To Be Chester Metz

The following is a true story about my good friend, Chester Metz. He gave me permission to post the story and the photograph onto this blog. It's been nearly two years since I wrote this and I'm happy to report that Chester is alive, kicking and inspiring as ever. Be blessed.

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To Be Chester Metz

1973. Chester Metz staggered along a dark, secluded street in Long Island, New York. A car slowed to a stop. Two strangers got out and approached the four-foot-eight drunk. They beat him, marring a face

After church with Chester Metz

already disfigured by congenital paralysis.

Police found Metz alone, bruised, bloodied, still drunk. They drove him to a hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair his facial wounds. After a night’s rest, he mustered the energy to leave his room. Wandering through the halls, he approached a statue of Christ. He stood before it, transfixed. Metz began to cry: “Oh God, help me!”

The next morning, a taxi driver arrived at the hospital with orders to take Chester to an alcohol treatment facility. The cabby didn’t have directions, so he changed course and dropped his battered passenger at the local welfare office. A social worker directed Chester to a nearby shelter.

He walked several blocks to the Shiloh House. The shelter was part of the California-based Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, which led the charge during the “Jesus People” movement of the late-1960s and 70s.

Chester arrived at the house scarred from a twenty-eight-year lifetime of physical and emotional wounds. He encountered caring Christians, who shared the Good News of Christ’s love and salvation.

One day, while reading a booklet that explained how to find salvation through Jesus, Chester wandered into the Shiloh house bathroom. He noticed a prayer printed on a back page of the book. At that moment, the Holy Spirit powerfully touched Chester’s heart. He placed his faith in Christ by reciting the printed prayer of salvation. Chester exited the bathroom a born-again Christian.

“My heart was a ball of fire,” he recalls, “and I knew that God was purging out the bad and the old, and putting in the new and the good.”

God instantly removed Chester’s desire for alcohol and cigarettes. His cravings for sugar also ceased. He had previously been diagnosed with borderline diabetes. All signs of the disease disappeared.

After a year at the Long Island shelter, he and a friend hitchhiked across the country to Shiloh’s seventy-acre commune in Dexter, Oregon. Chester immersed himself in intensive Bible training at their Study Center. This formed the foundation for his lifelong ministry.

Fast-forward to 2015. Chester, 69, lives in a tiny one-room apartment in Springfield, Oregon. When in public, he sports a suit, tie, slacks (often plaid), dress hat, and running shoes. He walks slowly, with a cane, and easily strikes up conversations with those around him. No one gets away without hearing his jokes. His short stature, unique visage, formal attire and big personality make Chester an unforgettable local fixture.

Chester awakens each morning thanking God for the new day, enjoying fellowship with Him. While shaving, showering and eating breakfast, he prays for the people in his life. After a short rest, he leaves the apartment to begin his daily voluntary ministry. A caregiver accompanies him five days a week, assisting with chores, shopping and other needs.

His voice muffled somewhat by the facial paralysis, Chester describes his calling: “Every day, to pray for people, minister to people, encourage, share the gospel, whatever it is that God would lay on my heart to do, that would be for His glory and for the purpose of salvation….”

He accomplishes this ministry by visiting people in coffee shops, restaurants, stores and businesses throughout Springfield. “He [God] has given me the gift of encouragement, the gift to love and uplift someone, the gift of laughter.”

Sundays, Chester attends Ekklesia, a large, trendy, youthful church. He arrives early and leaves late, fellowshipping with and hugging anyone willing to bend down to his level.

Chester has endured a lifetime of hard knocks, beginning at birth with the facial paralysis. Two botched “corrective” surgeries further marred his face. His expression is frozen. Whether happy or upset, Chester can’t form a smile or a frown.

In boyhood, his tiny stature drew the wrath of bullies, who ridiculed and sometimes beat him. The bullying decreased after high school, but Chester began drinking heavily. He continued to live with his parents. When he came home drunk, his father would severely beat him.

Chester suffered debilitating headaches between 1977 and 1979. At that time he attended a church that emphasized miraculous healing. For two weeks, the leaders prayed for God to take away the headaches. Healing didn’t occur, so they asked Chester to leave the church.

This rejection led to disillusionment. For a few years Chester rarely attended church. Eventually he plugged back into regular fellowship.

Today, fellowship defines him. “Especially recently, God has brought my life to a point where I not only value, but really love my brothers and sisters, and not [to] just say it, but do it in deed and in truth, with prayer or acts of love, ministering to them.”

In 2011, he began dialysis when his kidneys failed. Then God healed him -- instantly. “That was a miracle,” he says, “…I should have died, but the Lord greatly intervened.”

How can someone with all the bad breaks in life be full of so much love and joy? Instead of dwelling on his hardships, Chester cultivates his relationships with God and others. “I continue to pray and spend time in His Word, remembering most of all to keep my relationship and fellowship [with God] going. And to reach out to others in love, whether it’s a word of encouragement or to pray with them -- continue to let God be glorified in everything I say and do….”

When asked what guidelines he lives by, he explains the JOY principle: “You want to get real joy? Put Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.”

Chester promotes the power of prayer, citing Luke 11:9 as a favorite verse, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened unto you.”

Is he afraid of death? “No, certainly not, because His perfect love casts out fear…. Before I got saved, I had torment, I was afraid of death, ...when we love the brethren and love God first…there is no fear there, but there’s a peace and a joy, knowing where you’re going after you leave.”

To be Chester Metz is to live within a paradox of hardship and miracles. To be Chester Metz is to continually view people below shoulder level. It is to speak words of joy from a glad heart, to create smiles in others -- though your own face can’t form a smile. It is to fearlessly stare death and life in the face. To be Chester Metz is to know and love God, and to love others above yourself.