Learning to plant a church

We had been sent to Rutland in order to plant an Alliance church in an area of Vermont where, at that time, there was very little gospel.  We had our house and moved in and fixed it up quickly - you know how I hate to be unsettled and so we fixed up the whole house down to the last curtain very quickly. We had our two teenagers plus a baby and the neighborhood kids who loved to hang out with us at our house, so that was a nucleus for our new church! 

We checked to see if there was an evangelical church in the area and did find a Baptist church about ten miles outside of Rutland in a small town, Wallingford. We had prayer meetings in our home each week, And on Sundays we went to Wallingford Baptist until we could start our own services. This was a small, loving congregation and they took us right in until we could find a place to meet and start our own church.  This was a warm Christian group who continued to work together with us as they could throughout our two years in Rutland where we were planting an Alliance church in the city. When we left for Africa. this group of friends had a special farewell party for us, complete with special speeches and a gift. 

Dad wanted to become known in the city as a new pastor and decided one way to do this was through a weekly radio broadcast.  He paid for a program each Sunday afternoon on the local radio station, called Songtime. He had cards printed with his picture and an invitation to listen to his weekly program of Christian music, interspersed with poetry and Scripture.  Many people listed to this program and it gave us a few contacts. 

One day Dad came in all excited - he had found the perfect place for us to start our church - in a building in the center of the city. The place had pews and a piano and pulpit of sorts, plus a kitchen.  It was a lodge, called The Odd Fellows! They did not use the place on Sundays and were glad for us to pay rent for a few hours each week. My first reaction was that I wished we could have found a place with a different name!! Our printed card read something like Meet with us each Sunday (at such and such a time) at the Odd Fellows Hall.  But that building served us well for over a year. We went in and cleaned the place - Dave and Donna and the two of us. We had to air out the place each week when we cleaned as regular Odd Fellows were heavy smokers, by the smell.  But it did give us a  meeting place and we put up our own painted sign on Sundays: The Alliance Church of Rutland! 

We also had our church planting team: Dad as pastor and leader of the service; Uncle Dave as usher; I the pianist and special music each week; (Dad would lead singing while I played and then he would play for me for the special music) and Aunt Donna was chief babysitter for Cheryl!  

The first Sunday we had had the services announced in the paper and on the radio and we were all dressed in our Sunday best, waiting for our crowd.  At ten to eleven an old Model T Ford drove up and parked across the street - we were all peeking out the windows. At eleven juste an elderly old Vermont couple crawled out of the car - they were dressed in their Sunday black - and headed for our church!  Uncle Dave did his ushing and led them to one of the pews and we began the service. After the meeting was over we were talking to the people and the old man went on and on about how he couldn't stand young preachers!  When they left, we all agreed that we would never see them again!  But they remained faithful, never missed a Sunday until their death some years later!! 

Through a contact, we heard of an elderly lady who had been saved under Dr. Simpson in New York years before. She had prayed for years that the Lord would send the Alliance to Rutland. She too started coming, along with a friend of hers and they too remained faithful members of that church.  And so we grew slowly. We had a large gang of teenagers plus the two old ladies and the old couple and our family, and that was the nucleus of what became the Alliance Church of Rutland!

Cheryl, you were a church baby from the time you were eleven days old, as you attended every meeting along with me.  You had lots of attention from Uncle Dave and Aunt Donna and your parents, plus all the teenagers who adored you.  On your first birthday you had a special gift - a baby sister, Deborah Lee!  One more member for our church too! 

But before Debbi was born, the Alliance asked us to come to New York by train from Vermont and have our final interview to go to the field. That was the year the Alliance had determined to send out 102 new missionaries and they were scraping the barrel for those who were ready and decided to ask us to leave early! So we bundled you, Cheryl, in the warmest clothes and blankets you had, drove over to Whitehall, NY, and took the train down to NYC where we were to be interviewed by the Alliance foreign board. 

It was a bitter cold week and we finally made our way down to Times Square, where the Alliance then had their international office and got there in time for our intereview. We were ushered into a formal office and Dad went in to meet with the Board first while the baby and I waited downstairs.  When Dad was finished he came down and took the baby (Cheryl) and I went up for my interview.  They started in on the interview and the one thing I can remember is their asking what kind of a preacher Dad was! Dr. Smalley was head of the Board and sort of a formal person but we knew him well. When the men started my interview, George Constance got up and said that they all knew his vote already - he wanted to go down and see that baby!  And Dr. Smalley said very calmly, "George, sit down we all want to see that baby and we shall when this interview is finished." So George sat and it didn't last long. (Dr. Smalley had dedicated Aunt Donna and Uncle Dave to the Lord when they were babies so knew our family well.) We all agreed that it would be foolish to take us out of a new Vermont church plant in less than a year, much as we were anxious to go to the field.  So they approved our candidacy for the summer of  1958. Everyone passed Cheryl around and hugged her and we headed back to our frozen Rutland to continue our church planting there!

They never did ask us in for another interview - I suppose we could have messed up badly during that year and a half of ministry. But they had passed us and when the two years were up we got our official appointment without another interview.