The Bastian Backstory

by Jeff Finley

At age 96, Bishop Emeritus Donald N. Bastian still has plenty of insights and stories to share. His new book, “From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry,” reveals fascinating details of his life that even longtime Free Methodists may not know.

“My father was a coal miner. That’s a much bigger issue than most people realize,” Bastian said May 18 during a phone conversation with Light + Life. “My parents had very limited education, but they seemed to get by and raise kids that were halfway decent.”

In the book, Bastian wrote, “My mother and father were hard-working immigrants from Lancashire in the industrial north of England to the rolling prairies of Saskatchewan.” His mother “never went beyond grade six in school,” and his father “started school when he was six, but after only five weeks was kept home to recover from scarlet fever. So far as we know, he never returned to a classroom.”

The retired bishop told Light + Life that the most important part of his parents’ story occurred when “my mother began to suffer from a homesickness, which she said would have taken her life.” As revealed in the book, his parents “were not a part of any religious body when they came to Canada,” but his father thought visiting churches might help her. Some of the churches, however, were less than welcoming to the immigrant family.

“She was passed over by the local professional pastors,” said Bastian, who noted that pastors declined the family’s hospitality until one pastor “was very glad, and it was a Free Methodist pastor who made the first contact with my family. I’m a Free Methodist bishop and pastor today because that contact had a powerful impact on us all.”

Finding Love and Facing Challenges

The book shares Bastian’s decision not to follow his entrepreneurial family into business but to instead further his education at Moose Jaw Bible School and Lorne Park College in Canada, Greenville College (now University) in Illinois, and Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It also tells how he became intrigued when a fellow student “mentioned a young elementary school teacher, Kathleen Swallow, who was a part of [a Free Methodist] congregation.”

The book tells of their courtship, marriage, and children. One son, John David, often choked during feeding. At age 2, he was diagnosed with profound disabilities by a doctor who said, “He’ll need institutional care; he’ll need protection from society.” The book describes their agonizing decision to place John David in a residential facility.

Bastian hadn’t spoken much in the past about the financial difficulties he and his wife, Kathleen, faced as he studied for ministry while the couple raised children.

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“It seemed unfair to me that there were good Christians with a million dollars in the bank but I couldn’t even afford to feed our children.”

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“There were two times when we served shredded wheat as our noon meal. We were that close,” he told Light + Life. In the book, he noted, “We were anxious and frustrated. It seemed unfair to me that there were good Christians with a million dollars in the bank but I couldn’t even afford to feed our children.”

Overall, the book offers a favorable portrait of ministry preparation and work, and Bastian hopes the book will inspire readers to answer if God calls them to ministry.

“I just put my soul out there to say that if you really want to live a Christian life, find out if God has something for you to do,” Bastian told Light + Life. “I’m just a little concerned we have all these churches, and we’ve always seemed to have a little trouble getting enough pastors and shepherds. I would like to come back to [a time] when it was an honor to be called to preach.”

From Pastor to Bishop

The book shares about his pastoral ministry experiences in New Westminster, British Columbia, and Greenville, Illinois, along with General Conference 1964 electing him bishop at age 38.

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“My resignation was a first in our denomination’s history.”

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“I appreciated the honor very deeply but resigned the next day, declaring my action to be a matter of conscience and deep conviction. I was still passionate about pastoral ministry,” he wrote. “My resignation was a first in our denomination’s history, and I was sure my action would put an end to any further ministry in the denomination outside the local church.”

Eight years later, however, he again was elected as a bishop of the Free Methodist Church of North America. He served as a bishop for 19 years — 16 as part of the Board of Bishops over all North American ministry. From 1990 to 1993, he served as the bishop of the Canadian church after it became its own Free Methodist general conference.

As a young pastor, Bastian submitted an article to The British Columbian newspaper that led to him accepting an invitation to write a weekly column. He continues his frequent writing with regular posts on his Just Call Me Pastor blog, and he said his next book may be compiled from his hundreds of blog posts.

Although the bishop emeritus is a prolific writer, writing a book can be a challenge in an author’s 90s. “From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit” wasn’t originally intended to be a book. It began as a Word document that he was asked to compile to summarize the chronology of his life.

“The change took place when he gave me more than I asked for,” said one of his sons, Donald G. Bastian, the publisher and editor-in-chief of BPS Books, who added that the task proved daunting. “He was struggling with his eyesight, his hearing, and his computer, so he asked me, ‘How can I do this?’”

The experienced editor and publisher sent his experienced writer father the final chapter of their previous book, “The Pastor’s First Love,” that was somewhat of an autobiographical essay. The retired bishop began writing emails addressing different aspects of his life. Then his son began turning the emails into book chapters.

“I would read material to my parents, and they would correct aspects of it and remember other anecdotes and give them to me. We just went back and forth,” Donald G. Bastian said. “It was probably six months of work before we brought it out.”

The publisher said readers of the book will be surprised “quite how humble his origins were. I’ve done some genealogy, and the Bastians go back forever to Cornwall, England, and they are tin miners and coal miners, and the pattern never seemed to break until his grandfather and father moved to Saskatchewan. … Because of that break into North America and because my father felt the call of the ministry, that put him on a professional track, but he didn’t grow up in a family that talked about graduate school or seminary. He had no concept of that at all. … It wasn’t till seminary that he started understanding what ordination was and started seeing himself and his wife as being focused on the local church ministry.”

The father and son have collaborated on several books. When asked if it’s easy for a son to edit his father, Donald G. Bastian said with a laugh, “At times, it feels like a surgeon shouldn’t operate on a family member.” The son added, “He has a distinctive voice in his writing, so it was a pleasure basically on all sides. I don’t think there was any bad blood at all.”

U.S. residents can order “From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit” by clicking here. Canadians can order the book by clicking here. +