Hanging at the Well
A Testimony to God's Grace
Chapter 6: Pacific Christian College
My arrival at Pacific Christian College in Long Beach, California is a testimony to how God is willing to turn wrong motives into His plan. “In his heart a man plans his course; but the LORD determines his steps” (Pro 16:9).
Even though I had dedicated my life to Christian service when I was fifteen, my reasons for going to Christian college were not that pure. First, because of my high school grades I needed a school that would allow me to come on academic probation. Second, every person in our youth group who went to Christian college got a big party and send off. I wanted that recognition. Third, I had met several PCC faculty and students who came to our camps and rallies, so, I already knew some people.
I almost left PCC after two weeks. Academics was not the most depressing challenge for me. I went expecting all the students at this Christian college to be super Christians who had life all together. It did not take long to realize the truth. We were all fellow strugglers in life.
One afternoon I was sitting on a bench in the upper campus. I must have looked pretty dejected as Professor T.R. Applebury came and sat next to me. He observed, “You’re having a difficult time, aren’t you?” I affirmed his insight. Then he blew me away, “You came here thinking everyone was going to be perfect, didn’t you?” How did he know? He counseled me to not give up.
It was not long after that conversation that I experienced another of the many miracles that has formed my life. I don’t know exactly when or how it happened. I liken it to someone “flipping a switch in my brain.” Perhaps the Holy Spirit lifted a mental fog. All I know is that all of a sudden school work began to make sense. I understood assignments like I had never experienced. My participation in class discussions was more than questions asking for clarity. I felt like dancing. At the end of the first semester I was off probation and never went back on it again.
Professor G.B. Gordon led the team that represented PCC in local churches. He taught Speech and Communications. He came and asked if I would be a part of the team and I jumped at it. I had the privilege of speaking on behalf of the college all over Southern California. G.B. became my model. I wanted to be just like him. Therefore, I started thinking that I would not be a preacher; rather, I would study Speech and Drama and teach in high school.
On the weekend I did not travel I worshipped at First Christian Church of Huntington Beach where I grew under the preaching of Tommy Overton (who also taught some of the preaching classes at the college). But, I knew I could never be like this great man. Therefore, teaching in high school was a good goal.
Chapter 7: Love at First Sight
“The Fiddler on the Roof” is Peggy’s all-time favorite musical. In the scene after Tevia (the father) has given his permission for Motel, the tailor to marry his daughter, Tzietal, Motel sings to her, “Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracle, God has given you to me.” That song resonates with me as I feel that God bringing Peggy to be my wife was a “miracle of miracles.”
God knew exactly what kind of partner I would need to fulfill this plan He was working in my life. He also knew I would need her early in my walk. It was for this reason He brought Peggy Coffey for a weekend visit with Judy Burgess, her best friend who was attending PCC. Say what you will, believe what you want to believe, but when I first saw Peggy, before I knew her name, I knew I would marry her. However, she was not as quickly convinced. Therefore, you have to realize that this is my version of the story.
The first time I saw Peggy I was sitting in the lounge of the girl’s dorm talking to another girl. Judy introduced Peggy as her high school friend. Peggy and Judy had attended La Habra High School in California. They had spent four years on the drill team (Peggy was the captain her senior year). At this time Peggy was an Home Economics major at Fullerton College and not yet a Christian. However, shortly after that visit, Peggy accepted Christ and was baptized at La Mirada Christian Church.
My college roommate was Richard Palicz, who was also from the La Mirada CC. He would often invite me to the college-age gatherings at the church. On one occasion, Peggy was the only other person who came. The three of us hung out together that evening. When we took her home, I walked Peggy to the door and asked if she would go with Richard and I to see the Rose Parade in Pasadena. She was not sure, so I pulled out a quarter and said, “Heads you go, tails you don’t.” I flipped it and it turned “tails” so I quickly put it away and said, “It was heads, you go.” She believed me and went with Richard, Carol (another PCC student) and me to the parade. So, here is the age-old joke – “I lied to get our first date and on our first date we slept in the gutter.” (Waiting for the parade to start.)
We dated a couple of times after that, but it was not until Peggy transferred to PCC the next fall that we really started getting to know each other. As convinced as I was about her being the girl for me, she was convinced of the opposite. However, I had many allies in my corner, trying to play match-maker. But, by January, I told Alvin (who was now my roommate) that I was through trying.
I was to speak at a church in Casa Grande, AZ, near the home of the three Trout sisters. They asked that since I was driving to AZ, would I take them and a couple of friends (including Peggy) in my car. Little did I and Peggy know that the plan was that wherever I sat in the car, Peggy would have to sit beside me.
I dropped the six girls off in Buckeye, AZ and went on to Casa Grande. We had not been informed that there was to be a pot luck after church which would cause me to be two hours late meeting the girls; and, I had neglected to get their phone number. As Peggy put it, she found herself pacing the floor and when I drove up she ran out and threw her arms around me.
Peggy had told me a year earlier that she would never kiss a guy unless she was convinced he was the one for her. That night, on the drive across the desert, when everyone else was asleep, she leaned over and kissed me. WOW!
Two months later we were engaged and fourteen months later, June 5, 1965 I became the man who has the privilege of calling this wonderful woman “my wife.”
Chapter 8: Getting my Feet Wet
I always hesitate to talk about my first four youth ministries because I think that people in our current worldview would say, “Boy, he had no staying ability.” I held four youth ministries in four years. However, “in my day” youth ministry was a fairly new concept for most churches. They either hired youth ministers for the summer or for the school year. I experienced both.
I earned my college funds working as a brakeman for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In the fertile San Joaquin Valley there is a great need for extra train crews in the summer. Therefore, being from a railroad family, Alvin, Bill and I got summer jobs. The summer of 1962 Alvin and I lived in Fresno and worked the local fruit trains. It was during this summer that we met up again with Brother Otis Bell, the man who baptized my father and me. When we had a Sunday off Alvin and I worshipped with the Eastside Christian Church and preached for Otis when he went on vacation.
The railroad provided enough money during a summer to pay for school. All we needed to do during the school year was to hold a job that gave us our spending money. My freshman year I worked as a “Box Boy” for Von’s Market in Lakewood, CA.
September 1953 – May 1964 – First Christian Church of Conejo Valley – Thousand Oaks, CA
I loved attending the College Career session at Angeles Crest Christian Camp. It was there that I first met Bob Alexander in August 1962. We connected again the next summer. On the way down the mountain from the second year I noticed the car behind me flashing its lights. I pulled to the side of the road thinking there was some sort of problem. However, it was Bob Alexander. He and asked, “What are you doing for ministry this school year?” I had no commitments. “He asked, “Would you consider a weekend youth ministry in Thousand Oaks?”
For nine months I drove every Friday night from Long Beach to Thousand Oaks to lead the youth program. Every Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon I met with Bob and learned about ministry. Bob was a good first mentor for me as he was very caring, open and available. Bob’s wife was Peggy and it was that year that Peggy and I became engaged. The church joked about having two Bob and Peggys on their staff. Our friendship with Bob and Peggy Alexander extends to this day as they personally support our missions ministry.
Summer 1964 – Rexland Christian Church – Bakersfield, CA
During the summer of 1964 I returned to Bakersfield to work once again work on the railroad. Peggy spent the summer with her parents and worked in a cay-care center where she fell in love with every child. Because I now had an entire year of seniority I was able to chose Bakersfield as my home terminal and live at home. Therefore, Herman Lippert asked if my brother Alvin and I would like to form a youth ministry team and serve the Rexland youth for the summer. It was a good experience but a difficult commitment to fulfill because our job on the railroad was subject to twenty-four hour call, and, when we were called, we could be gone from eight to seventy-two hours. However, with the two of us working together at the church we were able to cover most of the assignments.
September 1964 – May 1965 – Rosewood Christian Church – Compton, CA
The nine months at Rosewood Christian Church was a life-forming time. I learned so much about what ministry was not. I worked under the leadership of Dr. Harold Hossom, a man who was distant and controversial. I seldom saw him except when he preached. He spent most of his time locked away in his office amongst piles of books. His wife was bed-ridden with a debilitating disease in a facility in Albuquerque, NM. Once a month he was gone to see to her care.
Peggy and I served in Compton during the time in its history that it was quickly changing as Afro-Americans moved into the city and the Whites took flight. Dr. Hossom was very prejudiced and did not want any blacks in the church. The most vicious verbal beating I experienced in my years of ministry came one afternoon when he heard me give information about the church to a black lady. I had been raised with black people. Some of my closest high school friends were Afro-American. I thought it would be great if the church would reflect the changing community and welcome all races. I had the option to stay at Rosewood during the summer. However, Peggy and I were to be married in June and I had the railroad job waiting. But the truth of the matter was that I could not consciously continue to work under Dr. Hossom. (About three years later Rosewood Christian Church closed its door rather than welcome Afro-Americans into the church.)
September 1965 – August 1966 – Eastside Christian Church – Fullerton, CA
Peggy and I were married on June 5, 1965 and we spent our first summer together in Bakersfield living in my Grandmother Lounsbury’s house. She had gone to spend the summer with my Uncle Jack in Alaska. When we returned to school Peggy dropped out of classes to work so I could continue. She earned her PhT degree – Put hubby through. She worked first in the children’s department at Buffam’s Department Store and then as a reception in the office at La Palm Junior High.
Before returning to Long Beach for my senior year, I received a phone call from Ralph Dornette who was considered the premier church planter in Southern California. He had started Eastside Christian Church in a warehouse and decided to resign from church planting and pastor this congregation. He invited me to be his youth minister. I was astounded to be asked by this great man to come and serve under him. I learned so much about ministry from him.
When we arrived in Fullerton in September the church was still meeting in the warehouse, however, a new building was under construction. There are many wonderful stories I could tell about my time in Fullerton. We could have stayed at Eastside much longer, but God had other plans. That is the next chapter.
I look back on these first three years in ministry and see how God orchestrated these events to teach me the diversity of ministry. I am thankful that I had such a positive experiences sandwiched around a negative one. However, God was working a plan that would bring about His good for my life and His Kingdom. I, who was still being guided by the obsession to someday be great, had some difficult and painful lessons yet to learn. Rather than being a “bucket hanging at the well” I was more focused on being the neon sign pointing to it.
Chapter 9: Change of Directions
The four years I spent at Pacific Christian College were wonderful years. I bloomed, met life-long friends, met my life’s partner and learned much about ministry. I had the added blessing of graduating free from debt (a miracle in itself, when you consider the near poverty situation in which I was raised).
Even though I knew from the time I was in high school that I was called to be a preacher, something inside me resisted. As I approached graduation I was making plans to go to Pepperdine University to study Speech and Drama to be a high school teacher and Speech coach (competition, not therapy). My mentor, G.B. Gordon knew the people at Pepperdine and put in a good word for me. My father’s second brother, Uncle Rob, got me a job at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he was the Comptroller. I was in line for a weekend preaching position just outside of Bakersfield in Tehachapi. All looked pretty good for the future. But, a voice inside me said, “This is not my plan.” Nevertheless, I moved ahead.
I graduated from PCC on the evening of June 11, 1966. I only remember two things about that night. Yet, it was the night that began an entire string of miracles to totally change the course of our lives.
I remember the thirteen graduates sitting on the stage in the school chapel where Peggy and I had been married one year and one week earlier. The first person on the program was William Clague, the father of one of our class members. During his prayer he said, “Lord, I am sure that each one of these students has surrendered to your will for their life.” That hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew I had not surrendered to anyone’s will by my own.
The next part of the evening that I remember was wrestling with God all the way from Long Beach to Bakersfield. I was headed home for my ordination and to accept the preaching position at Tehachapi. I felt sorry for Peggy that night as I vacillated from “we are going to Pepperdine” to “we are going to Lincoln Christian College in Lincoln, IL. There I could earn a Masters in Homiletics (Preaching). By the time we looked down on Bakersfield from atop the Grapevine, I literally threw my hands into the air and said, “Alright God, I surrender. I will go to LCS.”
Now we had to tell everyone who earlier that night saw us off thinking we were staying in Southern California. I told my parents the next morning and we called Peggy’s. Although they didn’t want us to leave the state, they were both very supportive. I called Ken Munson who was at this time the minister at Ming Avenue Christian Church (Rexland Christian Church had relocated while we were in college. Herman Lippert had moved to Camarillo, CA – but would return to Ming Ave later). Ken knew the people at LCS well. He called them and got the ball rolling for my enrollment. This is where a series of miracles started.
1. The Church in Tehachapi was very understanding and supportive of my decision. They even sent a delegation to my ordination service that Sunday evening.
2. Eastside Christian Church agreed to let me stay on staff through the summer until we were to leave in August.
3. Peggy’s mother was working for Servisoft Soft Water Company and they were looking for a summer driver to do vacation relief. I delivered soft-water tanks in Norwalk, La Habra, Brea and Fullerton while still working at the church evenings and weekends.
4. LCS sent me a list of churches that were looking for a minister. After I sent a letter to them I was contacted by Donovan Church of Christ in Donovan, IL. After two phone interviews I was hired “unseen.” All I had to do was arrive in August and preach an acceptable sermon. There were other LCS students who waited months before finding a church to serve.
5. We loaded our car and a small U-Haul trailer on August 16th, Peggy’s birthday, and headed for Illinois where we knew absolutely no one. Yet, we knew, by this series of events that God was going before us.
Chapter 10: Superman Lives in Donovan, Illinois
I truly believe that our arrival in the small farming community of Donovan, IL was totally orchestrated by God. However, God still had a lot of work to get me where I needed to be. I was still unconsciously driven by that fourth grade oath, “Some day I will be great . . .”
We drove into The Village of Donovan on Saturday, August 21, 1966. I preached a “trial sermon” on Sunday morning and was hired Sunday afternoon. The next four years of our life would be devoted to these wonderfully simple and loving people. The town had an official population of 300 and the church had an average attendance of sixty. There were two churches, a store, two gas stations, a restaurant, a grain elevator and Ford dealership in town. George Hewson, the Chairman of the Elders, owned the dealership and he and Helen lived in an apartment above the showroom (which had room for one car).
I could write entire chapters about some of these people – Les (Gumps) and Erma Miller, Bob Swartz, Les and Betty Whaley, Glen and Bunny Laird. However, it was George and Helen Hewson who had the most dramatic impact on my life. George realized how “green” I was to the ministry and took me “under wing” to teach me. When I talked to fellow students at school I realized how fortunate I was to have a man like George and the people of Donovan. Other students talked about the severe criticism and harsh treatment they received from church leaders. I was being loved and forgiven for many mistakes. Whenever there was a lesson I needed to learn, George would invite us up to the apartment for peaches and ice cream. We would gather around the piano and sing, then enjoy our treat. Sometime during the evening George would say, “Bob, let’s think through something you said or did.” It was always positive and constructive.
For four years I would arise every Tuesday morning to car pool the 125 miles to Lincoln Christian Seminary (Peggy attended the college during our second year, but undergraduate classes she could take in two day were very limited). Graduate classes started at 7:30 and went into the evening. We got out of class on Wednesday afternoon and would arrive back in Donovan just in time for Wednesday Bible Study. Besides this I served on the volunteer fire department, was a substitute for the Donovan softball team, served on the Student Council at Lincoln Christian Seminary (one year as President), active in the ministerial association and Prairie States Christian Service Camp.
Donovan Church of Christ grew; we started a youth program, a mission ministry and underwent a very extensive remodeling program on the eighty-year old building. I was a part of the core group that planted the Centennial Christian Church in Watseka, the county seat. On October 29, 1968 Dean arrived. David made his appearance twenty months later.
How did I survive four years of keeping that kind of schedule? Some might say it was youth. God’s grace is greater than we can comprehend. I was driven by obsession and survived it by grace. Someone asked me if I worried about driving all those miles every week – even in ice and snow. My reply (which I am embarrassed to admit to) was, “I have so much to offer to the Kingdom that God is not going allow anything to happen to me.”
During this time I began to experience what would be later diagnosed as “mild hypochondria.” This condition was brought on by stress and an undefined criteria for “being great.” I began to think that every pain or pimple was the sign of some life-threatening condition. One night in the Spring of 1970, just before graduation from LCS, Peggy took me to hospital emergency room. After examination and interview by our family doctor, he looked at me and said, “Are you superman?” I said, “No.” He replied, “Then, quit trying to act like it.”
Proceed to Chapter 11