Mini-Meeting Diary . . .

GULF COAST MINISTRY

I spent several days of May in Houston, Lake Jackson, and Port Arthur, and since there were events of special interest I will include an account of the trip in what has come to be a kind of mini-meeting diary. It is noteworthy that these travel notes prove to be the most popular material we publish, mainly because our readers are eager to know what is going on here and there. It may also be because our people in general hunger for the kind of fellowship and freedom that these notes bear witness to.

In Houston I addressed the Trinity Christian Church, which is the only charismatic Independent congregation I have knowledge of. Tongue-speaking is common among the members, though there was none of this in the assembly on this occasion. But there was the raising of hands and the laying on of hands, along with prayers for the sick. And there was much prayer and praise, along with some tearful testimony. They are a happy group, rejoicing in the Lord and expressing their love for each other with words of kindness and warm embraces. And they are indifferent to time, usually going well beyond the noon hour on Sunday, a common feature of charismatic meetings. They broke bread by each one going to the rail and kneeling, one or two rows at a time, where they were served in multiple cups.

This congregation has served as a refuge for some of our oppressed souls in the Church of Christ, including Berwyn Tate, my host on the occasion, who for sometime was a preacher among us.

People who have found this kind of freedom in worship have recovered a spontaneity of expression that was such a vital part of primitive worship and yet so elusive in the modern church. A brother felt free to relate what the Lord did for him during the week, while a sister did not hesitate to stand at her seat and request prayer for her neighbor —and this during a service that is following some structure. One brother came to me after the service and asked that I lay my hands on him and pray for him, which of course I gladly did.

That Sunday evening I visited with the Bering Drive Church of Christ, which is now in the exercise of finding a new minister, now that Ron Durham is leaving to join the editorial staff of Sweet Publishing Co. in Austin. Bering must surely have some of the most beautiful souls on earth, and I am not sure that the congregation deserves the reputation it has in some quarters of Houston of being snobbish. “They are looking for a name preacher,” observed one brother who sees Bering as a place where one can hear a lot of talk but not see much action. “They don’t do anything,” he insisted.

But there is an exciting “apartment ministry” at Bering, though perhaps only partly funded by the congregation, which involves upwards of a score of folk, mostly young people. Much of this activity centers around the apartment of Margaret Williams, who is approaching retirement age as a schoolteacher, for through her tender loving care she attracts youth like honey attracts flies. The purpose of the ministry is to provide spiritual companionship for working girls, young couples who feel lost upon moving to a big city, and youth in general who like to get together and rap about Jesus. A number of them live together in the same compound, and they are out to take the place for the Lord. I immensely enjoyed a visit with a number of them, and I am impressed with their concept of a broader ministry. Bering also maintains apartments for folk who need temporary quarters while visiting their loved ones in Houston hospitals, an act of love that has made the burden of prolonged illness less difficult for many a soul. Some Christian Church people saw the good that this was doing and asked if there wasn’t something they could do to help. Margaret likes to tell how they volunteered to redecorate the apartments, adding those special touches that make for one’s comfort. Isn’t that fellowship at a very exciting level? But the thought I had is how some fellow must feel who has left his work to come to Houston to stay with his wife during the long ordeal of delicate surgery, perhaps long since fed up with the hollow claims of religionists, who has a nice apartment proffered him by Christians, and at no cost to him. Something like that can touch the heart.

While in Houston I visited with Max R. Gaulke, who is president of the Gulf Coast Bible College, a subscriber to this journal. The college is a Church of God institution, with headquarters in Anderson, Ind., a fellowship of some 2200 congregations and 300,000 members. Unlike some denominations that are generally identified with them, these folk are not pentecostal. Indeed, the college recently excused two students who had charismatic experiences and who showed too much eagerness to share it with others. They are also like us in that they insist that they are not a denomination and they are working for “a restoration of New Testament Christianity.”

Max and I soon discovered that we had much in common, that we were kindred spirits, and that we were in Jesus together. He impressed me with his knowledge of Alexander Campbell and by his description of a visit to the Central Church of Christ where he heard Danny Anders. He introduced me to several of his faculty, and before I knew it I had spent most of a day talking to these fine people. One professor, impressed with how much his folk and mine had in common, pointed to one difference: “We do believe in a holy and exemplary life, Our people do not smoke …”

You see, people do notice the way you live!

Max Gaulke and I decided that we should have a mini-unity meeting between our folk. He is going to invite 12 people from the Church of God and I will invite 12 from the Church of Christ, all from the Houston area, and we are going to have two days of mutual sharing, exploring our differences and taking some step toward preserving the Spirit’s unity. This will be in July, but it will not be advertised and will be by invitation only. I suggested this course as best for our initial dialogue. If something more public should emerge from this, the Lord will lead.

Max, who is nearing retirement, is a gentle soul, one who is inclined by both nature and Spirit to seek peace with all God’s people. He was convinced, as was I, that the Spirit had brought us together, that our meeting was not just happenstance. He prayed for me before I left, and I don’t know that anyone has ever prayed more beautifully for me and my work than he. I think maybe a tear or two got away from me, and as I walked from his office I was reminded all over again of the folly of division. “What a terribly bad habit it is,” I thought, “that keeps God-loving people like his and mine as separated as if they lived in different countries.”

In Lake Jackson I was in the home of Dr. and Mrs. J. D. Mays, who were, by the way, our first medical missionaries. And I think Africa did something real for Jerry and Shirley, for they have been honed by the Spirit through various trials into as beautiful souls as one could ever expect to meet. Jerry is a specialist in family medicine, a new field of specialization in medical science, and will soon be instructing young doctors in this area at Baylor Medical Center in Houston. Here are wonderfully dedicated people who are a great blessing to the world as well as to the church, but it just wouldn’t do to reveal how the church can maltreat and misunderstand such people. It is to their credit that they can stay on board the old ship Zion and keep praying and hoping and working for a freer and more spiritual brotherhood. The Lord will give them victory, believe it.

In their home I met with some 30 brothers and sisters, most of them on the youthful side of life, who have been put through the wringer of Church of Christism. They have had it, and they were full of those questions that I find it hard to answer. “When conditions are as we have described, should we start a new congregation?” And what do you do when preachers talk about you from the pulpit and when elders obstruct any effort toward growth and freedom, even to the point of telling you whom you can have in your home?

I just can’t bring myself to encourage people to leave where they are and start another congregation, even when the reasons seem to justify it. The scriptures do not support this kind of solution. As bad as some of those seven Asian churches were, or the one at Corinth, they were still the Body of Christ, and the apostles and the Lord still honored them as such. Even the Sardis church, which Jesus referred to as dead, was the Lord’s Body, and in it were those that had not soiled their garments. “They shall walk with me in white,” Jesus promised. They didn’t have to leave and be part of a loyal church in order to have that promise.

But I do understand how oppressive some churches can become, and this is why I encourage house meetings and prayer groups, where some joyful fellowship is possible. But those who oppose such meetings should be invited, whether they accept or not. It should all be above board and positive, and not be allowed to degenerate into gripe sessions against the institutional church. And, yes, they should be held even if elders do object, for elders do not have that kind of control over people’s lives.

And we must pray more. And allow the Spirit to overflow our hearts more and more with his fruit of love. Love is the great dynamic. Even in the most oppressive situation we must believe that love will conquer when nothing else will. Love the preacher that chides you from the pulpit and pray fervently for him in these house gatherings. Pray for the elders that want to keep you in sectarian confinement, not just once, but again and again. And believe that the Lord will act. Look for a miracle, and the good Lord knows it will take a miracle to move the troubled hearts of some of our leaders. But herein lies the only real answer. Leaving can be like a broken tooth, and it can take from you the blessing of being a conqueror through Christ. To one church that the Lord described as “wretched,” there was the promise “He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne” (Rev. 3:21).

Now in the end, when the race has been run and the battle fought, when you are there with the Lord on his throne, will it really matter what some preacher said about you or how much elders persecuted you? To be sure, those who sit with the Lord in victory will be battle-scarred —scarred, not scared!

Then, too, if you leave you won’t be around for the victory celebrations, which are already being enjoyed here and there. And once more, if you leave where will you go? What we really seek is deep inside all of us. When we find that, in the Lord, all that is untoward will somehow fit together. We surely will not find it in some other church, not even in a new one.

I am in agreement with those wise words from John R. W. Stott, which speak so dynamically to the problem so many of our people face:

“Do you belong to what is sometimes called ‘a dead church’, and you are tempted to leave it and to go elsewhere? Why not heed this word of Christ? Let the revived Christians come together to pray and to wait upon God. A dynamic minority of living and awakened Christians can by prayer and love preserve a dying church from utter extinction.” (What Christ Thinks of the Church, p. 91)

From Lake Jackson I drove a rental car along the coastal highway to Galveston and on to Port Arthur, a route that was new to me, especially the ferry ride across Galveston Bay. The great Gulf was always in view and usually only a stone’s throwaway, and that Wednesday a.m. I had that lonely strip mostly to myself. I pulled off the road two or three times along the way to walk in the sand, gather shells, and watch boats of many descriptions doing their various things. The sea fascinates me beyond words. It has a mystique about it, demanding reverence from all who confront her. Like a raging storm, which I delight to watch from a comfortable vantage point, the sea speaks of God’s judgment as well as His grace. Now if I can one day witness a storm at sea that would be it!

In Port Arthur I addressed a Wednesday evening gathering of one of our great congregations, the Proctor Street Church of Christ. Since the elders are interested in having a unity meeting of some nature in their area, I was asked to talk about unity and some of my attending experiences. That is about like punishing brer rabbit by throwing him into the briar patch. I reluctantly consented’ I also met in the home of Mrs. Helen Berg for further consultation, a session made all the more challenging by dissenting voices.

I was the guest of Ike and Dorothy Summerlin, who have given “the world and the church a magnificent family. Five of their six children are now through school, all but one taking advanced degrees, and they are all contributing to the betterment of mankind, some of them with great financial sacrifice. One daughter is married to William Martin, a Harvard Ph.D. who is now at Rice and one of our better writers and researchists. Another daughter is married to Michael Weed, who already has an enviable record as an editorialist with the Sweet Co. and is an effective minister of the Word. But the girls themselves are ministers in an important sense, with impressive records as writers. The sons are in business and social work, greatly committed to the enhancement of man. What a beautiful story, and Ike and Dorothy are justly thankful for their blessings.

Dorothy is a teacher of many years and all who know her praise her. Ike is the kind of elder you read about in the Bible, and for forty years the leaven of his wise and loving leadership has been at work with the saints in Port Arthur, while he has made his living charting the course of oil tankers as an executive for Texaco. He is a trustee for ACC and for Mission magazine. He knows people, especially preachers, and we would all benefit by his wise and benevolent counsel. If you ask him about rearing a family, he will soon talk about family devotions, which he admits to be the most difficult thing in the world to do in our busy world, but which he and his did. —the Editor