The Story Behind The Name 

Al & Enid Sloan: AE Sloan Leadership


Reverend Bolsinger? My name is Al Sloan and I’m calling from the Pastor Nominating Committee of San Clemente Presbyterian Church.”

That call in October 1996 changed my life. Not only did I end up serving as the pastor at San Clemente Presbyterian for seventeen years, but Al and his wife, Enid, became dear friends and mentors to Beth and me, and surrogate grandparents to our children.

Raised on farms in Iowa at the end of the Great Depression, Al and Enid were hardworking, loving, and caring souls. They had met in the seventh grade and were married over sixty years. After moving to California with their young family, they had both been successful real estate brokers, and Al went on to become president of the company.

While they raised their son and daughter, they were volunteer youth leaders at their church and grew a youth group to over one hundred kids. They moved to our little beach town in retirement. When I first arrived at the church as the new pastor, without even knowing me well, Al took me to lunch and said, “Enid and I decided that if I was on the nominating committee then we were committing to not only help the church find the new pastor but also help the new pastor thrive here.

"We are committed to doing everything in our power to help you have a great ministry and a great life.”

A great ministry and a great life.

Look at those words again. If you are a pastor or a leader, you probably have a lump in your throat. You know what a huge gift Al and Enid Sloan gave our family as we served that congregation we loved.

 The very first day we arrived in San Clemente on an overcast day, in a house still filled with boxes, Al arrived to take me to the presbytery meeting where I would officially be enrolled in the presbytery. Sixty-eight-year-old Al introduced thirty-three-year-old me to every pastor and leader in the presbytery with the booming words “Come meet Tod; he’s my pastor!”

Meanwhile back in our rented house, Enid held our three-month-old daughter all day so Beth could unpack some boxes and start to make the semblance of a home.

Al served on the Session, became a full-time volunteer director of lay ministry at the church, wrote thousands of brightly colored postcards of encouragement (which he called “Barnabas Cards” after the early apostle first mentioned in Acts 4), and was a mentor to me as I learned to manage and lead a team. Enid was a deacon, a spiritual friend to many, and a partner to Al in reviving a senior ministry at the church. One evening each week they watched our young kids so Beth and I could have a date night. They regularly came to our home, filling it with love and laughter. Today, Al and Enid have passed away, but their legacy in my life and in the life of the two churches they served as lay leaders for most of their adult lives continues.

In the years after I left San Clemente Presbyterian Church to go to Fuller Seminary to teach and train Christian leaders, they became wise mentors, prayer partners, and sources of wisdom, encouragement, and, many times, challenge. Today, I have three of Al’s bright Barnabas Cards in my office, the strong handwriting emphasized with underlining.

“What are you doing for the Kingdom of God today, Tod?”

The last time that Beth and I were with Al, just days before he died, he took our hands, I kissed his cheek, and he mistakenly called me by his son’s name. With all the intensity and energy he could summon he said,

 “You are mine. You two are my kids. You are mine.”

Those were the last words I ever heard from the man who made up the solid iron core of an anvil that even today holds me and grounds me in love