“Give Each Other a Hug”

Remembering Jim Durdan

Jim and Sue Durdan were “snow birds.” They spent winter months on Sanibel Island, Florida. Jim sent several Happy New Year cards to the church. We have five in our memory file. Each note ends with the line, “Take care of each other and give everyone a hug.” A review of our bulletins from those early years uncovered several articles by Jim. Last week we reprinted his first one dated July, 1974. It ended with these words: 1 John 3:11 “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” I discovered several more articles by Jim that ended with 1 John 3:11. In one article Jim announced his intention to visit in the home of every member. Citing this passage, he encouraged all members to do the same.

Jim was a very practical Christian. It seems to me that there is a strong relationship between the ending of those articles with the command to love one another in 1 John 3:11 and the ending of those notes with the “command” to give each other a hug. It sounds like Paul’s ending to many of his letters, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; Rom. 16:16). If we are not into kissing, maybe we can do more hugging.

Honor such men as Jim. Small churches need “enough of a minister but not too much of a minister.” They do not need a minister who does it all since many of them become ministers to one-another. Paul commends some of the first converts in Corinth, the house of Stephanas, who “devoted themselves to the service of the saints” (1 Cor. 16:15-16). Jim Durdan was a “Stephanas” devoted to the service in this church and in the community.” Paul says, “Give recognition to such men.” Not just in a funeral service do we honor such a man as Jim; we honor his memory when we, both men and women, become “such as these” (1 Cor. 16:16). Jim’s last card from Florida ended, “Yes Hug!”

—Tom Yoakum