Robinson, Lindsey (1949-2008)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 May 12 p. 3

Birth date: 1949

text of obituary:

Lancaster Conference minister remembered for vision and passion

Robinson brought diverse background to his ministry

By Jewel Showalter

For EMM and Lancaster Conference

LANCASTER, Pa. — Lindsey Robinson met Jesus in a life-changing way at a Tom Skinner rally in the late 1960s. His journey of faith led him to the Mennonite church, where he blended deep love for God with concern for peace and social justice.

Robinson, a pastor and leader in Lancaster Mennonite Conference and the New Testament Fellowship of Anabaptist/Mennonite Churches, died Feb. 4. He was 59.

When Robinson took his first Lancaster Conference pastorate in 1982, "I never imagined the blessing he'd be to our district and conference, as well as the worldwide Mennonite church," said John Kraybill, former bishop of Lancaster's Harrisburg District, at a memorial service at Mellinger Mennonite Church on April 26.

Robinson preached a sermon at the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Zimbabwe in 2003.

He served with Eastern Mennonite Missions and in various roles with Lancaster Conference from 1982 to 2004.

Richard Showalter, president of EMM, called Robinson "a radical disciple of Jesus" — a modern-day Celtic-Waldensian-Anabaptist-Moravian-Pentecostal Mennonite.

Robinson's diverse religious experience began with a nominal Methodist childhood in Chicago. It continued through Roman Catholicism, student activism at DePaul University and then in the Pentecostal church, the faith community of his wife, Myra.

In Pentecostalism, Robinson missed the "gospel of social righteousness." After reading Anabaptist history and meeting Mennonites while teaching in Philadelphia public schools, he asked Myra, "Why don't we move to the Mennonites?"

Robinson became a Mennonite pastor, serving at Hamilton Street and Locult Lane Mennonite churches in Harrisburg. He joined EMM as associate director of home ministries, serving from 1982 to 1992. He served as conference minister of Lancaster Conference for seven years before becoming general secretary of the New Testament Fellowship of Anabaptist/Mennonite Churches in 2004.

Keith Weaver, Lancaster Conference moderator, said Robinson "was always passionate about raising up leaders and had a heart for evangelism."

Showalter described Robinson as "crystal clear on the core of our faith, and he saw our spiritual blind spots better than most. When we were tempted to allow our ethnic loyalties to trump our loyalty to Jesus, he called our hand."

Lawrence Chiles, bishop of the Koinonia Fellowship of Churches, moderated the memorial service, which was attended by people from Lancaster Confernce and virtually all the Anabaptist networks the conference has spawned in the past decade.

Chiles remembered the day that he, Robinson and Robert Suggs, a former pastor of Locust Lane, stood at the back of the Lancaster Conference Leadership Assembly. As the three African-American leaders looked out on all the plainly clothed Swiss-German Mennonites, Suggs asked, "How in the world did we end up here?"

Robinson once said: "I joined the Mennonite church for theological reasons. If I ever leave, it will also be for theological reasons. I don't have sociological reasons for sticking with the tribe."

E. Daniel Martin, a former Lancaster Conference bishop who preached at the memorial service, said Robinson never allowed his health problems to define him.

"God granted him four more years of life than doctors originally projected," Martin said. "May the mantle from Lindsey fall on each of us."