T h a t c h u r c h has meddled enough in my private life. I’m going to blow it up!” This was the import of a threat delivered by a man whose family had found the Lord at our little congregation. It was one of the challenges that showed us the reality of preaching the Gospel — no hot-house situation, but the real thing. I have never ceased to thank God for the training received at BIOLA which warned us not to expect a big church after graduation but to be willing to take some thing small or start one from scratch. I’m sure most of the members of our class felt they were going to dp great things but few imagined that they would begin anywhere but at the bottom and work up! Just before I graduated, a friend asked me if I would help in the Sunday School in Museum Heights Commun ity Church located about six miles from the old down town location of BIOLA. I had wanted to start out on my own, so I accepted. Fellow-Biolan Claude Crawford was the pastor and after a few months he left to take more schooling in the east. The church had a custom that the Sunday School superintendant more or less automatically should become the pastor so I was now the spiritual leader of a church. Museum Heights was located near the famous South west Indian Museum whence its name (I think we had some of the Indians in our Sunday school). It was a struggling work, halfway up Mount Washington, the highest mountain in the center of Los Angeles city. The neighbors were highly transient or not interested. If we worked hard we got maybe sixty out with few adults. It also was not a paying situation financially. The pastor received five dollars a week, if we had enough after paying the rent on this little upstairs part of a small building. The kids couldn’t' help much and the adults were hard-pressed. Well do we remember complaining in a business meeting: “There hasn’t been even enough money to pay the pastor this last month.” Voice from the rear: “ I know where we can get a pastor that will preach for nothing.” I have never been a good preacher but I shudder now to think of what those dear folks put up with. I’m certain my ignorance was all too often revealed, but they patiently bore it and helped more than they knew by listening and counseling. After a bright sermon on the subject that Christians ought always to smile because of their salvation, one of the saints took me aside and said quietly: “You know, Stan, Mrs. So-and-So can’t always smile. You have no idea the burden she bears from her home life.” I began to learn something about life and people. Some of the experiences were hard. For example, the man who threatened to blow up the church likely was not kidding. The police found dynamite on a routine investigation of his house. You also learned by the situa tions in which you found yourself: I was hoeing weeds in the church front yard when I received an urgent sum mons to go to the bed of a dying neighbor. When I ar rived, he was no longer conscious — and he was not a Christian. I heard somewhere that often people can hear though they seem oblivious to things about them. So I spoke close to his ear the plan of salvation. I trust he
heard and accepted! Ah, but with all the problems there was the unity in Christ. We had the church suppers, not to make money, but just for fellowship. I can still taste those wonderful baked beans, potato salad and the lemon pie. We had a communion that few large churches can share! The little church never appeared like much more than what it was — the upstairs part of a grocery store. However, we worked hard to make it look someth in g like a church. We put on decorative shutters to help the plainness of the windows. We also put up new curtains and sanded and varnished the floor — it helped a little. There were the little problems and some that were not so little. These were worries over how we could pay the rent; how we might possibly find three thousand dollars to buy the building. We had upheavals and downheavals but we always struggled through. We had help from the wonderful students from BIOLA like Fred Bailey and Neva Satterlee who gave of their time and paid their own car fare to teach the wiggly group of urchins. Time came for me to leave for the mission field. The church passed on to Jim Huckabay who in turn left for Venezuela and surrendered it to another BIOLA student. Finally, little Museum Heights fell into hard times. It was given to a student of a local seminary who didn’t seem to grasp the idea behind the church and didn’t have the help of the BIOLA students. Key families left and somehow after years of service the ragged little church was no more. One may ask: “To what use was this feverish activity for such a little place?” As I thought on this here in Brazil, it finally dawned upon my mind just what the people of the church had been doing. It was true they had not seen any great de velopments or heard mighty sermons but they had been training workers for the bigger jobs in the Lord’s harvest. Listen to a partial roll call of those who worked there and went on to other fields: Eddie Wagner, until he recently took a pastorate, one of the nation’s top young evangelists; Claude Parkhill, successful pastor; Claude Crawford, teacher in a Bible school; Jim Huckabay, sec ond-term missionary in Venezuela; Larry Ray, Brazil; Glen Irwin, Costa Rica; and yours truly in Brazil for a third term. Bless their hearts, those dear folks. They put up with our half-baked sermons and immature counseling. Some one had to that we might learn! And listen, friend, there ought to be many such places and many such people to train the pastors of the future. Could you help a stu dent by your presence in a Small work? Maybe you could. Not too long ago I went back to look at the little church just before we returned to Brazil. It’s just a house today and there is no light in the neighborhood now. But as I looked at the place in the afternoon sun, I could almost see the happy group of yesteryear on the old wooden stairs talking, making plans after the service. I bowed my head and thanked God for all that He and it had done for me. No congregation will ever mean so much to me again. by Stan Best
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TH E KING'S BUSINESS
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