Marty Herron was the Pastor at Harvest for eighteen years. On this special 50th anniversary program, he discussed his time leading the ministry on Guam.
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Episode Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week on this program, we tell you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends at the ministry. We’d like to invite you to Harvest Baptist Church this weekend. We meet twice Sunday mornings at 08:45AM and 10:45AM.
We have Japanese and Korean translation during our 10:45AM service, and that’s also when we livestream at hbcguam.org, hbcguam.org. In the month of October, we’re looking ahead to our fiftieth anniversary for Harvest Ministries, and we have special guests to mark that occasion. Here’s pastor Walton to introduce today’s guest.
Gary Walton: Well, as you, our listeners know, we have been moving towards our fiftieth anniversary celebration coming up at the end of October here. October 26 is the actual Sunday of the celebration, and we’ve got events that are beginning leading up to that and even a couple days after that. And part of all of that celebration is the privilege that we have of bringing back some of our favorite people and some of the leaders that have been just a critical part of the history of Harvest over these years. And we’re really glad to have Doctor. Marty Herron, Pastor Marty Herron, on Harvest Time with us.
Welcome back, Pastor Marty. So thankful for you.
Marty Herron: Thank you very much. Privilege to be here.
Gary Walton: Talking to us right now from sunny Iowa, maybe not sunny, I’m not sure.
Marty Herron: Yeah, it’s sunny. 75.
Gary Walton: Wow. This time we’re pretty good.
Marty Herron: Absolutely.
Gary Walton: Pastor Marty, of course, has
been on Guam for many years. You and your family came in 2000. We’re here for eighteen years serving, leading, and, just such a critical part of the history of Harvest. And it’s been fun thinking and talking about that whole fifty years, which you have such a scope of, pastor Herron. Tell us a little bit about coming to Guam, that story, how God led you here, you and your family.
Marty Herron: So actually, I think it was somewhere in ’96, ’97 that I first heard about Harvest, And it was John Lewis that had come to visit Northland Baptist Bible College when I was working here as one of the VPs and the camp director. And it actually caught my one of the few things that caught my attention, it was very intriguing. English speaking, school, church. He didn’t say much at that point about the Bible Institute. He was pretty much at the academy. Now that is a fascinating place. I think I actually visited with him a little bit. That’s about all I knew. And then did a little homework about it. Very impressed with all of it.
I was impressed that actually you could, in essence, have a mission field experience without raising any money. And and honestly, that was about that’s our fifteen year mark in that neighborhood at Northland. And I was wondering, you know, Lord, are you done with us here at Harvest? No re I mean, at Northland. No reason to leave.
There’s none. And I had said to one of the VPs, Harold Pats, Harold, I don’t know what to do with this other than we’re burdened for mission field as long as I can do mission trips once or twice a year, which is what we did for the next whatever, you know, three or four. And, and then ’99, in August, Sam Horn says, hey. I’m overbooked. I can’t make it.
Would you be willing to fill in for me, to, Hawaii and Guam? And I said, well, I can’t do two weeks. I can do a week. And they have a bible institute. And so that’s really Tam and I came out, spent a week.
She spoke to the girls and spoke to the guys. They were candidating a pastor that weekend. And so we could get out on that Sunday, but had spent the week there preaching and had a great time, a wonderful staff, warm hearted people. I wasn’t really burdened for the academy necessarily in that, oh, I’m called to the academy. I just like, this is great.
And then, the plane got delayed and we took a taxi back and that guy was candidating. And we sat out on the hallway and I thought, oh my word, can you imagine having to preach a candidate in message like, woah. Service got done, Doug Gallo, Betty Lee come out. Hey, what are you doing? We went down to Hilton on on, Delta’s dime or United’s dime and had supper.
And and then I think it was later that night. Mean, maybe the next morning, we flew out. That was it. A week later, hey. Would you consider, you know, coming?
And, no. Actually, you need to vote on this guy. And whatever happens, if that doesn’t happen and then Mark Schlosser called me. He was the head of the Deacons a week later and said, would you consider? Have you ever thought about it?
I said, well, I’ve thought about maybe, maybe, but I’m not sure about that. I said, I couldn’t do anything for a year actually. So that was the process. And then by Christmas time, deacons called, interviewed, and then, we went down to the DR to a pastor’s meeting in January. And then two weeks later, Tammy and I and the four kids, we flew out and spent a week, you you know the process.
I wasn’t really thinking, I was kind of like, I like doing what I’m doing, but if this is what God wants, I’m willing to do it. And so that was the, you know, the boat happened and I got back to Northland and sitting in a concert a week later and then Ockey, who was a part of the group. And then there’s a thousand people at this concert. And he says, hey, doctor Heron’s gonna be a new pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. That was the announcement.
And nobody, I I don’t know if I even said yes yet. And I just like put my head down like, oh, no. Oh, no. So that was eight months, and then we came in August 2000.
Gary Walton: How was, Tammy and your kids about that move? I mean, you guys have been at Northland for a long time. Yeah. Just for you guys personally. Everybody excited?
Everybody’s afraid?
Marty Herron: You know, sheep don’t do well with with two, components. One, change.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Marty Herron: And two, unexpectedness surprises. They don’t do well. Right. They get startled quickly. So, thankfully, Tammy had had months to get here.
So she was fine. She was you know, I mean, none of us were dying to leave, but and the kids were thankfully fairly young, the two little ones, I mean, Miles and Micah. So it, I think it was okay. I mean, every move we’ve made, we’ve only made, and we’ve had three missionary journeys. You know?
So and and that one to to Northland. Tammy, that was hard change, but she’s godly and made adjustments and and then to there. So I probably got overstretched maybe the first year or two. And I look back and think I got, you know, Harvest is a busy place. But we knew this where God want us, no questions about it.
Gary Walton: What were the things that drew you here? I mean, over time, you know, you’re the things that are so important, you change, but originally, what were the things that you felt like, hey, this is is part of God’s plan for our lives and we’re excited about the future of Harvest?
Marty Herron: Well, primarily, we were wrestling with, pastoring.
Gary Walton: Yeah. I was gonna ask you about that.
Marty Herron: Yeah. So in my twenties, I would have never Church was not a high value, in the sense of ever wanting to go work at one.
Gary Walton: Right.
Marty Herron: Because we had had so many churches and none of them were in the greatest shape. So twenty years in college and camp got me the place and then traveling, I don’t know how many countries and churches realizing that’s the genius of the spread of the gospels at church. So if I ever did anything, I’d be willing. And then that really was impetus where Guam came into the picture. Like as soon as I felt like, okay, Lord, am I supposed to do pastorate on a mission field?
Well, then here’s Harvest. Like, that fits. And it being out there as everybody knows, you know, there’s a warm hearted people. I mean, generally speaking, warm weather is warm hearted people. Yeah.
Cold weather, normally cold hearted people seemingly. That that’s not always true, but it seems like it. So that’s easy. And and the two biggest draws were were multi ethnic nationalities and polycultural living. At the time, 10% of the ministry within the church were hallies, maybe a little more, but island wise, there was not as strong as much presence.
So I enjoyed that. And then the second component as I’m thinking about talking about it is the variety. I have a tendency to like, and that was probably the draw was you had the academy, you had the college, the radio station had been pretty stable. Mean, and so that was probably the biggest draw to that.
Gary Walton: You said the first couple years were some adjustments. I think you had a typhoon in there.
Marty Herron: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s funny you mentioned that. So, yeah, that was, actually, I think, I don’t know, talking, you know, tonight, previous to Typhoon was getting there and realizing that we had an elephant in the tulip patch. The academy was running a little over 800.
The church, I don’t know, Pam would know the numbers, two and a quarter, two fifty something. But pretty much most of the decisions were being dominated by the school. And I don’t think it was intentional. I don’t think anybody philosophically, it just kind of what happens. It’s biggest elephant.
And I said to them, it’s an awesome elephant. It’s it’s in a tulip patch. And so let’s change the metaphor and move to the hub being the church. And then we got this little Bible college and radio station and big spoke called academy. And that was a little bit of adjustments for everybody, but that’s gotta be the center point.
God said, I’ll build my church and we don’t have to build a church. He said, build disciples. So when we build disciples, we’re building church and God said, I’ll take care of the rest of that. And that was a lot of time. So people were suspect.
See no to shepherds and sheep, sheep, they don’t like change and they don’t like surprises. So
that was and then we hit that typhoon and you’ve been through a few as well. That actually brings people together but physically, emotionally, mentally, it’s pretty draining, and it was for us. And I often had chatted to John Lewis and they had typhoons with half the amount of ability to shift quickly. I’m amazed buying plywood and that’s crazy. Those are probably two difficult times that we, experienced.
Gary Walton: And that was Pangsona. Which year was that? 2000 don’t know. 2001? 2002?
Yeah. And it had some pretty significant impact on the campus. We lost some buildings. Yeah.
Marty Herron: Actually, I called John Lewis and said, I think this, the original auditorium that had classrooms, HBBI, I said, I’m not sure that’s gonna, what it’s gonna cost us to recover that thing. And I said, what would you do? He said, I’d tear it down. Okay, all right. I like that idea.
Which is what we did and I think it was the right move at the time. Thank God that the auditorium was like a bunker and we all hold up down in the basement basically. And then we opened up the facilities as I think you do as well. And thank God for the foresight of former leadership where we had power and I could tell you amazing stories actually about people that provided for us, you know. So, yeah, we were blessed, brother, in many ways.
Gary Walton: Let’s talk a little bit more about the church as the hub. You know, my experience here, of course, is just the church just in a very healthy place, and it really does provide the structure and the foundation for all the other things going on. How did you see some transitions happening, you know, in early years for you?
Marty Herron: Yeah. Well, first of all, I viewed it and did every year as retaining the best and improving on the rest. And every year I would, it’s a little cheesy, but it’s true. And so we had a lot to work with And every church kinda has an ebb and flow. Yeah.
It’s reflective of church writings and books and ideologies. And I think Harvest went through those same adjustments in that their time periods are appropriate. By the time I got there, this was my first pastorate. I mean, it doesn’t mean we hadn’t pastored people and never preached before, but actually I’m responsible. So it had an opportunity for me to be able to, there were some things that I’m sure there’s things we did and often we would do something that I would say, hey, we tried it once, but we’re not gonna do that again.
I really believed ideologically, if we take care of the depth of the ministry, God will take care of the breadth of the ministry. So those are formative years of how does that flesh out? And then we started growing. And then now it’s not, I don’t know what we had 50 on staff maybe, and things are growing and getting more complicated. But the church was a center point.
So how is this activity going to influence our programs? And there were things that like, we could do that, but I think it’s going to get complicated. Or like helping to get the faculty with advanced degrees, but you’re accelerating the program and now they don’t have time to come to church because they’re too tired because they’re working on extra program, extra classes. I’m like, Our vocations are not the same as our advocations. Our vocations is what we get paid to do.
Our advocation is what we love to do. And we should love what God loves. It’s just the church. So, okay, my vocation happens through ministry. I mean, I got paid to do that.
I get paid to do what I’m doing now. I’d probably do it if I didn’t get paid, I’d still do it. And that’s how I feel like with the church and God brought us, quite frankly, it was the people that God brought our way. There are some people you hire and there are some people that God send your way. And we had some amazing people, some of them that were there, the Hensons.
They were like here and they wanted to be a bigger part to us. And you know how important worship is and God brought along Inafuku, who’s as talented as anybody I know. And then Scott Mills and his wife who came along. And then, of course, Jared that I knew back in college and he wanted to come out. Mean, those are the kind of people I would go on and on and on.
I’d better start and stop naming names, but you you understand that.
Gary Walton: Well, really is amazing if you think about the people that have come through here for fifty years, literally. I mean, God has
Marty Herron: Yeah.
Gary Walton: Staffed this ministry with gifted, passionate, you know, leaders, servants, just along every stage of ministry. It’s fantastic when you start thinking back, sometime we ought to count the people, you know, it’s hundreds and hundreds of people that have actually been on staff here way out in the middle of Absolutely. We were talking a little bit about the different ministries. Alright? So church is the hub.
I think that was the intention from the beginning, and there’s been some seasons when, you know, that’s struggled and and then there’s some strength in it. But there is a unique, I don’t know what the word is, maybe the synthesis of ministries that happen at Harvest that I just don’t know that I’ve seen any place else. And it’s amazing to me, we have just had some guests here. Anytime you have somebody that comes out, don’t really know a lot about Harvest, and you start seeing the ministry through their eyes again, you’re reminded of out in, you know, Guam, which we love, but this is a beautiful place, very remote, very small. God’s put together a group of ministries that that none of them thrive in the way that they have without the others.
Just talk about that a little bit, Pastor Marty, the school, the college. I wanna ask you some more about the college specifically, but the radio station, the church, Harvest House, which began, under your leadership here. Can you just talk about all those things together?
Marty Herron: Yeah. And as I mentioned, you said, well, what kind of drew you out there? That was a big component to that because I personally, for Tam and I both, we’ve always been involved in ministries where there’s a wide variety, a plethora if you would. And you’re spot on, there’s a synergy that is created within those ministries. And I really quite honestly, give credit where credit is due, which is to John Lewis because he had the vision to start the academy and create, move it to a a traditional setting.
And he’s the one that started with the college and burden for that. And and those went hand in hand because you had a workforce that with the college, there’s like a three legged stool. Education is involving their work, their classes, and then their living conditions. That’s their education. And you take one away and it doesn’t sit right.
So it’s not just, oh, we need a workforce to help the academy. Was never our motive. It was like, they need to work to develop their character. They need the classes to be able get the content of the scriptures. And then living in the dorms that they’re living in is developing a culture.
So when you take all three of those together on the college side, you put them in an environment where you got the academy and the expectations, that’s enough. Well then the radio station that continued to grow. And I had people come in and say, you need to get rid of the radio station. Radio’s like you know, out of date now. I’m like, I I would never get rid of the radio station.
It provides a voice box on the entire island. And then, of course, when we eventually went to, on the web, you know, So those were, again, that hub and these different spokes. So yeah, we added some other spokes to that, including the Harvest House, which as you know the story, but as ministries were added, Harvest just grew with it. We got very active with missions. Mean, Harvest has always been mission related, but we became a clearinghouse actually in a couple of major crises up at Japan, for example, and people wanted to give and we became financially, people gave to us and we forwarded it on to the Roberts, for example, or in The Philippines, multiple flooding and people would give to us, we would just forward it on.
So there is no other I mean, I think you know this, Pastor Gary. You’ve traveled as much as I have. I I don’t know another place literally on the globe that has what it has. And and I do think that when Bruce Ring, you know, was burdened to plant that church, he didn’t have any idea what was gonna take place. I think John Lewis had some vision, and I’m not sure that I did either.
I mean, I’d love to take credit for but you know, it’s kinda like, well, this was the right decision at the time, and let’s move forward, and God has his ways.
Gary Walton: Well, there’s no question that God is used as gifted leaders, you know, in the history of Harvest. I I just agree with you. This doesn’t happen without the visionary go get them spirit of John Lewis. Just all the pieces that came together pretty quickly when you look back on it. You know, some of the pieces, they’re big chunks, came together pretty quickly, and that doesn’t happen without somebody that just, you know, gets after it.
You’re, you know, you’re pastoring, you’re administrative level just pushed Harvest to, you know, to places that it hadn’t seen before. So God has used people, we know that that’s true, gifted people, but there’s no way to look at the full history and not come away saying, only God did this. Yeah. You know, the fact that these ministries think when you take a mission place like Guam, you know, you can have a thriving, healthy church, but a church the size and the scope and the influence that Harvest has had now for fifty years, you just don’t you don’t see it, particularly in an area like this. But it was, you know, kind of encouraged along by the Academy that came along beside that.
Academy doesn’t survive in a place like this without the health and the stability of the church. You know, your foresight and insight to say, We gotta strengthen the hub here, is so critical to where we’re at right now, the hub of the church. Then the Bible College, I mean, all of them, the synergy is the right word. And God did that. I mean, it’s so clear when we look back.
God put these things together. And I know you said this before, you told me this when I was coming out here, Pastor Herron, but there is a sense of, know, God has put this together and there’s a baton that’s been passed, you know, over the years of some stewardship of the ministry. And it’s not just the lead pastors, it’s actually it’s actually a whole group of people together that we’ve taken the baton from others who have sacrificed and served before, and saying, hey. Let’s let’s be faithful to the next season, whatever God has. And we’re and we believe there’s a, you know, there’s a season to come after we celebrate Yeah.
Fifty years is a long time, of serving. What were some of the defining moments that you saw God, write into Harvest Story during your pastoral ministry here?
Marty Herron: You know, me a month from now when we’re there, I might have different stories but
Gary Walton: Yeah, okay, we’ll get those then too.
Marty Herron: Yeah. So one of them, I I think I’ve shared out there, probably two weeks, three weeks into it, I got a phone call. The church got a phone call, and Pam took it. And Pam said to me on the phone, Hey pastor, somebody from long term care wants somebody from the church here to come visit them. And I said, Well, Joe Henson, to Pastor Joe, he’s the man.
He said, No, I really think you should take this. I’m like, Okay, tell me how to get there. And I get down there and there’s a guy that’s been told he’s got two weeks to live. He had throat cancer. And so I introduced myself and long story short, he got saved that day and said, would you come back tomorrow?
I got two weeks to live. Now I’ll come back to see you. And his name was Chuck, Chuck Baker. Anyway, I went and saw him for two weeks a week into it, the nurse station said, Are you guys coming down to see him this last week? Yeah.
He said, Whatever you tell him, keep telling him because he was the worst patient we ever had. He’s the best patient we got now. I’d go down there and he had radio station cranked up. He hear it all the way down the hallway and that guy got a dose, man. And actually when he passed away, two in the morning, I show up, his wife’s like, Chuck made me promise, would you be a part of this funeral?
Which is what we did, she was Chuukese and there was thousands of people coming through that. That really influenced me to realize, you know what, I don’t care how big or small this thing is, it’s about people, individual people. And I don’t know that we got anybody necessarily from there, but for me, that was a defining moment for me as a pastor. And then actually the first major meetings we had were set up by Dan Pelletier for Farrell to come out, Tom Farrell. And he called me and said, hey.
It’s September. We got meetings, whatever, October, November, and do you still wanna do them? I don’t want you to feel obligated. No. I want yeah.
The top church had been praying. Absolutely. And then Paul Pats dies. I fly home to help with his funeral. I come back.
You you’ve been on that whatever, that 1AM flight, Saturday night and Sunday morning, we started meetings. And that week, I kid you not, we had multiple churches coming, the auditorium was packed. Every night people got saved. Every day at the academy, people got saved. We had over 300 professions of faith.
I mean, and it was because of prayer. And I told Tom, I said, listen, the parable of Matthew 13 about the four soils, that tells me that three quarters of these people who did not have a genuine profession, rocky, thorny, wayside soil, but I said, Hey, I’ll take a fourth of this 300 man. And that’s about what happened. Including one of them was Kin Uson who got saved. And actually, I called Tom years later.
Kin was sitting at Harvest Time. And I called Tom. I said, hey, Kin, tell me a story about. And there are a lot of them just like that.
Gary Walton: There are. Yeah. There’s multiple stories from that group. Yeah.
Marty Herron: And and my point is we had amazing things happen in the academy, the college. We had amazing things happen at Harvest House that were obvious of God. But I’m gonna tell you, we had knees with Pettit, and his group came out. We had lots of people get saved. And so that’s why in the fall time, I wanted to summit the highest priority mountaintop that everything else is going to stop for this window.
And then the second semester was missions. So I think God honored that because in my mind, Harvest has always had what it says of Jesus, John one, He was full of grace and truth. And grace is what draws people to Christ. Truth is what changes people.
Gary Walton: Amen.
Marty Herron: And I think for Harvest, we’ve tried to emphasize both of those. Because if all you have is grace and that’s all you speak about, it gets syrupy and soft and mushy. If all you have is truth, then it’s brittle and can get ceramic and hard. And Jesus was both of those. And I think his bride, the church, that’s both of those that need to be as one.
And that’s a part of why Harvest has had that long term experience because where do you find that? You find that in Christ. Where do you find Christ? In His word. And so as long as preeminence of preaching happens and publicly preaching and then personal life discipleship breathed in by the spirit of God, which is our dispensation.
I think that’s why Harvest has had fifty years.
Gary Walton: Annual themes was something that was a significant part of kind of a story of your ministry here. We’re continuing on with some of that. Can you tell us any particular years that stand out?
Marty Herron: Yeah. Okay. So I would say the take another step because it was a part of who Tammy and I were back at Northland out of Colossians. We did a book study through it. I think we hung on to that for two or three years, probably.
And then, there’s a few that, building the body, I don’t remember exactly the terminology, but the one on the body was really critical because we were realizing people wanted to come and be a spectator rather than a participator. And when you’re a part of the body, I don’t care if you’re a toe or a nose, that kind of deal. That was big. And then certainly, a third one would be God meant it for good. And honestly, how that came about was I really wanted to do Genesis.
So my goal was to preach the whole counsel of God. So over whatever tenure I had, I was trying to get through chunks of the Bible because of the rotation of people. We did a minor prophets one time and we did Old Testament, New Testament. So one of them was Genesis and I had studied through that the previous six months. I’m like, man, I cannot come up with what’s a good summary.
And I called a guy that was a former missionary that had made some bad decisions that complicated his life but a smart guy. And I said, what would be the summary of Genesis that I could use? And he’s the one that said, God meant it for good. I’m like, bingo, there you are. Well, not knowing we moved that forward and then Rudy Infante God took Rudy, like, the first month in August.
It was like and and so every one of them have a significance, but those are probably a few that stick with me.
Gary Walton: We’ve had the theme coming back even in this conversation of just the idea of the of the scriptures, you know, being the foundation, and I think, Harvest has always had as a central theme this focus on the scriptures. How do you see the Bible shaping the fifty year history of the church and ministry?
Marty Herron: Yeah. Well, I would say that without the scriptures, you’d have had a body without any skeleton. You you wouldn’t have been able to hold the whole thing together, which is what a skeleton does. You know, you you have a car chassis and there’s no engine. In my mind, the scriptures are, there’s three reasons why Harvest Baptist Church is celebrating fifty years.
Foundational all of it. The word of God is the foundation. It has highlighted the church and it has allowed the spirit of God freedom, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And when I think about Harvest Baptist Church, I would say those are critical. And I do know pastor Gary, there’s a big difference if you take the Bible.
And it’s one thing for you to say what the text is saying versus the text is saying, what it’s saying. So you’re trying to say this is what the text says versus you’re saying what the text is saying. So I know that’s what you do. I think that’s what the emphasis has been, and, I was just glad I didn’t drop the baton. I didn’t blow it up.
How does that sound?
Gary Walton: Well, God use you, Tammy, your family, your entire family so powerfully in those years here, and the DNA of Harvest from that point on will always be connected with the Heron’s ministry in very specific ways. We’re thankful for that and thankful to be, you you and I, Pastor Lewis, Pastor Peltier, Pastor Ring, have had the opportunity to really shepherd a very unique piece of God’s church. We are looking forward to having you guys coming. When we air this, it’ll be very short time, before you’re here. Can’t wait to have you back on Guam, back at Harvest, and looking forward to fellowship and just celebrating God’s goodness.
Marty Herron: Absolutely. Thank you. Privilege to be there. We look forward to being with you all and praying for a refreshing and celebratory time. Thank you.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. We’d like to personally invite you again to Harvest Baptist Church this week. We meet at 08:45AM and 10:45AM every Sunday morning. Japanese and Korean translation is offered during the 10:45AM service. That’s also the service we broadcast live on 88.1 FM and khmg.org.
We hope you can join us this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.