Poynter with a “Y”: Love’s More Perfect Way

Reluctantly, I knocked at the back door of the parsonage. Revival services were underway in the home mission outpost of the holiness congregation located in Timmins, Ontario, in northern Canada.

In recent months, my mother had come in contact with the pastor. Knowing that her twelve-year-old son could benefit from that same exposure, she volunteered my services. The door opened and the pastor greeted me warmly.

“Hi, I’m Dave Gyertson,” I said. “My mother sent me down to see if there was anything I could do to help here at the church.”

Sensing the uncomfortableness in my voice and stance, he spoke words of deliverance. “Well thank you, David, but we are all set for the week.”

Relief replaced anxiety. I had been by the church a couple of nights earlier. There was no way this young street kid wanted anything to do with those high-strung, emotional holy rollers.

As the door closed, I noticed a short, stocky man seated at the kitchen table. Little did I realize that less than a year later, this man would come as the pastor, taking me up on my offer, causing changes in my life beyond anticipation or imagination.

As I turned for home, the realities of life resurfaced. For as long as I could remember, our family had been split by strife and tension. My mother was plagued from childhood with the severest form of psoriasis, causing her great social and emotional stress as well as physical pain. My father, an English orphan, grew up as an indentured servant on a farm in the Ottawa Valley. He found relief from the pressures of life through alcohol and work opportunities that required him to be gone from home for extended periods of time.

My younger sister and I were periodically submitted to the traumas that are often part of homes where love has turned to hate and respect to distrust. Still vivid are the feelings of fear that often accompanied the confrontations between our parents. As I grew older, much of my mother’s feelings toward my father were transferred to me. Doubts about personal value and worth troubled most of my childhood and early teen years.

A number of months passed following the back door encounter at that mission church. It was a hard spring with major flooding. The church, located on the banks of a small stream in the water’s path, was rendered unusable for a number of weeks. Early one Saturday morning, the phone rang. The voice at the other end responded enthusiastically.

“Is this Dave Gyertson? I’m Jim Poynter. You may not remember me, but I was the short, heavyset man sitting in the parsonage last year when you came by to help. Is your offer still good?”

There was something inviting and affirming about his tone; before I could catch myself, I agreed to help set up chairs at the Odd Fellow’s Hall for the Sunday services.

His gentle spirit, sense of humor, and down-to-earth style conflicted with my images of holiness preachers. He would often quip, “Now that’s Poynter with a ‘Y’ not with an ‘I’—that’s the difference between the dog and I.”

From the first moments of our relationship, it was clear that this was a man with a different spirit. Upon learning that I was a drummer, he invited me home to accompany him as he played upbeat versions of “Jesus Loves Me” and other gospel favorites on the piano.

Jim and Marion Poynter, with their four children, had come to Timmins as the last chance for this remote mission. Three hundred miles from the closest denominational fellowship, they assumed the responsibilities of a two-point circuit, 40 miles apart, for a starting salary of $45 per week. Marion willingly took employment working as a practical nurse at the South Porcupine Hospital from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., five to six days a week.

The home was filled with love, joy, and deep compassion for the less fortunate. It had long been their practice to reach out to the needy in the community—particularly the youth—providing fellowship, food, and shelter for any they could help. Theirs was unconditional love with no expectation of return and repayment. It was not uncommon to have as many as a dozen or more people around their Sunday dinner table—none of whom were in any position to return the favor.

Marion, unique in personality and consistent in service, provided the much-needed balance in the Poynter household. A master at memorization, she always had just the right Scripture verse, quote, or poem for almost every occasion. Her high tolerance for unpredictability and determination to see the good in all who came through the doors made her the ideal partner in ministry with Jim.

Soon I found that the Poynter home was a shelter in the times of storm. During the months that followed, I spent every available moment with Jim—listening to his talk, watching his walk, and observing a faith that worked in difficult situations.

Things worsened at home between my mother and me. After a terrifying incident where I threatened her with a rifle, I came home to find my clothing on the front lawn and the door locked. In her fear, she cried through the closed door, “You’re no good. You will turn out just like your father. I don’t want to see you again.” Years later, our relationship would be reconciled, but at that moment, emptiness and despair flooded into my life. I gathered up my belongings and, at age 13, joined the Poynter family as another of their ministry investments and was welcomed with open arms.

Jim and Marion never forced the Christian faith on me as a condition of their love. Every moment of their lives, however, was saturated with the witness that Jesus Christ was the ultimate answer. One night, after a meal of moose steak, fried tomatoes, burnt toast and strong tea, the reality of what was happening to my life engulfed me.

“Jim,” I said, “no one loves or wants me. I’m not sure life is worth living.” Gently, Jim led me to Psalm 27:10: “When your mother and father forsake you, then the Lord will take you up.” Quietly, I received Jesus Christ as Savior, making the Creator of the universe my heavenly, Holy Father.

As the months passed, assurance of God’s love came daily through the Poynters’ witness. Soon I would leave for Bible college to pursue a career in full-time ministry. Each step of the way, Jim and Marion were there to encourage, support, and correct. They were not free of mistakes, but they did possess the sanctification Wesley described as “perfect love” motivated by a desire to serve God supremely and treat their neighbors as themselves.

Jim and Marion’s ministries were outside of the typical pattern for pastoral service in their denomination. That coupled with the fact that while love dominated their ministry, other necessary tasks for formal pastoral service received less attention and priority. The day came when they were left without a church appointment and had to wait on God for a new venue within which to practice their ministry. That came first as directors of a group home for dysfunctional teens—incorrigibles who had burned out other foster care settings. And, as is usually the case when committed Christians follow their callings, even these lives began to change. So effective were they in that arena that they received recognition from a national television broadcast for their work. When asked the secret of their success with such difficult young people, Marion boldly told the audience that they just tried to love them like Jesus would.

Their final formal ministry assignment was with the son of the Bible college principal where Jim and Marion attended school. They served as chaplains for a new national Christian broadcast ministry located in the heart of Toronto. There they extended the love of Christ in person, on air, and on the phones to the least, the left, and the lost that crossed their paths.

Disabled by a crippling stroke a few years later, Jim was no longer able to speak and share as before. However, their love for people and commitment to reach out to the hurting remained undaunted. On one visit with them, I discovered that a lonely, homeless young man had taken up residence on the living room couch in their small one-bedroom apartment. Despite the disability, their ministry continued.

Marion contracted cancer and in just a few months went home to her great reward. In one of my last visits with her, she bravely affirmed that all was well with her soul. As was so often her way, she quoted to me from one of the saints of the Church. “David, she said, “Jesus will never be all you need until Jesus is all you have. And you know what? Right now Jesus is all I have—and He’s enough!” The theme of their lives could be heard as Jim, while unable to clearly speak, sang with halting notes but unwavering assurance, “It is well with my soul.” Jim passed not long after. They were a matched, interdependent set and could not long remain apart. On Jim’s grave marker you will find the words, “It is well.”

They did not have nor did they expect flowery beds of ease. They chose the less traveled path, seeking for those whom most would overlook, discovering in us that which others could not see.

Some 60 men and women, plus countless others, were touched by the Master’s hand in their consistent, loving examples of salvation and holiness in action. For us, because of these “Poynters with a Y” it also was well with our souls. Some of us who shared the love of Christ through their home went into various forms of Christian service. The only obligation ever placed upon any of us by Jim and Marion was that we be willing to do for someone else what they had attempted to do for us.

In a world whose Christianity has been diluted by easy believism and costless discipleship, these “Poynters with a Y” stand as a hope for the gospel of wholeness and holiness we embrace. Holiness is not just something one believes. It is something one lives and does. Did I see Jim and Marion as perfect? Not in the absolute sense of the word. They, like Paul and all of us who look to Christ as our example, have this treasure in earthen vessels. The perfection the Poynters possessed was found in the consuming motive to love God supremely—seeking, by His Spirit’s help, to daily bind up the brokenhearted, set at liberty the captive, and boldly proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Such holiness of heart is not something we can achieve for ourselves. Like salvation, it is God’s gift of grace that must be received by faith and practiced in earnest.

When you asked them why (“Y”) they chose such a challenging path, the response gently came, “We can do nothing less in light of what Christ has done for us.” The world and the church need more “Poynters with a Y”—practical, simple, Spirit-filled examples of a sacrificial discipleship that works for real-life people in the midst of real-life situations. One of Marion’s most often quoted phrases was, “Only one life will soon be passed; only what’s done for Christ will last.” Jim and Marion, your ministry continues to blossom and bear fruit—in the now and for eternity. Thank you. And thanks to Jesus whom you faithfully served.

The picture at the beginning of this article is of the Rev. and Mrs. James Poynter (Jim and Marion). It was taken on the occasion of their retirements from the television ministry they served. There are many different flowers in the bouquets, representing the more than 60 men and women whom they nurtured into faith and toward wholeness in Jesus Christ. Marion lovingly referred to us as her “bloomin’ idiots.”

David Gyertson went on to become an ordained minister, completing the Ph.D. and serving in a variety of ministry relationships as a senior pastor, president of three Christian universities, and in leadership positions in an international Christian television ministry. Today he is investing in the next generation of pastoral leaders as Associate Provost and Dean of the Beeson International Center for Biblical Preaching and Church Leadership at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.