Tribute to Max Sommer, Amazing Man of Faith

To the family and friends of Max Sommer,

I am sorry for your loss.  He was a great friend of my wife and I who served with Max and Lisbeth at the SE church in Aurora Colorado, but also a close friend of ours.

I am attaching this note and perhaps the minister there or others might be willing to share a bit of it with those present at the celebration if they wish to do so.

Again thanks for emailing us.

Love,
Larry and Sheila WISHARD

Max Sommer, one of most amazing people I have ever met.

I went to my computer about 10.20pm ,4.6.17, and read for the first time of Max’s death.  I had not spoken to Max in about a year.  I knew he had moved to Grand Junction and that he had some health problems.

I first met max in about 1984 or 1985 when he and a group of friends from Castle Rock were going through some hard times due to a church transition and they needed some encouragement and wanted to help a church in the Denver suburbs.  The group chose to help was  SE church of Christ.

The group had started a new congregation on the first Sunday in June of 1981.  Sheila and our family had moved there to help with the work in 1983.  After a couple or three years were glad to have some additional people from Castle Rock to come to help us.  Sommers, Wassenars, Howards and some others came to be with us.

About 1988 we were struggling to get our first building built.  Max and Lisbeth were ready to help us in any way they could.  Max became the building committee chairman.  He pushed us to all give generously by his example giving  both time and money.  He was an oil man who had many years of walking life as an adventure.  This was a spiritual adventure.  Max and Lisbeth were ready to teach and comfort and encourage people in any way they could.

We had a group of mature men who met for fellowship, Bible study and encouragement who met on Thursday and noon and each Thursday for probably 15 years I had lunch on Thursday with Max and some other men.

When Max and Lisbeth moved from Castle Rock to Virginia they came back to our area and Max rejoined our Thursday men’s group.  He was a great supporter of any attempt to teach people about the love of God. 

I once had a man from “Safe Habor” men’s recovery group to speak to our men’s group and Max immediately began teaching on Tuesday evening to this group of men who had been homeless and were in a recovery and job training program.  At times I would join him in teaching this group.

Max also taught in prisons and juvenile detention centers in Colorado and Virginia.  He told me he always loved to start with the story of the prodigal son story Jesus taught recorded in Luke 15.   He said regardless of their age the men always loved this story.  Max had an excellent Education  and Excellent mind.  As the obituary tells us he received a Phd. In Geology.  He had mapped Greenland for his Doctoral work.  He had mapped Libya for oil.  He moved to America with Mobil I believe, but he worked for many companies, but had worked with small companies and his own company at times.  He knew that risk was a part of being in the oil business.  He had fire and zeal for the oil business and was a tremendous success, but there were also dry holes as well.

When Max was in his fifties he started listening to a teacher by the name of Neilson on the radio.  The Radio Bible hour.  He told me about stopping by a park on the way to work or home from work from the something on the radio and he had a spiritual encounter with Jesus through prayer and confession.  He was strengthened to seek further knowledge and community with Christians.  He and Lisbeth and Peter started to look for a church that taught the Bible.  He came to the Castle Rock church of Christ.  He said he didn’t know for six months who the “Pastor” was because all the people were so busy leading the church in prayers and lessons and he thought this was great.

He and Lisbeth and Peter became a part of the congregation and for many years worked there and then SE church and churches in Virginia and Parker Presbyterian Church. He also volunteered with Gideon’s as the Obituary mentions.  He loved the work of spreading the love of God with this group who distributed Bibles to prisons and hotels and other places.  He was a rebel and enjoyed placing Bibles in places where there was some resistance to it.

Max’s mind was brilliant, but his heart was even more rich to me.  He loved to expand thought about the origin of the universe.  He taught classes at our church on learning to overcome the walls between science and having a spiritual connection with God.

He was not into religion as much as he was into God and the Bible and people.  He loved to help encourage people with his gifts.  He was a natural people helper and would do anything he could to help anyone any where.  He loved Lisbeth and all his sons and their families.  He traveled home to Switzerland many times and his love for his homeland was great. 

Lisbeth was a worker in the Stephen’s Ministry program which helped people who were down in Spirit.  I  was able to talk to Lisbeth by phone as her health deteriorated.  Lisbeth and Max were a great team.  She supported Max totally, but challenged him at the same time.  We all loved to go to their home at Christmas to see the tree with candles on the tree.

The SE church of Christ building has been useful for the last 25 years or so for a place of worship, but for the last 15 years has also been used as a resource for a massive food bank work as well as a training place for youth and for children to be educated about the love of God.  I believe that God used Max and Leon Wassenar, good friends to help us kick start the building of that wonderful facility.

Much more could be written but I hope that you get some of the flavor of their work in the last few years from this note.

Max had said that when his funeral happened that I was a preacher who would know more about the “good, bad and ugly” of his life than any other preacher he had gotten to know.  Would I stand and tell a few fun stories if I had the chance.  I guess I will not have the chance but hopefully through this note the funeral home and the minister who does the service may be able to share a part of this with the group assembled for this celebration of Max’s life.

Larry Wishard

4.6.17