A Pastor's Adventures, the Good, the Bad, and the Sad

On a midsummer afternoon I parked in an apartment parking lot, got out of the car and saw a gaggle of kids running toward me and shouting, Here comes the Creature. Here comes the Creature.

Folks in my church called me Pastor, others, Brother Joe, and others simply, Preacher. This group of children had attended our vacation Bible school but never before had been to a church.

The creature who doesn’t take himself too seriously has more fun.

Five-year-olds can be tricky. One beautiful spring Sunday morning, I made my way up the aisle toward the pulpit and stopped at a pew where several children sat together with their older sister, age five. Teacher of the 5-year-olds’ Sunday school class had told me about the little girl. She visited the church for the first time and brought several siblings. She was apparently the group leader.

The little girl sat on the pew next to the aisle and watched me approach.

"I’m so glad you came to Sunday school this morning and brought your brothers and sisters, I said, bending over to near her level.

The little girl looked up at me with a serious face. Your fly’s unzipped.

I quickly reached down to check and found my zipper to be secure. It is not.

The kid let out a hearty laugh.

Until God called me into the ministry, I thought the newspaper business would be my permanent career. I had loved being a reporter, editor and somewhat enjoyed being a publisher. But all that changed. Being called into a ministry is a lot like falling in love. You can think of little else.

So many people feel a call from God to do something and interpret it as a call to be a pastor. An old story told to seminary students says that a young man saw clouds in the sky that looked like GP so he thought that meant God wanted him to Go Preach. His preaching was such that it most likely meant Go Plow.

God calls people to many different kinds of ministry.

I wanted to be sure that the call I felt to pastoral ministry was not just momentary enthusiasm, so I thought about it and prayed about it for three months before mentioning it to anyone.

CHAPTER 2

Seminary Adventures

Convinced that the call to preach was real, I asked my pastor, Rayburn Blair, what to do. He suggested I enroll in his school, Bible Baptist Seminary just west on Division Street from the church in Arlington, Texas. Blair was such a dynamic preacher that I would have gone anywhere to get the same training he had.

The seminary occupied the former digs of the Top of the Hill Club, a 1920s and 1930s illegal gambling operation complete with an escape tunnel for guests in case of a police raid. The largest building had been a stable for high-priced horses raced at Arlington Downs, a busy racetrack where crowds came to bet on the horses. The track prospered during 1933-1937 when pari-mutuel racetrack gambling was legal in Texas. The school remodeled the stable into an assembly hall and several classrooms.

Students practiced preaching in the assembly hall. No microphones or amplification equipment was allowed. Preachers had to learn to project their voices.

This hall also served as a classroom. Dr. Earl Oldham taught the Pentateuch there. As part of my first year class of 103 men, I sat on the front row of Dr. Oldham’s class. He emphasized disciplined behavior among students. Two of his favorite words were immdjieatly and irregardless.

What had been the main club building housed administrative offices, cafeteria, several classrooms and in the basement, the library, where a secret panel opened to the escape tunnel. Naturally, some other new students and I had to try it. We emerged from the dark tunnel to a wooded hillside.

J. Frank Norris, famous to some, infamous to others, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Fort Worth had campaigned for years to close the illegal gambling house. He eventually got the club closed and then bought the property and turned it into a seminary. Norris had been dead 10 years when I arrived on campus. I had not heard of J. Frank Norris until I enrolled at the school where he was revered, even to the point of erecting a life size bronze statue of him.

As men who admired him told of his exploits I decided I didn’t like J. Frank Norris but didn’t say so. I would have ripped my britches with the faculty and been regarded with suspicion from then on. Dr. Oldham told of Norris ordering a student to pack up and leave for no reason other than to impress the other students with his authority.

Stories of Norris shooting a man in his office were hushed. Oldham bragged on Norris’ exploits such as baptizing a famous rodeo cowboy with his horse standing by the pulpit.

Dr. Oldham told of a young couple that caught Norris on the street and asked him to marry them. He asked to see their marriage license, then asked, "Do you want to marry him?

The bride said, Yes.

Do you want to marry her?

The groom said, Yes.

Okay. You’re married. Norris signed the marriage license and went on his way.

In one class I did not sit on the front row. The professor, who should have retired two years earlier, often spit. This dear gentleman had memorized the entire book of Revelation. He tried to hide his poor eyesight by not wearing glasses. When teaching the book of Revelation I noticed him holding the Bible upside down and pretending to read it. He quoted it word for word.

One morning early in the semester, the old professor announced that Some students have not turned in their registration cards. Those must be turned in by next week.

I asked one of the students who had access to the registrar’s office to get me a blank registration card. I filled out the card for non-existent Alfonse Ystradyfodwig and left the card on the old professor’s desk before he arrived for class.

Each time the old professor gave us a test I filled out two, one for me and one for Alfonse. Everyone in the class knew about Alfonse. Alfonse made good grades right up until the semester ended. Then one of the guys’ conscience got the best of him and he told the old professor about the conspiracy.

Suddenly Alfonse’s name disappeared from the class roll. The old professor never said a word about it.

A member of my class, had a problem of extreme goosiness. If you startled him he would react immediately, either repeating what you said, or doing what you told him to do. Once I came up behind him, stuck my thumbs into both sides of his ribs and shouted, Slap him.

He slapped the man in front of him.

Not much like a Reverend, I did some other tricks that could have gotten me into trouble. Jack Shaw, often my partner in mischief, also was one of my victims. I organized four of the guys to do a precision shakedown. As the group of us walked under a low-hanging light fixture, two men grabbed his legs; two others grabbed his arms. They turned him upside down. While his feet were in the air, I pulled off his shoes and hung them on the light fixture.

The men set Jack back down on his sock feet. Jack searched for his shoes but didn’t find them. We tried to convince him he hadn’t been wearing shoes. He didn’t believe us. But still, he couldn’t find his shoes although he searched all of us.

Each day of attending seminary I got up at 4:00 in the morning and got dressed quietly and with as little light as possible so as not to wake my family. My black socks and blue socks occupied the same drawer. Often I went to school wearing one of each. My goosy friend delighted in pulling up my pants cuffs to check to see if my socks matched. Naturally he called everyone’s attention to my socks. Many years after he had served as a missionary in South America, returned home and retired, we had a little get-together. We met in a restaurant. The first thing he did was to pull up my pants cuffs to check my sock colors.

Seminary Politics

The Faculty, while retaining veto power, made the Student Council responsible for discipline. One of the sons of an influential pastor of a large church allegedly got away with some shady test scores. Convinced that the student had violated the code of ethics by copying another student’s answers, Jack Sloan and I suggested that the Student Council do something. The Council’s weak response convinced us that they were afraid of the perpetrator’s father and would take no action.

Jack and I decided to form a political party and elect a new Student Council.

The school had strict rules about electing class and Council officers. Campaign posters could be posted only in certain places and could not be posted until April 1. We met with guys we thought would be good in the various offices. They agreed to run. I printed a poster for each space that would permit one.

At midnight on March 31, our candidates drove to the school, parked in the dark parking lot and scattered over the campus to put up posters.

The next morning students arrived to see every allowable spot covered with one of our posters. The opposition’s campaign sputtered. We elected the council. The first class session after the election, I announced the victory. One of the back row students stood and said, Now let’s all sing, ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.’

The council called the prominent pastor’s son on the carpet. He confessed and apologized.

All together my seminary experience was good. The students weren’t perfect but they were honest. I never heard a cuss word and never saw a fight. The environment was Christian and civilized.

Dr. George Norris, son of the late J. Frank Norris, taught theology. I disagreed with him on some things. If he had been like his father I might have been shown the door and told to get out. But George Norris simply said, Don’t tell me why you believe something. Show me in the Bible. I accused him of being a hyper-Calvinist fatalist (one who believes everything that happens was preordained and cannot be avoided.) He denied it but still encouraged me to do my own thinking and follow my own convictions.

At the close of a Friday class, Dr. Norris announced that he would give an important test on the Holy Spirit first thing Monday morning. He gave us a chapter to study in the textbook that we had not covered in class. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. studying the chapter, getting prepared for the big test.

Monday morning he gave us a test on an entirely different subject, which we had likewise not studied in class. I did poorly on the test. At the bottom of my test paper I wrote, Dr. Norris, I’m sorry I did so badly on this test. I was so full of the Holy Spirit that I could think of hardly anything else.

Several students spoke up and reminded Dr. Norris of his instructions to study for an examination on the Holy Spirit.

His response, I lied.

He graded the test on the curve, so a 50 was a good grade and we were far ahead on our study of the Holy Spirit.

Years after I graduated I visited the Seminary. As I opened the door to his classroom, Dr. Norris said, There he is now. He had been giving an illustration that involved me.

He asked me to say a something to the class. They told me they would raise the standards as soon as my class graduated, I said.

Two years later, I visited again. When I entered the classroom, Dr. Norris said, There he is now.

Once again he had been in the process of giving an illustration involving me and my class.

Another Professor, Raymond Barber, who taught Life of Christ, loved to harass me. I suppose that being on the front row of his class made me easy pickings. Often when he made a point, he would point at me and ask, Isn’t that right, Mr. Hewitt? He also found me handy for hypothetical examples, Now supposing Mr. Hewitt did so and so . . .

After his class one morning, he stopped me on the sidewalk outside.

Mr. Hewitt, I’m afraid you’re failing my class.

I couldn’t believe it. I told him I couldn’t imagine that I was failing. He insisted that I was indeed failing.

Can I do some extra work to make up for it? I need to pass.

He didn’t answer. It was probably too late anyway. In just a few days we got the grades for the past semester. Mine was a B+. I wasn’t the only joker on campus.

Dr. Barber went off for two weeks and left his wife in charge of his class. I wrote a telegram, Dr. Barber. Stay gone. We like your substitute better. Most of the class signed their names to it.

I was determined to finish seminary, no matter what. Often at 4:00 a.m. that resolve began to fade. I’ll just drop out. I can’t take this much longer. Pastoring a church, working at a full-time job and taking a full load at school was getting the best of me. I’ll go today and drop out tomorrow, I told myself. I had breakfast in the school cafeteria and, then went to a 7:00 a.m. class. By then I was awake enough to stand by my resolve.

My seminary experience taught me to take short naps. When sharing the ride with another student, I would be ready to go 10 minutes early. I sat on a recliner and told myself to wake up in 10 minutes. I looked at my watch and imagined where the big hand would be 10 minutes later. It took some practice but after a while I could wake up right on time or within 2 minutes of time. I used that mental alarm clock many times since. I get tired in the afternoon, lie down and set my mental alarm for 15 minutes and pop awake exactly on time. I also do that when driving. When I get dangerously sleepy, I find the nearest church parking lot, stop the car, lay the seat back and take a 15-minute nap.

After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I took little Debbi on a ride and a tour of the seminary campus. She asked, Where is Lee Harvey Oswald buried?

I don’t know. They don’t bury people here.

Yes, they do. The television said ‘Lee Harvey Oswald is buried at the seminary in Arlington.

CHAPTER 3

Church Starter

While still in seminary I learned that Richardson, a north suburb of Dallas was growing rapidly. I started knocking on doors there and found a few families interested in joining me to pioneer a new congregation in the fast-growing city. I rented an ancient store-front, former bank building owned by a Masonic Lodge that met on the second floor. Seven people attended the first meeting, a Wednesday evening Bible study.

The Lodge also held meetings each Wednesday. Their weekly ritual sounded like people upstairs moving furniture.

I bought a heavy old piano for $89.00, borrowed a pickup and hauled the piano to the temporary church facility. We paid $25.00 a week for the building. In a few months the Masons moved into a new building. We moved with them and had Sunday morning service in the Masonic Lodge Hall.

Two other churches donated homemade wood benches and used song books. One of our members made a pulpit out of plywood and put a gloss varnish finish on it. We moved them and the piano to my garage where we held Sunday evening services and Wednesday evening Bible study.

I hung curtains across the big two-car garage door, covered the concrete floor with scrap carpet and moved in the homemade pulpit, thus transforming the garage into a church auditorium, capacity 30.

I had told a realtor that I wanted a large garage with a house attached. The house had 1600 square feet, not including the garage.

Other rooms in the house served as Sunday school rooms. Some sat on beds, some on chairs and some on the floor. Roughing it was okay. We were pioneers.

On a Monday, we brushed some donated white paint onto the homemade pews. Twenty-four hours later, I checked it by sitting on one. My pants stuck to the still wet paint. It refused to dry. We waited another day. Still sticky wet. We bought some new paint and put another coat over it and the tired old paint dried in two hours. So much for donated paint.

Colors in the garage-auditorium were accidentally coordinated, beige heavy curtains covering the garage door, white benches and the natural wood colored pulpit standing over multicolored pieces of scrap carpet. When the weather got hot I installed a swamp box evaporative cooler that helped keep us cool.

The house was home for my wife, Marilu and our three kids, except Wednesday evening, Sunday morning, Sunday evening and an occasional