ZEALOUS APPRECIATION

I was twenty-four when I was appointed to serve the Jeannette, PA Free Methodist Church.  They had just finished a brand new building on a seven acre lot in the middle of a new development of homes in Harrison City.  Sadly, however, the congregation had experienced a severe division in the process and I inherited a congregation of about forty people - mostly older.

I was a well-educated college/seminary candidate with a year-and-a-half of experience from student-pastoring a church in the Hoosier mountains of southern Indiana.  Little did I know that my education was really just about to begin.

Realizing that the church desperately needed to grow to be able to handle its debt to the conference of over $70,000 (1976), I began teaching about evangelism and how to lead others to faith in Christ.  After six months - we had no new people.  :-(

I attended a mandatory minister's conference in New York where Dr. Wyn Arn trained us for several days on the methods of church growth via graphs, charts and strategies.  Upon returning home, I decided that if the people weren't going to grow the church, then I would try to do it.  I stopped much of what I had been doing and started down Oak Lane getting to know our neighbors.  I also began to visit people who had formerly attended the church.  

God blessed my efforts with dozens of new conversions.  Attendance doubled - and then tripled in a very short time!  Most of the growth was through family systems.  

[I hope to publish my memoirs, I Want to be a Preacher Like Uncle Hoppy, before fall this year.  Many of the details of this growth will be documented there.  Sadly, the Pittsburgh Conference closed the Jeannette Church and sold it just five years ago.]

One of the young women who came alive in Christ was extremely capable and zealous.  She stepped in and took over leading the Vacation Bible School that summer using almost all new people to staff it.  In working together, she learned that I had a longing for a brass cross and candle sticks for our Communion Table.

Low and behold, she secretly took up a collection and purchased this expensive gift.  At the closing program of the VBS, she presented it to me publicly.  I was overwhelmed with joy!  As I stepped forward to acknowledge the gift, I noticed that she had placed the followed plague on the bottom of the cross:

I joyfully accepted the gift.  

When everyone had left, I spoke with her privately and thanked her for her thoughtfulness and kindness.  After expressing my absolute joy at the expensive gift, I told her that it seemed awkward to have my name emblazoned on Christ's Cross.  She was an intelligent woman and quickly saw the delicacy of my situation.  She quickly removed it from the front of the cross and placed it on the back instead.  :-)

When I left that church, I removed it completely and just came across it today while sorting through old paraphernalia.  Good, good memories!  Thought I'd share this sweet, innocent story with you today!