This Little Life Of Mine - Chapter 40 The Northern Lights Thomas M Parsons

40. The Northern Lights

We had never heard of the town before. But we had an invitation to pulpit supply at a little church in north central Illinois that was in need of a pastor. We had been recommended to the church by no less than the National Representative of the GARBC. So on a Saturday in mid September of 1974, as trees began to yellow and redden and nights grew crisp, Linda and I got in our little green Valiant and drove from Flint, Michigan to Oglesby, Illinois. Actually, we did not drive all the way to Oglesby that day. We decided to stay in a motel in nearby Ottawa, and then drive the rest of the way the next day. We enjoyed traveling and staying in motels, so that was not a problem for us. It was Sunday, September 15 when we drove the remaining few miles on Interstate 80, then south to the small town of 3,900 souls.

Our first impression as we drove down Woodland to its intersection with Porter was that the large tan church building on our left was quite beautiful, stately and perhaps just a little Gothic. Then our eyes were drawn to the right side of the road where a somewhat dirty little brick building crumbling from time and neglect met our eyes. The tan building was the Holy Family Catholic Church. The brick building was the First Baptist Church of Oglesby, Illinois.

Buildings do not a church make, people do. And we met the few people who worshiped regularly at First Baptist. They were a little nervous about having a prospective pastor on the scene. That’s okay. I was a little nervous, too.

One couple we met that day impressed us with their devotion to the Lord and their love for this little church. Joe and Eileen fed us dinner that day, and gave us a place to spend the afternoon before the evening service. Joe and Eileen had two married daughters who did not live in the small house on Second Avenue, having moved from the area several years earlier. Joe worked in a factory; Eileen was the principal of one of the two elementary schools in town.

Joe was a simple man. He had been raised in a large family and had little more than a high school education. He had been a blue collar worker all his adult life. He was a hard worker, but he was not a leader or a decision maker or the man you would go to for advice. He had several pet phrases he loved to use. Whenever anything was served to him at a meal he would always say, “It looks delicious.” Even if it was warmed up left overs. And after a meal he would always say, “That was delicious.” Even if it tasted like scrap metal served on a rusty garbage can. He would use these phrases at home, at someone else’s home and at restaurants. And he always sounded sincere when he said it. Either the man had developed the fine art of cuisinary complements to a high degree, or he had no taste buds.

Eileen was the opposite of her husband. Where he was phlegmatic and sanguine, she was choleric and melancholic. She always had an opinion, a strong opinion. And she felt things very deeply. If I have ever met an odd couple in real life, it was Joe and Eileen. Odd because despite their very obvious differences in temperment, intellect and interests, they got along together very well. Although Eileen was clearly the more educated of the two with a much more highly developed degree of decision making skills, she always consulted with Joe and asked his opinion and told him it was his decision to make. But he always wisely made her decision his. Thus he was the head of his home, but he had the advantage of the superior thinking skills of his wife to aid him. We had an enjoyable afternoon visiting with Joe and Eileen, then preached at the poorly attended evening service, drove back to our motel in Ottawa, and then, the next day, back to Flint.

We soon received word from the church inviting us back as a candidate for the pastorate there. We agreed on the first Sunday in October. We stayed in the same motel in Ottawa, and spent the day at the church, benefitting from the hospitality of Joe and Eileen for the afternoon.

I do not remember, nor do I have a record of what I preached at those morning and evening services. Nor do I have a record of or memory of the attendances at those two services. I do remember meeting with the deacons in the afternoon. We discussed my salary needs, the ministry of the church, attendances, and the other things potential pastors discuss with potential churches. The men said they would put my name to a vote of the congregation on Wednesday, just three days hence. Since the deacons represented the majority of the families in the church, and since the deacons were in agreement concerning me becoming their pastor, the vote seemed a mere formality. But I was not yet certain. There certainly were problems lurking in the background of this little church. In the sixty-six years of their existence, the church had had more than thirty pastors. That means each pastor stayed less than two years. That usually is a warning flag for a man considering a church.

It was on the way back to our motel that night that Linda and I became convinced we were going to Oglesby. Driving east on Interstate 80 somewhere between Ottawa and the metro Chicago area, we literally saw a sign in the sky. As I was driving, Linda looked past me into the northern night sky. “Look,” she said, pointing to the window to my left.

I looked. Stretched across the flat horizon of northern Illinois, bright and beautiful shimmered the aurora borealis, the northern lights. It is rare for the lights to shine as far south as northern Illinois. It happens, but only infrequently. And to add to it, we were speeding across the highway toward the northern Illinois city called Aurora. It was too much for my beautiful young wife. “It’s a sign,” she said. “God wants us in Oglesby.”

Wednesday night Emmanuel had its quarterly business meeting. An hour earlier, because Illinois is the Central time zone, First Baptist Church of Oglesby, Illinois called Rev. Thomas M. Parsons to be their thirtysomething pastor. The invitation was extended through a phone call from Deacon Harold Gunn. I thanked him, and told him Linda and I would be much in prayer about the decision and we would let him know in, I believe I said, one week.

There was much planned in Flint for that October of 1974. A dentist appointment for me. A wedding at the church. A missionary speaker from Bangladesh. A visit to my family in Lincoln Park. A vacation trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. Gen-O-Shi-La meetings. And a counseling session with a young couple seeking to be married. Since I was the only pastor at Emmanuel at the time, they asked me to perform the ceremony, my first wedding ceremony.

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I met with the couple the day after the deadline to let Oglesby know of our decision. I called Deacon Gunn after prayer meeting the day we decided. That Sunday, the day before leaving on our week-long trip to the Smokies, I read my resignation to the people of Emmanuel. We had spent just a month or so less than four years at the church.

The wedding was two weeks later. We had the rehearsal on Friday night, and the wedding was on Saturday night. The church was beautifully decorated with candles and flowers. I was almost as nervous as the day nearly six years earlier when I had stood at the front of First Baptist in Beech Grove, Indiana watching my beautiful Linda coming down the aisle on the arm of her father. No. That is not true. I really was not very nervous on my own wedding day. Excited. Not nervous. Full of anticipation. Not nervous. Delighted. Not nervous.

But this was not my wedding. It was the special day of two young people to whom I had ministered for the past four years. If I messed it up, my mistakes would live on in the retelling of them for generations to come. Fortunately this was prior to the invention of the video camera that enables any one to record with alarming accuracy everything that happens. And had the television series America’s Funniest Home Videos been more than a dream in a television producer’s imagination, my errors would still be playing out in television reruns.

Everything went fine, until the exchanging of the rings. This is always a delicate part of the ceremony. It would be extremely easy for someone to drop the ring, since it is handed from the best man to the pastor and then to the groom who places it on his bride’s finger. But it was not a ring subjected to the force of gravity that made this a memorable wedding.

There is a line I had to say. It is a simple enough line. I say to the groom, "Place the ring on her finger and repeat after me." Only that is not what I said. It came out, "Place the ringer on her finger and repeat after me." Ringer. Not ring. Ringer. It rhymed. Ringer. Finger. But it was not supposed to rhyme. It was not supposed to be said that way at all.

A chuckle swept through the audience. The groom chuckled as he placed the “ringer” on his bride’s finger. The bride just continued to look sweet and beautiful as brides always do.

But I knew the line was coming again. There was another ring, the one the bride would place on her husband’s finger. I would have to say the line again to the bride. I was determined to say it right. “Ring” I said in my mind. “Finger.” “Ring.” “Finger.”

The maid of honor handed the ring to the bride. So far so good. The bride prepared to place it on the awaiting finger of the groom. I had to say the line.

“Put the ringer on his finger.”

The people could not contain themselves. Laughter lightened the atmosphere of the wedding room. I probably turned red. Even the bride had to laugh at this one.

I long ago lost contact with the groom and his bride who were married that day. But I am sure somewhere in Michigan more than thirty years after their wedding, they are still telling the story of the real ringer of a wedding they had!

Soon the dreaded and anticipated day arrived. Anticipated, certainly. It is always exciting to move on. There were new people. New experiences. The Lord’s will. All waited for us in Oglesby, Illinois.

But saying “goodbye” to the people in Flint was not easy. They were friends. They had been good to us. They had sent us to a conference in San Diego. They had allowed us to live in their four-bedroom parsonage even though there were only the two of us in our family. They had given us opportunities to minister to them, in preaching services, in counseling sessions, in hospital experiences, in funerals, and, yes, in weddings. But now we had to say goodbye. They had a special service for us. They sang some of our favorite hymns. They gave testimony of our time with them. They had a fellowship time afterwards. They had a huge cake which had Romans 8:28 on it. All things work together for good.

It is true. All things do work together for good to God’s people. God leads His children and blesses them for His own glory. But all things working together for good does not mean all things are pleasant experiences. It is not pleasant parting company with people you love and have ministered to and with. But even the unpleasant things work together for good. God wanted us to move to Illinois. Saying goodbye to the people in Flint was a necessary part of that move.

So once again the revolving door was spinning, and Linda and I exited with one dog and one cat and our meager belongings. After all, who could say no to a God Who displayed the Northern Lights for you to help you decide His will?

Emmanuel moved from its location to Davison, MI a few years after Linda and I left. The old building is now the property of another Baptist congregation which has torn down the parsonage in which Linda and I lived, and added a beautiful, large auditorium to the structure that served as the church when we were there. Although it has been nearly forty years since we were part of the Emmanuel family, We are in contact with some individuals from the church on Facebook today.