THE CHURCH chapter 157

The church was an interesting and attractively well kept small church. There were probably about two hundred and fifty people in regular attendance. The building sat in a “T” formation right next to a hospital. There shared part of their parking lot. The church had very few parking spaces. The education wing was to the left and the sanctuary to the right. The pastor’s office was on the second floor at the top of the stairs.

I don’t think I had an office. I could be wrong but I usually just used an available classroom. I never had a relationship with the pastor. I was never in his office except for board meetings. We never met for anything, not even to get acquainted. He never asked to meet with me and he delayed every attempt I made to set up a time to meet. I just wanted to know his goals and dreams for the church. I assumed he had some. I thought they might even be written down somewhere. I think I was wrong. It was clear that lay people ran the various ministries of the church. Faith had served as their Christian education director but it was a big load for her as a full time elementary school teacher. As far as I could tell, the pastor preached. He may have done some visitation and met with some people, that’s what he said, but I didn’t see that he did much else. I honestly didn’t understand his role.

The church had some past difficulties with pastors and let one go that maybe they should not. This made them somewhat cautious in confronting him. Besides, he was a great storyteller and people seemed to enjoy his preaching. He was humorous. I did not find him inspiring and didn’t really pay that much attention, but I laughed with everyone else. I should have been more focused. I know Della never liked the man. The first time she met him he hugged her and she felt contaminated. She promised that she would never let him touch her again. He tried, but she managed to avoid him every time.

I was at the church so seldom and had to make every moment I was there count so I finally gave up trying to meet with him. I didn’t know what was going on, but the church was running smoothly and I wasn’t real sure why they needed me, but I was glad for the job. Della and I debated how involved we should be and whether to even let ourselves get too close to the people since we would only be there two years. The deeper the commitment the harder it would be to leave, and we were leaving. I had a future commitment. In the end we decided is would not be fair to the church or to ourselves if we held everyone at arms distance. We would only have a ministry is we jumped in with both feet. And that we did! That was a good decision. We established some of the deepest relationships of any place we ever lived.

I spent the first several weeks meeting with the heads of the various ministries attempting to get the pulse of the church. The worst problem I could see was that because of everyone’s busy schedules and commitment to their ministries they just weren’t talking to one another and that created some schedule and cross purpose problems. I set out to establish a Christian education committee to pull them together.

I spent a great deal of time with the Rouses and Stanwoods talking about the church. These two families in particular took us in and cared for us in ways we never expected. They invited Della and I to join them and some other couples in their supper club. We were taken to some of the most wonderful and unique restaurants in the area.

 Our first visit to Disneyland was with the Greater Los Angeles Christian Education Association. Faith had secured tickets for everyone at the church who wanted to go. Disneyland was rented for a party and as most first time visitors we were also in awe. 

BACK TO COLLEGE chapter 156

I drove over to Biola University the day before registration just to get oriented. I wanted to know where everything was and where I should park. I don’t really like surprises. Registration was in the gym. I was registering as a senior. I knew what I had to take to get my BA; I was short in science, history, and something called general liberal arts credit. Even though but I still had register as though I had not preregistered and stand in way too many lines.

I clocked the distance to form home to school to determine if I could ride my bike to school. I hated the thought of Della being home everyday without transportation. I knew she was very nervous about even the thought of driving in this part of the world. but what  if she needed something or there was an emergency? I spend some time driving to the primary places she might need to go just to get her oriented. It was not likely she would explore very much. Her sense of direction was not real strong.

Registration was not as simple as I suspected. It felt like they were purposely complicating things. Biola is a large school very large school and hundreds were registering in the over crowded gym.

I was short two credits in science courses so registered for a two one credit Science workshop classes — one each semester. That turned out to be a presentation class. Each student was to take a topic and make a presentation. I tried to get assigned to an early presentation to get it over with. The rest of the time all I had to do was sit there and listen. First semester I compared chiropractic care with acupuncture. I didn’t have any real experience with acupuncture, but had some with chiropractic. I hoped I hoped I could raise some questions. We got extra points for class discussion. It worked. Second semester I presented a visual and tasting class with soy foods. I really did try to find some of the worst tasting soy food available and at least one tolerable one. Lorraine Stanfield has served a soy based hamburger main dish at one of the many meals at her home. I thought it tasted real good. I assumed carrot and celery juice would be awful. It was.

Don't know what building this is. It may even be new,
but it's in the same style as the others. It was a very large
campus and even bigger now.

I took another class in Greek with the assumption that I really didn’t know anything. I didn’t. It was a general liberal arts class. I wanted to improve my grade. I felt like it would fundamentally be a waste of my time as I was quite sure I would never use it. But if I could pull off a B I would not have to take it in seminary. Naturally I thought it would be easier at the college level.

I took a couple of Christian Education class’s classes, One from Stan Lenard and the other from Dr. Bynum. I enjoyed both these guys I needed some more credits in history and the professor turned me on to that subject. It was all dates and events before this one but he made it come alive.

The final registration step was to pay for the semester. For that we went to the finance office. My hair was a little long in those days. It was just slightly over my ears but not over my collar. My hair was wavy and the longer it got the curlier it became. The staff member I walked up to took one look at me and said he could not register me until I got a haircut. Yes, I was ticked off. His hair was longer than mine. “Why!” “It’s the rules.” ”Why was I not informed of this ridiculous rule before arriving.” At that he handed me a rulebook. Just for the sake of being stubborn I told him I did not want to cut my hair. “I really don’t care what you don’t want to do. You must cut your hair.” I told him that his hair was longer than mine. He rudely informed me that these rules were for students, not faculty and staff. I fumed.

I had a few days to get that done. I would not be permitted to attend classes until I returned for him to approve my hair cut. I felt like an 18 year old and told him so. He didn’t really like me. That was fine. I didn’t really like him.

Very similar style to the one I rode.

I got my haircut, purchased some too expensive books that I did not want to buy and began classes on time. Parking was really a pain at the college. I was having to park too far from my classes for my tastes. I rode my bike to school four days a week and took the car on Tuesdays so I could go on to work at the church that day.

I had made a promise to Della that when I was home, I would be totally at home at least until the kids went to bed. That meant that I did all I could to get my homework done in the library before going home. I had no trouble pulling that off at Biola. I was always home by 3:30 and rarely had homework at night. I also decided I would tackle as much class work as possible right away so I did not get into time pressures that would pull me away from the family. Frankly, I had never accomplished that kind of discipline in the past, but I did it and Della was happy.