(Disciples of Christ)
Greensburg, PA
|
(Disciples of Christ) Greensburg, PA |
With Dr. Renny's permission this article is a bio of my quest to become a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some who read this may think it is an ego trip. I prefer to think of it as a quest for my goal.
My early life was sad. My four older sisters married young to escape my father's anger. Today he would have been jailed for child abuse, as he whipped my younger brother and me. At 49 he deserted my mother, younger brother, and me in 1928. I was 13 and shunted between my sisters' married families. I was able to be active in our church youth programs, and at a youth conference at Bethany College in 1932 I dedicated my life to become a minister. A pipe dream?
I graduated from high school in 1933, in the middle of the GREAT DEPRESSION. There was NO WORK for married, much less single, men——and NO MONEY for college. Instead, with my mother on welfare, I was sent to a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp at Galeton, a small town in North Central Pennsylvania. We lived in barracks, wore G.I. Clothes, were under military officers, and ate in a mess hall. We wacked weeds and killed rattlesnakes along rural roads. I spent a year with the WPA (Works Progress Administration), cleaning ditches and open sewers.
I finally got a job at an A & P grocery store at 25¢ per hour. I took and passed a civil service exam for railway postal clerks and got a job on the Pittsburgh & Fairmont WV RPO (railway postal car) at 75¢ per hour: I was rich! As I wanted my own pad, Louise and I married in 1936 and rented two rooms on the 2nd floor of a friend's house at $18 per month. Those were the days! Our RPO was on a Penn RR train, serving towns from Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River to Brownsville, Morgantown, and Fairmont, WV. We made a round trip daily. In 1952, when the mail trains were removed after WWII, HPO's were substituted. They used 60 foot buses, equipped like a train mail car. Ours was the Greensburg and Pittsburgh route. Can you imagine taking a round trip to Greensburg in 18 hours? We did. We served the river towns to Brownsville, east to Uniontown, and north to Greensburg, with a 5-hour layover in midday. Due to these long hours I only worked 9 days each month and seized the opportunity for college. In 1953, with the Pittsburgh office's blessing and my fellow clerks' cooperation, I jiggled my work schedule for 5 years, commuting to Bethany M-W-F and working Tu-Th-Sat.
In 1954 Dr. Harry Ice of the Religion Department at Bethany assigned me to the Taylorstown, PA Christian Church, in a rural community near Bethany. I moved my family there into the parsonage. There were no water or toilet facilities in the church or the parsonage next door. With no cellar, the cat's milk froze on the kitchen floor. Ed Marple, with his magic peach stick, located water under the church steps. A well was dug and water was piped into the church and parsonage. A bathroom was built in the parsonage, while toilet facilities and a baptistry were included in the new Sunday School Annex to the church.
In 1958 I graduated from Bethany College with a BA (Bachelor of Arts) degree: 25 years from the date of my High School graduation. I agreed to stay at Taylorstown. In 1959 I received a call from Greensburg First Christian Church, victimized by a congregational split. They knew of my work on the Greensburg & Pittsburgh HPO. I moved my family to Greensburg. I resigned from the mail service in 1962, with 25 years service, and in 1963, with the church's blessing, I enrolled at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (Presbyterian). I commuted to Pittsburgh four days per week for four long years and graduated, in 1967, with my coveted M.Div. (Master of Divinity) degree, finally at long last fulfilling my quest.
In 1968 I received a call from the Clearwater, Florida, Christian Church. (It is an almost unbelievable story, too long to be included here.) With Bill and Joan married, and David in college, Louise and I moved to Florida and remained there for 30 plus years. The Clearwater Christian Church, only 11 years old when we got there, had been theologically split. With reconciliation the church grew and a sanctuary and administration building were added to the original Fellowship Hall and four classrooms. At the Dedication Service in 1972 the church surprised Louise and me with a 2 week, 1st class, all expenses paid trip to Israel and Greece. Thus began a long list of travel to US and foreign cities. Recurring blood clots in my lower left leg required treatment in the ICU and I resigned in 1977 at age 62.
From 1978 to 1991 I accepted 11 Interim Pastorates——2 in Cameron, WV (near Wheeling), Beaufort, South Carolina, seven in Florida: Melbourne, Sebring, 3 in St. Pete, and 2 in Clearwater doing Assistant Pastor vacancies [at the end of my 2nd Interim in Clearwater the church made me their Minister Emeritus], and finally two in Pennsylvania—Marple, near Philadelphia, and back home in Greensburg in 1983. I was one of five church leaders who turned spades of dirt here and watched this church's walls being built.
Louise's health deteriorated and in 1998 we moved back to Greensburg as she wanted to be near our daughter Joan, who had married and remained in Greensburg. Louise was excited to be HOME, and although ill was happy. She died in 2001 after 64 years of marriage. In 2002 1st Christian Church of Greensburg made me Minister Emeritus, a rare honor to have from two churches.
I have been blessed with a host of friends in the 3 pastorates and 11 Interims. It has not been all sunshine and roses due to three trips to ICU with blood clots and a heart attack with an angioplasty in 1995. However, with gratitude and grace, I reminisce on these years of service and the fulfillment of my youthful vow and dream.
If God could use a poor boy from a broken family like me, HE can use you too! All you have to do is say, “Here I am! Send me!”——and GO!
And wonder of wonders, I am still alive at 95!
J. Reynolds Lewis
|
|