, I got information from Tyndale [Seminary, in Toronto], and it just seemed the right place for us."
So in 1991 the couple, together with two young children (a third would be born some years later), came to Canada. And with characteristic enthusiasm, Murray immersed himself in his studies, taking only three years to earn both a master of divinity degree and a master of theological studies. He financed his seminary education almost entirely through bursaries and scholarships, and when he graduated, he was recognized for outstanding scholastic achievement with a long list of awards.
"I loved my time at school here in Canada," he says. "Every class I took, every assignment I worked on, was totally absorbing. When you find your passion - your sweet spot - that makes all the difference. And that's what it was for me."
After seminary, Murray worked as a church consultant, itinerant preacher, writer and Bible college teacher, until 1997, when he became full-time pastor of a church in Orillia, Ontario. During the decade that followed, he worked in pastoral ministry, and also stepped into a leadership role with SGM Lifewords, where he recognized a need for research into the status of cultural engagement with the Bible.
"I've been deeply concerned that I was observing what appeared to be an ongoing decline in Bible engagement in our nation, and Bible literacy within the Church," Murray explains.
So from 2005 to 2010, while completing a doctor of ministry degree with Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, he wrote his thesis, An Exploratory Project to Assist Canadians to Connect with the Bible.
"The goal of education is so that I might know God and live for Him," says Murray. "I place myself in a position of learning so that God can inform, direct, mold and craft my life to be used by Him, for His ends."
You might imagine that all this academic study has made Murray a serious sort. But nothing could be further from the truth. He is a man who works hard, but also plays hard. "He danced with a tie around his head at our wedding," Christie laughs.
He seems a man determined to prove his "guiding text" John 10:10, that Christ has come to give us life and to give us life to the full.
"We have been given the greatest story ever," he says, "God's story - which is truth. Should we not - with all our might and energy - commit ourselves, and discipline ourselves to study the Word, until we go home to be with Him? That's an essential for me. I can't picture being Christian without being a student and a teacher."
And just in case you're still wondering what "supralapsarianism" means, go look it up. Lawson would want you to.
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