Fifty Years!

A half century ago, at age 29, Ruth and I were seminary students in New Orleans planning to serve in Africa. Our plans were stopped when she came down with a little tiny ulcer. That was enough to end our processing with the Foreign Mission Board! I was stunned. I had already entered the PhD track and now had to ask, "Lord, why is this happening?" He replied, "I want you to know that two thousand miles of bathwater doesn't make you a missionary!"

I applied to the Home Mission Board, explaining I was searching for God's direction for a US assignment. I was not prepared for the response: "We need you right now, if you are willing to drop out of the seminary. Harrisburg PA is desperate for a church planter."

Two days later I was on a plane to Harrisburg. The Lord said, "This is your mission field." So it was that in a matter of a few weeks we were situated in a tiny plant in Middletown, PA, started by Frank Brown, a displaced Southern who was stationed there to coordinate trucker's movements for a corporation. The dear guy saw a need and although not trained, he began to evangelize and formed the Valley Baptist Church in the basement of his home.

According to the church log, Frank was member #3 and I was member #93. We had far less than 92 others, but Frank's passion for the lost had reaped the first harvest, mainly from the military stationed at Olmstead Air Base (now closed). From 7/1960 to 2/1963, Ruth and I pastored Valley Baptist and I planted additional churches in the area, finally constituting 7 of them in 1963 as the Keystone Baptist Association. When I left, the next pastor's membership number was 309. So we saw a great revival break out during that brief period.

It was there I read Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian life. It totally transformed my life! And that truth was the theology that spawned the harvest.

Have you read the book? It's a classic.