Pastor Donald Cole is a man who loves
stories–the kind you read, the kind you tell, the kind you live. This is one
from his years as a missionary in Angola.
“One time I was asked to see the provincial governor of Angola about the
annual Mission Report I’d written. ‘This report is magnificent!’ he said.
‘This is a model of clarity . . . and that’s the problem!’”
“The governor explained to me that in the diplomatic community you must
never write clearly. If people know exactly what you think you’re left
exposed to too much criticism. Instead he coached me to create loopholes
with phrases like ‘some believe’ and ‘evidence may support,’” Pastor Cole
remembers.
Moody Bible Institute might want to send a thank-you card to that provincial
governor of Angola. Thanks to that little lesson, Pastor Cole gave hope to
MBI officials in the early 1970s when he wrote a loosely worded letter to
turn down the job of radio pastor. “I wrote something along the lines of, ‘I
do not believe God is leading me in this direction at this time,’” he says.
“Moody interpreted that as me saying I might be open to the position in the
future, so they didn’t fill it. And sure enough, a month later I’d changed
my mind.”
Thirty years later, in 2001, Pastor Cole retired from his service as the
radio pastor for the Moody Broadcasting Network. He saw a lot of changes in
his thirty years at MBN. “We went from owning just three stations to owning
more than thirty,” he says. “It all started out as an AM operation and then
MBN ended up pioneering satellite broadcasting and now we supply programs to
more than three hundred stations in addition to the ones we own.”
During those years Pastor Cole became the trusted voice that thousands of
radio listeners turned to with their questions about the Bible and the
Christian life. Through classic programs like Dial the Pastor, Christian
Perspectives on the News, and Pastor Cole’s Commentary he built a
relationship with his audience that continues to this day.
One of his favorite programs was The Living Word, a verse-by-verse study of
the Bible he did with wife Naomi. The daily fifteen-minute program covered
books of the Bible including Romans and Ephesians. Pastor Cole received
flack from a few people who objected to a woman teaching the Bible, because
men were listening. “I’d get letters saying things like ‘How dare you have
her on the program!’ and so on. And I’d just write back, ‘I’ve warned her
not to say anything intelligent but sometimes she slips it in,’” Cole grins.
Despite his retirement, Cole remains an active member of the Moody
community. He is a familiar face on campus, and listeners to Open Line still
hear Pastor Cole answer questions from his national audience on Monday and
Thursday nights. He also writes the popular “Q & A” column for Today in the
Word, volunteers with MBN’s annual SHARE event, and keeps up with
correspondence. On top of all this, he spends one month in Angola every year
(see below in blue).
“My wife keeps asking me what ‘officially retired’ actually means,” he
laughs when talking about his ongoing work. “The difference now is I only
have to go downtown [to MBI’s campus] when I feel like it.”
“The real business of the preacher is to help people apply Scripture to
life,” says Pastor Cole. And that’s just what he has dedicated his life
to–through his writing, missions work, and the airwaves.
Before becoming Moody’s radio
pastor, Donald Cole and his wife Naomi spent 18 years as missionaries in
Angola. The war-ravaged country continues to be near and dear to their
hearts. Pastor Cole returns to encourage and exhort the local church for two
weeks twice a year.
“People sometimes wonder why I focus on Angola. ‘Aren’t there poor people
here?’ they say. But they have no sense of the magnitude of situation in
Angola,” says Pastor Cole. “A 27-year war ended in 2002. In the church 85
percent of the women over 35 are widows. Destruction is normal for these
people. If things are shot up, that’s normal. If a house has three walls,
that’s normal.”
“On top of this, a whole generation has grown up illiterate. I was in a
church that was packed with a couple hundred people and a speaker asked
everyone under 25 to stand. It was almost everyone. Then he asked how many
people had Bibles. Only six people raised their hands. The real need is not
to sell more Bibles. It’s to teach people how to read.”
Pastor Cole’s passion is contagious. His son, Andrew, recently founded RISE
International (www.riseinternational.org),
a nonprofit organization whose main focus is the building of schools in
rural areas of Angola. MBI has been privileged to assist Pastor Cole with
his work in Angola by featuring programming about the nation and giving a
portion of this year’s SHARE donations to RISE International.
Reprinted from the September 2004 issue of TODAY IN THE WORD
Moody Bible Institute, Stewardship Department,
820 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60610
All material is copyrighted by Moody Bible Institute
and its contributors.
Published by Moody Bible
Institute.
Condolences to the Cole family on the August 12, 2004 passing of their son, Dr. J. Andrew Cole.