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39. A Revolving Door
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“I’ll need you to take prayer meeting this Wednesday,” Pastor Christen said to me one cold day in February of 1974. “I have to go to Clarks Summit this week.”
Two thoughts flitted through my mind at the same instant. First, Pastor is making one of his routine trips to Clarks Summit and second, I get to conduct the service Wednesday night!
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, is the home of Baptist Bible College, one of several colleges which at the time were associated with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. Pastor Christen, a graduate of the school, now served on its board. Several times a year he had to make the trip to the school for business meetings. Little did I know that this year would bring major changes to both his and my ministries.
We heard from the choir from BBC the next month when they presented a concert on a Monday night at Emmanuel. We heard from BBC again in April when one of their popular coaches came to preach at our church.
Pastor was also on the board of one of the mission agencies also associated with the GARBC. This also took him away from church from time to time. But I began to have some reasons to be away from church as well. In May a pulpit committee from Northgate Baptist Church in Port Huron came to Emmanuel to talk to me after I had preached there on a Wednesday night a week or so earlier. I had also preached at a little church with the unlikely name of Lickley Corners Baptist Church.
Now there was a reason I was suddenly getting involved with other churches. Pastor Christen announced to me, and then to the church, that he was accepting a teaching position at Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania beginning in the fall. If he was going to leave Emmanuel, I felt it was time for me to leave as well. |
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One opportunity for preaching took Linda and me all the way to the First Baptist Church of Oak Creek, Wisconsin. That was in August. But none of these opportunities led to a call from any of these churches.
The last Sunday in August of 1974 was Pastor Christen’s last Sunday at Emmanuel. We had dinner with the family at an older member’s house. We talked about the two years of ministry we had with them, and about what the future might hold. Of course, we never really know what the future holds. Maybe in a general way, but we never know the specifics and we cannot always be certain the generalities will hold true either.
Over the years people have passed into and out of my life with great regularity. They come into my life and then leave. There is absolutely no one in this world who has been my friend every step of the way since day one. Not my parents. Not my siblings. Not even my wife has been there all the time. It is as if our lives have a revolving door with people coming and going constantly. Some come back through the revolving door at a later time. Most don’t.
So the Christens left Emmanuel in August of 1974 to go to Clarks Summit. Linda and I were left behind, but in a short time we would ourselves go through the revolving door to enter the major ministry of our lives.
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