BITS & PIECES
Dan at Ho Rd and Hum Rd - Carefree, AZ
For the want of a better title to this posting, I've called it BITS & PIECES. It is just that. This post is a compilation of things that have come to my mind since I wrote the previous posts. Since I did not want to go back and try to insert these bits and pieces into the respective time period and post, I decided to simply lump them all together into one post. They are a variety of incidents, God's protection, God's guidance, my mistakes and additional ministry opportunities. They are not in chronological order. Listed as I remembered them.
This first piece that I'm sharing happened over fifty-five years ago. It illustrates God's protection. It was during the time that I was serving Lousana and Bellgrove churches and also the eight months that I filled in at the Mirror Alliance Church. One night, as I was driving my Volkswagen Beetle the 35 mile trip home to Lousana from Mirror, I was amusing myself by seeing how quickly I could flick my headlights on to high beam after an oncoming car had passed. I had probably done it a half dozen times, when I stepped on the floor control again for the high beam and there, a few feet in front of me, was a cow in my lane. Fortunately there were no oncoming cars at that moment and I was able to swerve into the oncoming lane and pass the cow. Looking back over the half century plus since that night, I see that God was not finished with me then, I still had work to do, fifty-five years thus far.
When I was a solo pastor, meaning no associate pastors, I tried to visit all ages when they were hospitalized. One day, I visited a pre-schooler who was in the hospital. I would usually take a pamphlet or booklet to give to a teen or adult patient. Well, the day I visited this four year old, I wondered what I could take give him. It is doubtful whether he could read. So I decided to purchase a little rubber ball and give it to him.
Later that day when his mother was visiting him, she noticed the rubber ball and inquired as to who gave him that ball. "My uncle gave it to me," was his reply.
"Which uncle," she asked, and then named off a couple of uncles by name. He responded to each of these with a no for his answer.
As the mother was trying to figure out which uncle he was referring to, he finally said, "You know, that uncle that stands up at the front of the church and hollers!" Well that was the only time in my pastoral journey that my preaching was referred to as hollering. However, we all had a big laugh when we heard what he told his mother.
I mentioned in a post about Rockyview Alliance Church that it was a young congregation and in my years there we saw 125 baby dedications. So, it was one of those Sundays when I was to have two couples dedicate their new born. I invited two couples to come forward for the dedication of their infant. As was customary, we sang a stanza of a hymn while they walked forward. The husband of one couple that I had called remained seated in the audience and never moved. We were about through singing when the other couple finally walked forward. As I began with some scripture, I sensed something was wrong. I stopped looked at this couple standing before me and the wife whispered, "Pastor, it's next Sunday." Well, I got the message, told the congregation that I had made a mistake. Sang another stanza and let this couple walk back to their seat. It was quite common to have the grandparents and other relatives of the infant present, when a child was being dedicated.
I remember one Sunday, when we pastors were beginning our walk to the platform and I noticed the grandparents of an infant sitting with their daughter and son-in-law. I knew that the parents were planning to have their child dedicated soon, but I was not the pastor doing the dedication. When we were walking up to the platform, I turned to one of my associates and asked if he was doing a baby dedication. He had forgotten. He quickly retraced his steps to his office to get the information. Even though the dedication was not on the order of service, we fit it in and the audience didn't know but what we had things well under control. Good thing, too. The grandparents had driven up from Oregon for this special event.
I mentioned in a post about Rockyview Alliance Church that it was a young congregation and in my years there we saw 125 baby dedications. So, it was one of those Sundays when I was to have two couples dedicate their new born. I invited two couples to come forward for the dedication of their infant. As was customary, we sang a stanza of a hymn while they walked forward. The husband of one couple that I had called remained seated in the audience and never moved. We were about through singing when the other couple finally walked forward. As I began with some scripture, I sensed something was wrong. I stopped looked at this couple standing before me and the wife whispered, "Pastor, it's next Sunday." Well, I got the message, told the congregation that I had made a mistake. Sang another stanza and let this couple walk back to their seat. It was quite common to have the grandparents and other relatives of the infant present, when a child was being dedicated.
I remember one Sunday, when we pastors were beginning our walk to the platform and I noticed the grandparents of an infant sitting with their daughter and son-in-law. I knew that the parents were planning to have their child dedicated soon, but I was not the pastor doing the dedication. When we were walking up to the platform, I turned to one of my associates and asked if he was doing a baby dedication. He had forgotten. He quickly retraced his steps to his office to get the information. Even though the dedication was not on the order of service, we fit it in and the audience didn't know but what we had things well under control. Good thing, too. The grandparents had driven up from Oregon for this special event.
Another happening in Calgary was not a baby dedication, but a marriage. One Saturday morning, I received a phone call from the pastor of the First Nations Alliance Church in Calgary. He was going to perform a wedding that afternoon and needed a pastor who had a license to marry. He would give the devotional, etc., but needed someone to make it legal. He was desperate. I agreed to go and make it official.
Once I was ready and about to leave for northwest Calgary, I looked in the Alliance directory of churches for the church address. This native church had as its address a post office box. I tried phoning the pastor, but obviously he had left for the church. I tried to reach the district superintendent. No answer. Time was quickly passing. Unable to reach anyone, or if I did connect with a pastor or friend, no one knew the church address. I knew the general area so I decided to head in that direction. I saw activity outside of another church, which I figured was close to the Alliance church. I stopped and asked people there if they knew where this native church was located. No one there knew about the First Nations church.
So, believing that I was close to the church, I started driving one block at a time and every time I came to an intersection I would look both ways. It was now past the starting time for the wedding, but I kept up with driving with an eye out for the church. Finally, I came to an intersection and noticed about half way down this particular block, a dozen or more people standing out in front. I turned and headed in their direction. Thank God, I found the church.
Once inside, I sat on a back pew hoping that the pastor would show up and that I could meet the couple that was to be married. Suddenly, the pastor passed me, with the couple following and headed to the front of the sanctuary. I stood and followed them. The only information given to me on the phone that morning was the couples' names. After a hymn or two and a devotional by the pastor, it was my turn. Thankfully, I "tied the knot." I was introduced to them, following the wedding.
Thirty years or so ago, I was invited to be the featured speaker at a Christian school's big event. An auditorium was rented and was well filled. So was the program. It went on and on and on. They had packed in enough different features into their evening to fill two evenings. Finally, I was introduced and it was my time to speak. Well, the audience began to get up one by one and leave. Fortunately, that has not been the pattern throughout my ministry. I am thankful that I did have some patient souls that stuck out the evening and stayed to hear what I had to say. I also did my best to condense my thoughts and still let them get home before they fell asleep.
Speaking of falling asleep reminds me of another time when I was invited to a neighboring town and asked to bring a devotional at a church's adult fellowship. This adult fellowship also had a full evening, similar to the Christian school meeting. I don't recall all that happened during the evening, but close to three hours of fun and laughter had ended when I was asked to give my little devotional. As I recall it was close to 11:00pm. I had chosen for my topic, "Sleeping Christians." Well, nobody left, but I was told later that one of the gentlemen had indeed fallen asleep and slept through my talk.
In the 1980's, during my pastoral ministry in Calgary, I served on the Board of Directors for the Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, AB. A friend and classmate, during my years at PBI, was a Mennonite Brethren pastor in Calgary and he also was a member of the board. The two of us drove together to the board meetings in Three Hills. We were the two members of the board who were the farthest from Three Hills. All the other board members were from the Three Hills area, either farmers, business people, plus faculty and staff members from the school. The meetings seemed to revolve around the schedule of the PBI faculty and staff. I recall a meeting when one or two of the faculty members had another commitment and the meeting was cut short. Another meeting was scheduled for the following week in order to finish the business on the agenda. The two of us from Calgary, simply did not go back. It was about a 160 mile round trip, which cost us time and gas money.
When I moved to Kamloops in 1985, there was no way that I was going to take the time, pay my own way and drive to Three Hills, a 920 mile round trip, for a one or two hour board meeting, with the possibility of it being cut short and continued the following week. So, I drafted a letter, mailed it to the secretary of the board, with suggestions that the school consider restructuring the board. I suggested that board members should come from different parts of Canada and the United States and consist of business people, educators and pastors. I also suggested that they meet once or twice a year, at the most, and make it a two day event. Well, I understand that this is the way that the board has functioned now for several years.
Speaking about Prairie Bible Institute, one year I was invited to be the devotional speaker for their faculty retreat, prior to the fall opening of a new school year. That same year, I was also asked to teach a week's course on church growth at Briercrest College & Seminary in Caronport, SK. I was also given the privilege of speaking, one morning, in their chapel service.
If you need any proof that we live in a sin-cursed world and that the world needs to hear the gospel, let me mention the break-ins that we experienced. Interesting that in my first two places of ministry the church buildings were never locked, except at Halloween, and we never experienced any thefts. It is a different story in some of the other church buildings. In Vernon we experienced two break-ins. In Lethbridge we experienced a break-in at the church and also at our home. The day that our house was broken into was an afternoon.
Leona and I had been visiting some parishioners. Since it was nearing the time that the children would be coming home from school, I dropped her off at the house and was going to make one more visit. For whatever reason, I remained in the car while she walked up the sidewalk, up the front steps and into the house. I would normally do that if it was dark, but this was mid afternoon. When I arrived at my next appointment, their phone rang and it was Leona. I immediately sensed something was wrong. She informed me that our house had been broken into while we were visiting. I left these folks immediately and headed for home.
Leona had discovered something was amiss when she walked into the kitchen. She had made some cinnamon buns and left them on the counter to cool. Half of them were gone. Upon investigating, they apparently had eaten the buns as they walked through the house. The banister leading downstairs was all sticky. They had ransacked our bedroom drawers and my office downstairs. They had discovered a Pringles potato chip container, which was about three quarters full, with American silver dollars. I had some big old silver dollars that we had received when we were on our honeymoon and subsequent trips through Montana. Silver dollars were in common usage in Montana until the early 1960's.
We learned later that since the senior high school was less than a city block from our house and since it was the noon hour when we left, that some high school boys had seen us leave. One of the students checked out our house to see if anyone else was home. When all was clear, others followed and broke in. Probably twice in our entire married life, we put a door key under the back door mat for our children, should they get home before we did. Fortunately they didn't get home first. The culprits found the key under the mat, which is not a good place to put a key. They were courteous enough to place it back under the mat when they left with our silver dollars.
There had been about five day time break-ins in our area, in Lethbridge, about one each week. Ours was the last. The thieves, which were responsible for the rash of break-ins, were finally caught. A few days following our break-in, a Baptist pastor had phoned. I was not home, but while Leona was on the phone with him, he heard a knock at his door. A couple of high school students were at his door. They said that they were doing a survey and wanted to know his opinion of the upcoming federal election. Since Leona had related the story about our break-in, he immediately phoned the school asking if a class was out taking a survey. When they said that no class was doing any survey, he phoned the police. The police asked him to go to the school the next day and point out the boys that had knocked on his door. He readily spotted them. Their approach had been to knock first, if some answered then they posed the question about the election. If no answer, then they started exploring ways to break in.
I got sidetracked on our house break-in. We also experienced a church break-in at Rockyview Alliance Church. Sound equipment, belonging to a team of youth who had come to conduct a series of meetings, was stolen. We also experienced a break-in at Kamloops Alliance Church.
Wanting to help people who were in need was always a priority as a church and as a pastor. However the most difficult decision or action to take was for those who came to the church, or phoned, telling us about their situation. The sob stories were numerous and yet often very similar. They needed money to buy diapers for their baby; their mother had died and the funeral was in Winnipeg and they didn't have the money for bus fare; they were hungry and hadn't eaten for some time; they were out of groceries, etc. etc.
I shared one story with you that happened in Lethbridge about the man whose truck was out of gas, but on talking with him, when he refused to let me buy some gas and take him to his truck finally admitted that he didn't have a truck. Another story about needing gasoline happened in Vernon. This man came to our house. His car had Oregon license plates. He needed enough gas to get across the border where he had relatives that could help him. I told him to follow me. I led him to the station where I knew the owner well and where I purchased my gas. I had my friend put in $5.00 worth. That would take him several miles and for sure get him into the state of Washington.
As he drove away, the owner operator turned to me and said something like, when will you pastors ever learn. He then told me that the same fellow was here a day or so before and another pastor was purchasing gasoline for him. As for being hungry, some have come when a social time was in progress and when invited to join us and that we ad lots of food, they declined saying they didn't want to bother us. Just give them money. A couple of churches, where I served as pastor, used to give food vouchers. We received a call from one grocery store telling us that the recipient was in their store and wanting to cash the voucher for money.
As much as possible I've tried to be able to share the gospel with these who are requesting help, especially if they end up coming to the church. Most of them have some idea as to what a pastor might say, as many of these frequent churches asking for help. One day I had a fellow siting in my office asking for money. Before I decided whether I would help him or not, I started to say something about the Lord and he immediately got up off his chair and knelt down, ready to pray. I assume that he was about ready to pray the sinner's prayer.
I won't bore you with anymore of these stories about requests for help, except this strange one. It was a Saturday night and around 7:00pm when there was a knock at our front door. When I answered, here was the strangest looking fellow with a shawl over his shoulder. He said something like this, "Pastor A. Daniel Goldsmith?" (that was how my name appeared on the church sign.) "God has told me that you have a room for me tonight." Wow! God told him that we had a room for him. We had three bedrooms, Leona and I had ours, the two boys shared a room and our daughter had her own room. Furthermore, that weekend we had a family of six spending the weekend with us, a mom and dad and four children. I let him know that there was no room for him. He politely bowed and walked away. I was convinced that God had not told him that we had a room for him.
The following story was just five years ago, in the fall of 2013. I had been retired from ministry at Sevenoaks Alliance Church for thirteen years. Sevenoaks Alliance Church celebrated their 65th anniversary that year. Different people were sharing in the Sunday morning service. On the Saturday, before the anniversary Sunday, Leona and I were parking and about to go into one of the grocery stores. At the same time, one of the elders and his wife parked beside us. As we were about to walk into the store he asked me if I was ready with my little talk for Sunday. I was not understanding what he was referring to and so asked what he meant. "You're talking about our One Grand Gift."
Now I was surprised. I had never been asked to speak about this great event. He responded by saying that he had sent an email to me a couple of weeks or so earlier, asking if I would share about that big Christmas offering of 2006. I told him that I had never received any email or any such request. The long and short of it all was we discovered later that he had a wrong email address.
Well, now that I learned that I was on the order of service, in fact the bulletins had been printed a day or so before and there was my name as one of the participants, I went into high gear that Saturday afternoon.
One Grand Gift was a Christmas offering that had been announced and promoted for several weeks. The church had a debt of around $1,300,000.00 and the goal was to pay it off with one offering. There had been no canvassing of members, as is often the case, simply asking people to give generously, over and above and see what we could do to pay off the debt. The only thing done, ahead of that Sunday, was that the elders and the staff had made a promise or pledge of what they would give. I believe that totaled about $300,000.00. That meant that one million dollars was still needed to pay off the debt. Three goals had been set. The first was $1,000.000.00. The second one was $1,300,000.00 and the third, I believe, was $1,600,000.00.
Since it was Christmas, boxes, that were nicely decorated with Christmas wrapping, were stationed in several different areas in the sanctuary, with an elder standing beside each box. The offering was similar to how they receive an offering in some African churches. At the time the offering was received, people stood and walked to the nearest box, placing their offering in the box. When the total was shared at the end of the service, $1,270,000.00 was announced. A few people gave additional money in the week or so that followed. Each one said that they were prompted to give more than what they had done initially. Within a week or two we exceeded the second goal, $1,300,000.00, sufficient to pay off the debt. I should clarify that pledges were not being made to be paid off over the next two or three years. The goal was to pay it off now, with one offering. However, there was one exception made. Since it was only a couple of weeks until the new year, any who chose could split their gift, give a portion in 2006 and the balance, early in the new year, 2007. I don't think tears had ever welled up in my eyes before when an offering was taken. That Sunday morning, it was hard to keep back the tears when we watched the congregation, one by one, deposit their offering in one of the Christmas boxes.
By the way, I managed to prepare and present a five minute talk, reminiscing about the day our church gave over a million dollars. Upon reflecting, all I can say is, thank God that elder and his wife parked beside us Saturday morning. I'm sure that I could have winged it through on the Sunday morning, but I had time to prepare and get the facts straight, with a phone call to the elder who had been the chairman for that event.
One more story and then I'll stop. This is a sermon goof, or I should say that I goofed. A few years ago, one of the many memorial services that I've done in my retired years was that of a dear Dutch lady. I was endeavoring to say what a nice lady she was and so gave a quote, which the Dutch people often say. In my message I said, "If you're Dutch you're not much." I had barely spoken the words when I saw one of the lady's sons turn to his wife with a big smirk on his face. After the service I went to him and asked if I had said the right thing. I thought his smile indicated that I had made a mistake. Well, I did make a mistake. I goofed for sure. What I said was "If you're Dutch you're not much." What I should have said was "If you're NOT Dutch, you're not much!."
Once I was ready and about to leave for northwest Calgary, I looked in the Alliance directory of churches for the church address. This native church had as its address a post office box. I tried phoning the pastor, but obviously he had left for the church. I tried to reach the district superintendent. No answer. Time was quickly passing. Unable to reach anyone, or if I did connect with a pastor or friend, no one knew the church address. I knew the general area so I decided to head in that direction. I saw activity outside of another church, which I figured was close to the Alliance church. I stopped and asked people there if they knew where this native church was located. No one there knew about the First Nations church.
So, believing that I was close to the church, I started driving one block at a time and every time I came to an intersection I would look both ways. It was now past the starting time for the wedding, but I kept up with driving with an eye out for the church. Finally, I came to an intersection and noticed about half way down this particular block, a dozen or more people standing out in front. I turned and headed in their direction. Thank God, I found the church.
Once inside, I sat on a back pew hoping that the pastor would show up and that I could meet the couple that was to be married. Suddenly, the pastor passed me, with the couple following and headed to the front of the sanctuary. I stood and followed them. The only information given to me on the phone that morning was the couples' names. After a hymn or two and a devotional by the pastor, it was my turn. Thankfully, I "tied the knot." I was introduced to them, following the wedding.
Thirty years or so ago, I was invited to be the featured speaker at a Christian school's big event. An auditorium was rented and was well filled. So was the program. It went on and on and on. They had packed in enough different features into their evening to fill two evenings. Finally, I was introduced and it was my time to speak. Well, the audience began to get up one by one and leave. Fortunately, that has not been the pattern throughout my ministry. I am thankful that I did have some patient souls that stuck out the evening and stayed to hear what I had to say. I also did my best to condense my thoughts and still let them get home before they fell asleep.
Speaking of falling asleep reminds me of another time when I was invited to a neighboring town and asked to bring a devotional at a church's adult fellowship. This adult fellowship also had a full evening, similar to the Christian school meeting. I don't recall all that happened during the evening, but close to three hours of fun and laughter had ended when I was asked to give my little devotional. As I recall it was close to 11:00pm. I had chosen for my topic, "Sleeping Christians." Well, nobody left, but I was told later that one of the gentlemen had indeed fallen asleep and slept through my talk.
In the 1980's, during my pastoral ministry in Calgary, I served on the Board of Directors for the Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, AB. A friend and classmate, during my years at PBI, was a Mennonite Brethren pastor in Calgary and he also was a member of the board. The two of us drove together to the board meetings in Three Hills. We were the two members of the board who were the farthest from Three Hills. All the other board members were from the Three Hills area, either farmers, business people, plus faculty and staff members from the school. The meetings seemed to revolve around the schedule of the PBI faculty and staff. I recall a meeting when one or two of the faculty members had another commitment and the meeting was cut short. Another meeting was scheduled for the following week in order to finish the business on the agenda. The two of us from Calgary, simply did not go back. It was about a 160 mile round trip, which cost us time and gas money.
When I moved to Kamloops in 1985, there was no way that I was going to take the time, pay my own way and drive to Three Hills, a 920 mile round trip, for a one or two hour board meeting, with the possibility of it being cut short and continued the following week. So, I drafted a letter, mailed it to the secretary of the board, with suggestions that the school consider restructuring the board. I suggested that board members should come from different parts of Canada and the United States and consist of business people, educators and pastors. I also suggested that they meet once or twice a year, at the most, and make it a two day event. Well, I understand that this is the way that the board has functioned now for several years.
Speaking about Prairie Bible Institute, one year I was invited to be the devotional speaker for their faculty retreat, prior to the fall opening of a new school year. That same year, I was also asked to teach a week's course on church growth at Briercrest College & Seminary in Caronport, SK. I was also given the privilege of speaking, one morning, in their chapel service.
If you need any proof that we live in a sin-cursed world and that the world needs to hear the gospel, let me mention the break-ins that we experienced. Interesting that in my first two places of ministry the church buildings were never locked, except at Halloween, and we never experienced any thefts. It is a different story in some of the other church buildings. In Vernon we experienced two break-ins. In Lethbridge we experienced a break-in at the church and also at our home. The day that our house was broken into was an afternoon.
Leona and I had been visiting some parishioners. Since it was nearing the time that the children would be coming home from school, I dropped her off at the house and was going to make one more visit. For whatever reason, I remained in the car while she walked up the sidewalk, up the front steps and into the house. I would normally do that if it was dark, but this was mid afternoon. When I arrived at my next appointment, their phone rang and it was Leona. I immediately sensed something was wrong. She informed me that our house had been broken into while we were visiting. I left these folks immediately and headed for home.
Leona had discovered something was amiss when she walked into the kitchen. She had made some cinnamon buns and left them on the counter to cool. Half of them were gone. Upon investigating, they apparently had eaten the buns as they walked through the house. The banister leading downstairs was all sticky. They had ransacked our bedroom drawers and my office downstairs. They had discovered a Pringles potato chip container, which was about three quarters full, with American silver dollars. I had some big old silver dollars that we had received when we were on our honeymoon and subsequent trips through Montana. Silver dollars were in common usage in Montana until the early 1960's.
We learned later that since the senior high school was less than a city block from our house and since it was the noon hour when we left, that some high school boys had seen us leave. One of the students checked out our house to see if anyone else was home. When all was clear, others followed and broke in. Probably twice in our entire married life, we put a door key under the back door mat for our children, should they get home before we did. Fortunately they didn't get home first. The culprits found the key under the mat, which is not a good place to put a key. They were courteous enough to place it back under the mat when they left with our silver dollars.
There had been about five day time break-ins in our area, in Lethbridge, about one each week. Ours was the last. The thieves, which were responsible for the rash of break-ins, were finally caught. A few days following our break-in, a Baptist pastor had phoned. I was not home, but while Leona was on the phone with him, he heard a knock at his door. A couple of high school students were at his door. They said that they were doing a survey and wanted to know his opinion of the upcoming federal election. Since Leona had related the story about our break-in, he immediately phoned the school asking if a class was out taking a survey. When they said that no class was doing any survey, he phoned the police. The police asked him to go to the school the next day and point out the boys that had knocked on his door. He readily spotted them. Their approach had been to knock first, if some answered then they posed the question about the election. If no answer, then they started exploring ways to break in.
I got sidetracked on our house break-in. We also experienced a church break-in at Rockyview Alliance Church. Sound equipment, belonging to a team of youth who had come to conduct a series of meetings, was stolen. We also experienced a break-in at Kamloops Alliance Church.
Wanting to help people who were in need was always a priority as a church and as a pastor. However the most difficult decision or action to take was for those who came to the church, or phoned, telling us about their situation. The sob stories were numerous and yet often very similar. They needed money to buy diapers for their baby; their mother had died and the funeral was in Winnipeg and they didn't have the money for bus fare; they were hungry and hadn't eaten for some time; they were out of groceries, etc. etc.
I shared one story with you that happened in Lethbridge about the man whose truck was out of gas, but on talking with him, when he refused to let me buy some gas and take him to his truck finally admitted that he didn't have a truck. Another story about needing gasoline happened in Vernon. This man came to our house. His car had Oregon license plates. He needed enough gas to get across the border where he had relatives that could help him. I told him to follow me. I led him to the station where I knew the owner well and where I purchased my gas. I had my friend put in $5.00 worth. That would take him several miles and for sure get him into the state of Washington.
As he drove away, the owner operator turned to me and said something like, when will you pastors ever learn. He then told me that the same fellow was here a day or so before and another pastor was purchasing gasoline for him. As for being hungry, some have come when a social time was in progress and when invited to join us and that we ad lots of food, they declined saying they didn't want to bother us. Just give them money. A couple of churches, where I served as pastor, used to give food vouchers. We received a call from one grocery store telling us that the recipient was in their store and wanting to cash the voucher for money.
As much as possible I've tried to be able to share the gospel with these who are requesting help, especially if they end up coming to the church. Most of them have some idea as to what a pastor might say, as many of these frequent churches asking for help. One day I had a fellow siting in my office asking for money. Before I decided whether I would help him or not, I started to say something about the Lord and he immediately got up off his chair and knelt down, ready to pray. I assume that he was about ready to pray the sinner's prayer.
I won't bore you with anymore of these stories about requests for help, except this strange one. It was a Saturday night and around 7:00pm when there was a knock at our front door. When I answered, here was the strangest looking fellow with a shawl over his shoulder. He said something like this, "Pastor A. Daniel Goldsmith?" (that was how my name appeared on the church sign.) "God has told me that you have a room for me tonight." Wow! God told him that we had a room for him. We had three bedrooms, Leona and I had ours, the two boys shared a room and our daughter had her own room. Furthermore, that weekend we had a family of six spending the weekend with us, a mom and dad and four children. I let him know that there was no room for him. He politely bowed and walked away. I was convinced that God had not told him that we had a room for him.
The following story was just five years ago, in the fall of 2013. I had been retired from ministry at Sevenoaks Alliance Church for thirteen years. Sevenoaks Alliance Church celebrated their 65th anniversary that year. Different people were sharing in the Sunday morning service. On the Saturday, before the anniversary Sunday, Leona and I were parking and about to go into one of the grocery stores. At the same time, one of the elders and his wife parked beside us. As we were about to walk into the store he asked me if I was ready with my little talk for Sunday. I was not understanding what he was referring to and so asked what he meant. "You're talking about our One Grand Gift."
Now I was surprised. I had never been asked to speak about this great event. He responded by saying that he had sent an email to me a couple of weeks or so earlier, asking if I would share about that big Christmas offering of 2006. I told him that I had never received any email or any such request. The long and short of it all was we discovered later that he had a wrong email address.
Well, now that I learned that I was on the order of service, in fact the bulletins had been printed a day or so before and there was my name as one of the participants, I went into high gear that Saturday afternoon.
One Grand Gift was a Christmas offering that had been announced and promoted for several weeks. The church had a debt of around $1,300,000.00 and the goal was to pay it off with one offering. There had been no canvassing of members, as is often the case, simply asking people to give generously, over and above and see what we could do to pay off the debt. The only thing done, ahead of that Sunday, was that the elders and the staff had made a promise or pledge of what they would give. I believe that totaled about $300,000.00. That meant that one million dollars was still needed to pay off the debt. Three goals had been set. The first was $1,000.000.00. The second one was $1,300,000.00 and the third, I believe, was $1,600,000.00.
Since it was Christmas, boxes, that were nicely decorated with Christmas wrapping, were stationed in several different areas in the sanctuary, with an elder standing beside each box. The offering was similar to how they receive an offering in some African churches. At the time the offering was received, people stood and walked to the nearest box, placing their offering in the box. When the total was shared at the end of the service, $1,270,000.00 was announced. A few people gave additional money in the week or so that followed. Each one said that they were prompted to give more than what they had done initially. Within a week or two we exceeded the second goal, $1,300,000.00, sufficient to pay off the debt. I should clarify that pledges were not being made to be paid off over the next two or three years. The goal was to pay it off now, with one offering. However, there was one exception made. Since it was only a couple of weeks until the new year, any who chose could split their gift, give a portion in 2006 and the balance, early in the new year, 2007. I don't think tears had ever welled up in my eyes before when an offering was taken. That Sunday morning, it was hard to keep back the tears when we watched the congregation, one by one, deposit their offering in one of the Christmas boxes.
By the way, I managed to prepare and present a five minute talk, reminiscing about the day our church gave over a million dollars. Upon reflecting, all I can say is, thank God that elder and his wife parked beside us Saturday morning. I'm sure that I could have winged it through on the Sunday morning, but I had time to prepare and get the facts straight, with a phone call to the elder who had been the chairman for that event.
One more story and then I'll stop. This is a sermon goof, or I should say that I goofed. A few years ago, one of the many memorial services that I've done in my retired years was that of a dear Dutch lady. I was endeavoring to say what a nice lady she was and so gave a quote, which the Dutch people often say. In my message I said, "If you're Dutch you're not much." I had barely spoken the words when I saw one of the lady's sons turn to his wife with a big smirk on his face. After the service I went to him and asked if I had said the right thing. I thought his smile indicated that I had made a mistake. Well, I did make a mistake. I goofed for sure. What I said was "If you're Dutch you're not much." What I should have said was "If you're NOT Dutch, you're not much!."
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