THE HARDEST THING I EVER HAD TO DO!

PART ONE - BACKGROUND

In 1995, I made a change in our family's plans that had a massive impact. I initiated a move from a church that I had led for thirteen years. I was exhausted! It had - in many ways - been a wonderful appointment with many conversions, significant growth, and a fully transitioned church! But I had been ground up in the tension between an older, guardian group and a younger, passionate group. I was the buffer between these camps and had paid a dear price for a long time. Consequently, I created a change. My parents had died and I lost trust in the conference leadership, so I sent resume's out across the church – as far as (remarkably) the Pacific northwest! I ultimately accepted an appointment to a small congregation in Spencerville, Maryland. 

This was NOT the hardest thing I ever did! That is yet to come.

The move was a challenge for our family. Spencerville is just outside the Washington, D.C. beltway and was a fast-growing cosmopolitan area. We had to learn shortcuts to go anywhere because the traffic was thoroughly congested [Sometimes we waited 10 minutes just to get out of our driveway!]. Troy and Tracie were part of a small minority group in the public school with the general population being fairly equally split between Asian, Hispanic and Middle Eastern students.  .

Having moved from Appalachia, we were now living in one of the most affluent counties in the country! We felt the financial shock IMMEDIATELY!  Leaving Ohio, family and friends had been hard; Troy and I suffered significant depression throughout that first summer as a result of this relocation. The fact that it was a summer of record-breaking heat - with no air conditioning in our new home - added to our stress.

We lived in the parsonage - on the church property - which was several acres of flat land with a pavilion. Travis had just begun his four years at the Naval Academy in Annapolis - 26 miles away. Consequently, we got to see him during a lot of Saturdays after he qualified for 'leave'. 

The church received us with kindness after having just said "Good-bye" to a very long-term pastor and his wife! They were somewhat wounded as a result of this pastoral change, but their leadership was very gracious to us and we were well received. 

The congregation averaged about forty. This was quite a change from leaving a church that was running around two hundred! The pace was slower and I was given time for respite and healing. 

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It’s important to note that my ‘Call’ to ministry has never been easy for me. I found leading churches to be frustrating because of slow-adaptors and resistance to change! I had nearly left the ministry in 1984, during a time when I was vigorously pursuing my education and burning the candle at both ends!

 

I had become fascinated with the concept of planting a new church. I believed that this was one way to avoid the chronic resistance to change. I had spoken with our denominational leadership about this possibility and had read scores of books on the topic.

 

Making the leap into this venture usually required being bi-vocational. It takes a special kind of person with unique skills to start a new church. This became a dream of mine that grew largely out of my frustration with leading plateaued churches that had lost their sense of mission and vision. Most churches – it seemed to me – had come to a comfort zone of inefficiency and settled there. Any attempt to disrupt that homeostasis was met with resistance – sometimes stringent!

 

I had resolved that the challenges of church planting would be more favorable than those that I had faced in transitioning a church. Transitioning a church from complacency to passion is one of the hardest things to do! I’m grateful to God that He enabled me to lead through this process in East Liverpool and later in New Middletown. I also was part of this process in Akron, Ohio, - although not the key leader.

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The Spencerville church had a strong reputation and had been a solid church throughout its history. The building was a very traditional, colonial-style with adequate parking and room for expansion. The congregation was a mix of younger couples with children and a heavier balance of older members – including many shut-ins.

They had managed to maintain themselves by renting the facility to a Korean congregation every Sunday afternoon. I quickly became friends with the people of the Korean congregation who often came in colorful clothing for their festivals. They served a meal every Sunday and always left our building smelling like an Asian restaurant! 😊 I enjoyed eating ‘kimche’ with them many times and thoroughly enjoyed their fellowship!

The people of the Spencerville congregation were faithful! In spite of their pain in losing a long-term leader (and spouse), they embraced us generously. Having come from a transitioned church, I was not as patient as I should have been and immediately began to challenge their thinking through my preaching and teaching. Troy and I had been gifted with wonderful guitars by a friend from our East Liverpool church. We began using them to lead the Sunday evening service – teaching the congregation new choruses and trying to grow a more energetic approach to worship.

I was forty-three when I arrived at Spencerville with a plan and hope to make this a long-term pastorate – possibly from which I would eventually retire. But, the best made plans of mice and men…

PART TWO – THE PAINFUL PART

Troy and Tracie were teenagers when we arrived in Spencerville. As they eventually made friends, these friends came from families considerably different than ours. Many of them came from broken homes and complex histories. The church property became a gathering point for them because of our four-wheelers and the wide open space. The quads rarely cooled down. Eventually, I put an above-ground pool in our backyard. At any given time, it looked like a youth group activity was going on in our yard!

Troy and Tracie invited these kids to come to Sunday School and church with them – AND MANY OF THEM CAME! Our youth leader was a young woman who embraced and accepted these kids. I constantly warned Troy and Tracie that they needed to be the influencers – not the influenced! Debbie and I became quite close with these kids. I had long conversations with one young man who had a brilliant mind. I later found out that ‘Bob’ wasn’t even his real name! 🙄 One of these young men – we discovered later – was living in a semi-trailer on a landscaping lot nearby.

We eventually removed the kids from the public school and placed them in a Christian school some distance away. That threw us into the fiasco of traffic and congestion every morning! It also stretched us financially to the breaking point!

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The church began to slowly respond to our leadership! Hope was born! Several new converts were made in new families! Those who had been dancing on the periphery began attending with regularity! Several new families became contributing participants in the congregation! Children’s and youth ministry numbers went up! Sunday worship attendance increased significantly! Although there was still some mild resistance [there always is in transitioning a church!], this congregation was beginning to experience new life!

It was the fall of 1997, when the wheels came off the Haire wagon. We faced a family crisis that rocked our boat like it had never been rocked before! We were thrown into a frenzy. The crisis had a backlash on us financially [big time], as well as emotionally! Our problems were of a nature that did not encourage transparency. A few parishoners became aware of the nature of our problem because of snippets they had read in the newspaper. A few spoke to us with reassurances of their prayers.

Between September 4 [the day our crisis presented itself] and mid-November, we had massive choices to make. I often refer to these days as the period when Debbie and I learned to pray! We spent hours on our knees at our bedside or at our living room couch! We poured our hearts out to God! We asked for His wisdom, guidance and provision! We asked Him to bless our kids! Every day-to-day activity became hard to perform! I was distracted from leading the church! Our family system was so far away, and my parents had already left for Heaven! We felt SO ALONE and DESPERATE!

Our crisis involved a lengthy hospitalization and regular counseling appointments; even psychiatry appointments – which were VERY expensive. We fell significantly behind in the Christian school bill [which was later paid by a leading layman]. We began selling whatever we could to try to stay solvent!

During these short months, we were so preoccupied with our family that everything else slipped into second place! I still feel badly about that!

Finally, we had to make a decision!

After saturation in prayer, we decided that if we wanted to save our family then we needed to return to Pennsylvania and surround our kids with our family system who would offer them unconditional support and love!

This was a horribly hard decision for us to make!  Because of our pain, shock and the privacy of our need, we chose not to be open with the Spencerville congregation. Our departure was very suddenly announced. We were given permission to pack all of our belongings in the parsonage two-car garage – and we left!

It was abrupt and without explanation! People were shocked and offended. Just yesterday – while going through old files in my garage – I read angry letters that I received from parishoners who didn’t understand our motivation for leaving. It was hard! They were certainly justified in writing them.

Instantaneously, we were homeless and without income – yet with significant debt.

We moved into the farmhouse with Deb’s parents for several weeks. We withdrew Troy and Tracie from school. Troy and I tackled jobs together on the farm to try to ‘pay our way’ a bit. Daily, we poured our hearts out to God for His provision and direction.

I sent out emails to all of our family and friends every week detailing what we were going through and desperately trying to recruit their prayers. After several weeks, some East Liverpool friends provided us with an apartment in Chester, West Virginia. We moved in with no furniture and only the supplies that we had left Spencerville with. We ate lots of Ramen Noodles because we could buy them for $.10/package.

I should note that the Spencerville Church extended our pay through the end of the year – which was an unmerited grace that we deeply appreciated!

As Christmas approached, we managed to buy one gift for each of our three T’s. Upon Travis’ arrival from the Naval Academy, he took Troy and Tracie out to buy a ‘Charlie Brown’ Christmas tree and a few ornaments.

I scoured the newspaper daily looking for job opportunities! With a college degree and two master’s degrees, I was ‘over-qualified’ for every position I inquired about. We were constantly with Troy and Tracie! We tried to envelop them with our love, encouragement and support.

Remarkably, during this time I received letters from people that I had counseled over the years.  Repeatedly, they included a financial gift expressing appreciation for the way I had helped them redirect their lives. I was asked to preach one Sunday by a church that had been founded by a layman who had been under my influence at Oakland. They gifted us that morning with $700!!!!!!!!!!  We were overwhelmed with God’s grace and goodness as well as their generosity!

In short: God provided for our needs! We spent nearly four months in this condition of dependence on God!

To end this story, I eventually turned up a classified ad from a social serving agency in Akron, Ohio. They were looking for parents to operate a licensed ‘Shelter Home’ under their supervision. I called and made an appointment with a representative. He agreed to meet us at a ‘Spaghetti Warehouse’ in Akron. We were SO EXCITED about this interview because we hadn’t eaten out in nearly five months! 😁

We were hired a week later and moved into one of their homes in Cuyahoga Falls three weeks later. Within several weeks we retrieved all of our belongings from Maryland. We worked for Shelter Care for six years. I also eventually joined the staff of Cornerstone Church which was a pivotal period of growth and development for our family!

AN APOLOGY

Five years later, a true friend [Chip Poole] passed away. Chip and Debby had felt like lifelong friends upon our arrival in Spencerville.  Despite an age difference, their kids and ours connected. Chip and I encouraged and cultivated one another. In recent days I have come across numerous letters from Chip encouraging and thanking me for my ministry! I was invited to speak at his funeral. This was my opportunity to finally address the real reasons for our abrupt departure in late 1997. For many, this was the first realization of what we had actually been going through when we made our ‘hard decision’. One family took us out for dinner and thanked us for filling in the blanks.

I want to use this opportunity to thank the Spencerville congregation for their grace and support through this STRESSFUL period of our lives! Your loving support left a deep imprint on our lives!

I really did intend to retire after leading your church for a season! God was at work and you all were adapting to my radically different style of leadership! Although we had a fast-growing, contemporary church one mile to our east and a massive mega-church four miles to our west, we were beginning to carve out a unique, loving, caring, creative ministry that was preparing us to enfold many who were searching for a Savior and a Christian home!

I’m sorry! It’s only now – so many years later – that I am comfortable speaking about this period! I simply want you to know that leaving you was truly THE HARDEST THING I EVER HAD TO DO!  Our love was genuine and our commitment sincere!

Thank you for your love, prayers and support! Our two-and-a-half years together fostered many fond and loving memories for us!

By the way:

·         You probably know that we lost Travis in October, 2015. Our hearts were permanently damaged by his sudden death and we miss him daily!

·         Troy is a healthy, happy man today with a lovely and capable wife, Missy. He is a fire-fighter in Boardman, Ohio, and is active in one of the last churches I served: Free Methodist Community Church, New Middletown, Ohio.

·         Tracie eventually moved back to your area when she turned nineteen and lived with her friend, Allison.  During this period, she met Jon Kerstetter, and they were married in 2005. Jon had a twenty-three year career in the U.S. Navy, retiring in March 2024. They have given us two grandchildren: Rylie (17) and Coltin (16). They are all living out their faith in significant ways in Rockledge, Florida.

If you care to correspond, you may write to us at 190 Rusty Trail, Enon Valley, PA 16120. Our combined email address is halinasia@psmail.net. I am also on Facebook every day at Facebook.com/HalHaire.