Ask the Pastors S6 E15: "West Hills: A History (Part 1)"

(00:04):

Welcome to Ask the Pastors a segment of the West Hills Podcast where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host and one of the pastors on staff, and this episode is part one of two recapping West Hills Church history. A few months ago, pastor will sat down with some key figures from throughout the history of the church and had a conversation with them. I'll let them introduce themselves now. Enjoy.

(00:37):

Well, welcome to this special edition podcast, west Hills A History, and I am Will Deval. I'm the lead pastor here currently, but as we're going to tell the story and we'll discover soon enough, been plenty of predecessors before me. So I'm honored to serve as lead pastor now, and I'm especially honored to sit down this afternoon with some of our senior saints and some of our treasure members who hold the treasures of the history and annals of this church and their minds and hearts. And we just are honored to be able to hear your stories and all collectively as a church get to know more of the story of what God has done at and through the ministry of this church over the years to his glory. So I want to start by having each of you just go around and briefly introduce yourself, your name and when you came to West Hills, if you can remember some of you. It is been so long when you came, well, I guess I should say, when you came to Bethany Baptist, and we'll get to that too. The name change, because I don't think any of y'all came to West Hills. Did you Came to Bethany Baptist. So when did you come and how long either were you here or have you been here? So why don't we start here and we'll work our way clockwise with Ms. Barbara.

(02:05):

Okay. My name is Barbara Underwood. I came in 1973 and I did not come by myself along with my family, Bob and our son Brad. 11 deaf people came with me at the same time.

• Read more

  (02:22):

  Well that's part of this story we want to hear too, is the deaf ministry here for so many years. So it's great to thank you for being back to help us record this. Cindy.

  (02:33):

  I'm Cindy Fisher. I think I was dragged here in 1976. I was in college. I came home. My mom had switched churches on me. My parents were divorced. We only had one car, so I had to go to this church where upon I met Doug Fisher, who became my husband. Many years later, he does not remember meeting me, but I remember meeting him.

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  I don't think I knew that y'all met here at the church. We did. Praise the Lord. How about you Doug?

  (03:03):

  I'm Doug Fisher. I am the oldest son of the first pastor of Bethany Baptist. And I came with my family when I was in seventh grade in November of 1969 when my dad came down to St. Louis from suburban Chicago as the founding pastor.

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  Yeah, definitely. You've got a unique perspective, not only founding pastor's son, but being young at the time when some of them, so I'm curious to hear your perspective as well. Thanks for being with us, both of y'all. Alright, miss Sandy,

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  I'm Sandy Smith and I came here in 1973, brought all of my family and I think I have really grown in Christ since I've been here.

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  Praise the Lord. Yeah.

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  Hi,

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  Last but not least.

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  Oh, okay. I'm June tro. Have a frog for some reason.

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  Oh.

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  And I've been here from the start of the church and so that was, I always forget the date, but

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  It was, yeah, we

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  Got some of the found documents here, don't we? Early spring of 1968 is when you guys started

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  The

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  Meeting and talking about

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  It. Okay. So let's start with you then, Ms. June, and talk about the, so tell us about the founding of the church. Where did the impetus, the desire, the dream, the calling come from to found Bethany Baptist and tell us that story.

  (04:45):

  Okay. We were sitting in Mario Press Church in Clayton, and they were singing Heaven came down and Glory filled my soul. And then we got, it sort of triggered a visit that we had in Minneapolis with one of Len's really good friends.

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  This is your husband Len?

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  Yeah, my husband Len. And so on the way home, I said, Tolen, maybe we should be starting another church. And so anyhow, it happened and that song was so good. Heaven came down and Glory filled my soul. And so we were so enamored with that. That song was something that we sang when we went up to Founders Week in Minneapolis and we stayed with Len's College friends and so we just decided, well, let's go for it.

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  And I'm doing the math. So you are 99 and a half now?

  (06:00):

  I am.

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  You'll turn a hundred God willing this June. So I'm doing the math. That was 55 years ago, right? 50. Well, really coming up on 56 years ago. So you were mid forties at the time, and you said y'all had some experience with church plants in the past. Good. Okay. And who else? So it was you and Lynn, and then who else was a part of that initial, so where did you go from there? You went up to Wheaton, you went up to Wheaton with a couple other couples, right?

  (06:32):

  Wheat? No, we started in,

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  Right? Yeah. And you said you did sort of almost like a discernment vision trip up there and talked to the denomination,

  (06:44):

  But we didn't talk to the denomination. You didn't meet that one? We just remembered that we sang that song up in Minneapolis at our friend's house. And so it just seemed, well, let's do it.

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  So who were those other And

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  They were college friends from Dakotas and they always liked us to come, not when we left our winter coats in the closet. They had a mail to us.

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  So who were the other founding couples here in St. Louis with y'all when it

  (07:23):

  Was Conyers and they went back home after they retired. And he has cancer right now. I don't know how he's doing. I don't think he's going to make it, but anyhow. And she was a nurse at St. Joe's Hospital here, so they contributed a lot. And then when we met at the school, I said to Marvin, oh, are we ready to charter yet? I said, no, we don't have enough people to charter.

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  Is that Marvin Cony?

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  Yeah,

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  His name.

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  Okay. Yeah.

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  So it was just the four of you at that

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  Point? No horns

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  And the

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  Horn, the horns.

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  Okay.

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  And so

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  I can just add a few others. I have a early history of the church. We had from early days a church historian and Sherry Conyers was our church historian, and she would write a report every year and include it in our annual report. And I have what I think is the earliest one here, and it talks about the initial group. A meeting was held at the Stroms home with Robert Nordstrom, who was I think one of the officials from

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  The BGCC,

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  The Baptist General Conference Home Missions Department. And it was the Conyers, the Nitros Lenn, June Mary Withrow, who was a single teacher, Margaret Dresser, also a single teacher, and the Johnsons, and I'm going blank

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  Ons, they were visitors.

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  Okay.

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  Because they used to be in the BGC and then there wasn't one here. So they went to a different Baptist church, tower Grove or whatever it's called.

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  So what happened here is June and Len were coming from a Baptist General conference in suburban Chicago, and the Conyers had, at least at one point, they were in Wisconsin. And

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  That was their friend?

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  Yes. And they had been in a Baptist general conference church up there. And the horns had been in a Baptist general conference church up in suburban Chicago, Tony and Helen. And so the initial group were largely people who had been in Baptist general conference, churches primarily up in the Chicago area, who had, because of jobs, were down in St. Louis now and been attending other churches. But we can get into some of the reasons why they thought there was a need for a Baptist General Conference church down in the St. Louis area.

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  Yeah. You said y'all were attending, were you regularly attending Memorial Presbyterian at the time? It was just a special

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  Service. They had a good evening service and this Will Erickson, who used to play the Oregon here, which we don't have, and he invited us to come that night.

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  So were three or four original couples. Were y'all all kind of at different churches already in the area?

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  At that time? We were

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  Mostly Baptist or,

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  Yeah, mostly Baptist,

  (10:50):

  Like Southern Baptist or was Bethany Baptist the first BGC Baptist General Conference Church here in town? That was kind of my understanding,

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  Yes.

  (11:00):

  Okay. So you couldn't have been in another BGC church, but was it like Southern Baptist churches, you were here in town or, well,

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  I guess Kirkwood Baptist was Southern Baptist at that time. Now there's something different.

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  Okay. Okay, gotcha. And I see here that you were the founding social chairwoman of the church.

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  You had to be everything,

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  Even this I know. And you got 11 adults

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  Social chairman.

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  So Marvin Conyers chairman, Lynn Nystrom, vice Chairman Anton, is it Anton? Yes. Horn, Tony Horn Clerk Treasurer. And then you were the social chairwoman. So tell us some of those stories of the I see here, potlucks through that summer of 1968, still praying, discerning. Okay. Is God calling this to be an official church? So when did that, was it later in

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  That fall? We had 72 people.

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  Whoa.

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  And Marvin says, we can charter and we go ahead.

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  Wow. So was that later in that same year, 1968? Or was that the following?

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  Following

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  69,

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  Yeah. Then we were at the conference and we took the fishers. We talked to your dad at the conference. Doug?

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  Yes. This would be the annual meeting of the Baptist General Conference

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  In 1969. And your dad was there,

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  And

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  That was when those conversations started of calling him as the first pastor?

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  I believe so. I believe so the Baptist General Conference is the national body, and then our regional organization was the Midwest Baptist Baptist Conference and the head of the Midwest Baptist Conference, cliff Anderson was charged, I think with trying to find some prospects for a pastor for this new work. And he talked to my dad about the possibility. And I think that probably prompted the discussion at the annual meeting.

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  And up until that point in time, it had mainly been potlucks prayer. You mentioned meeting together in the early days for prayer, just in your living room. I think I romanticized the story a little bit in church and I got corrected. It was not in your basement, but in your living room. It wouldn't

  (13:30):

  Want to be in my basement.

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  In your living room, you had, I think I conflated because at one point Gary Brooks' house, we'll get to that part of the story

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  Used

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  To be the old parish of the church. And at one point y'all were doing some kind of meetings in his basement.

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  It was my basement then.

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  Your basement at the time, right? Yeah,

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  The church owned the house, but we were living there and we had all kinds of meetings in the basement, and we can get into that a

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  Little bit. Okay. But initially your house, mainly prayer because you didn't have a preacher per se. It wasn't an official service, but prayer, still praying about, Hey, what is this?

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  Yeah. And then our group, we went out after the evening service, we either went to somebody's house or we went to a restaurant and that was fun, right, Barbara? Yes.

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  So you were already at point. Okay, so let's get the fishers coming in then. So 1969, you guys go up to the general conference meeting you?

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  Well, cliff, I think it was here, negotiating and stuff.

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  Okay. And that's when Bethany Baptist was officially chartered as a BGC

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  Church, right.

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  Still kind of talking, interviewing pastors at the time. And so Doug, do you remember how long was it after that before you guys actually your dad accepted the call moved down?

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  Yes. I actually have the documents of my dad letter accepting the call. But what happened is the group down here, we came down, it must've been the summer or so of 1969, after that meeting at the annual meeting we came down and my dad candidate. So we had a little bit of a quasi evening service in the Stroms living room.

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  And I remember sitting there and my dad gave a sermon, and then we went back up to suburban Chicago, and I think the group here then decided to issue a call to my dad and he accepted. And so we came November 1st, 1969, the parsonage was being built, the church bought the parsonage, got some financial aid from, I think your former church, June, which I think was Evangel up in suburban Chicago and Wheaton. And maybe some help though later. We definitely got help from both the Midwest Baptist Conference and the Baptist General Conference to help pay a part of my dad's salary in the early years. And it dropped off over a number of years. So then services started right away in November, later in November, I believe it was, of 1969. And it's interesting, they started right away with a morning worship service, an evening worship service, and a Wednesday night prayer meeting, like bang from the

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  Beginning, the Old Baptist

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  Standard. And then in the spring of 70. Now

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  Those services real quick were where, because this building wasn't built at the time.

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  I think the early services were, was it at

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  School at

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  Some point? Well, initially the worship service was at West Parkway South Middle School, which was a junior high school, then they called it on 1 41. And we met there actually for five years before we bought the land here and built the initial building here. And so the Sunday evening services, we met in people's houses on evening. And then I think eventually we had all of them in the basement of the parsonage. And we used to have Wednesday night prayer meeting in our living room and the parsonage. And we even had youth group meetings in our house.

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  What were the Sunday night services out of curiosity? So you had typical worship service, Sunday morning prayer service Wednesday night. What was the Sunday night service?

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  Sunday night was probably a typical Baptist Sunday night service of that era, and it would've been maybe a more casual worship service.

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  Okay.

  (18:26):

  Okay. Gotcha. And then things changed around the late seventies, early eighties. We can talk about that in terms of the Sunday evening service.

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  So at Parkway South for those first five years and any, I don't know that still at that point would've been just Ms. Barbara and Miss Sandy didn't come until 73, you said, which was the year that the building was built, right?

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  Well, I think we occupied the building. The

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  Doors didn't open until 75.

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  Yes. Oh, really? I mean the building,

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  The land

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  Was purchased. Well, yeah, I forget the exact year the land was purchased, but it probably was about 74 ish, maybe 73.

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  I'm trying to remember back to when I was Pastor Thad Lee's our entry point with all the dates and stuff now, but I want to say it was 73 is what we tell people. The land, at least land was purchased, so doors weren't open until 75. So y'all came in the midst of that and the church was still meeting at Parkway South at that point?

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  They were here.

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  They were here. Alright. So it must have been either y'all come till a little later or it opened in 73. I am trying to remember my recollection of what our entry point dates, which again, maybe they're not right. But yeah, I thought I was thinking it was 73 was right around when the building was built, but maybe not.

  (20:09):

  Well, the groundbreaking, and I have the official invitation, so this is authoritative. Yeah.

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  What does it say?

  (20:14):

  March 17th, 1974.

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  74, okay.

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  Is the groundbreaking. And I think the building was first occupied in 1975. I think. You would think it would take about a

  (20:27):

  Year to build. Yeah.

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  Yeah.

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  So if y'all came here, you must've come I guess a little later if the building wasn't built until 75.

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  Well, the building was very new. I came

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  Brand new,

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  Brand new building.

  (20:42):

  Yeah, it

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  Was finished then.

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  So tell me about that. Tell me about that. Because a big step in the life of a church at that point, you're kind of moving out of a church plant and becoming, alright, we're putting down roots, we're buying this land, we're building this building. Was that a, I mean, again, you have a unique perspective on it, Doug, because probably your dad's coming home and maybe sharing things around the dinner table. What was that

  (21:10):

  Like? Yeah, let me just make one point. Why is the church located where it is? Yeah, west County was exploding in growth. Farmland was being converted to subdivisions at a rapid rate. And Cliff Anderson, who was the executive director or whatever his title was, the head of the Midwest Baptist Conference had done a study before all of this of where to plant a church. And I think he was looking demographically at the growth. And obviously when people are moving into new houses, they're also looking for new churches. And so that's why the church was planted in West

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  County.

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  As for looking for the land that went on for a long time. And for a long time we looked at some land that was off of 1 41, but couldn't talk. The guy who owned it into selling it, it's about where the Schnucks is at Clayton and 1 41 there right now that's on that land. And finally this piece of land opened up, and we actually had some reservations about it because back in that era, you thought about a church being in a residential community, and this was by the highway. And so we actually were a little bit concerned about that. The Lord had different plans. And that's actually been a great advantage of having the visibility of being on what is now an interstate. And the land was purchased, I think the listing price was about $55,000, but I think the selling family made a donation of 5,000. So the net cost to us was $50,000. And this is before really inflation took hold and real estate values just exploded within a couple years of buying the land.

  (23:19):

  Wow. It is hard to believe you hear those numbers and even looking at the picture, because you mentioned the groundbreaking, and I think one of the pictures we use in entry point is, and you look around in the background and there's like nothing, like you said, I mean, it's still yet to be built up. I'm kind of surprised to hear that 1 41 was even there already. Just from the stories I've heard about.

  (23:44):

  Well, it's been rebuilt. It's a

  (23:46):

  Little bit different dirt road. Well, that's so interesting. So it sounds like built in less than a year. Yeah. Now at that point in time, what was even the size at that point? So now we're in 74, 75. I'm anticipating that was a part of the impetus to move from the school and renting to the building we're outgrowing. So June, do you remember right around, or maybe even Barbara Sandy, when y'all were coming around 75, what was the size of the church at that point?

  (24:35):

  It wasn't real large, but it was enough to keep the payroll, I think, going

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  At that point. Was your dad the only one on payroll or

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  Yes. Yes.

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  He

  (24:47):

  Was doing it all. So he was the sole staff person. And the church we organized in April, 1970 with 32 charter members. And then about a year later we had 42. And so here I have an article in the denominational magazine that's standard from June of 71, and it talks about attendance being near 70. And we sort of capped out at the school, and it was a financial strain to buy the land and then to build the first building because we weren't that large, but people gave very sacrificially and generously. But as soon as we moved into the building, our growth exploded. And my dad would say, people now view us as a permanent part of the community, not some fly by night operation when you're meeting in a school. Some people just think, well, is this church going to make it? We'll see. So that was really a key turning point,

  (25:58):

  Big turning point. I remember the Ferras, they wanted to join us, but they didn't want to join us until we had a building.

  (26:06):

  That's right. Yeah, I recall that too.

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  Yes. Yeah,

  (26:09):

  Martin and Lorraine Ferra. Wow. Okay.

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  Okay. You want to hear a little bit about the parsonage?

  (26:15):

  Yeah, sure.

  (26:16):

  Okay. Alright. That was a pretty big step, I think that house. But anyhow, we were deciding about the land and everything, and we had to make up our minds on a Monday. And so in the middle of the night I woke up and I, oh, we don't want that one with all the steps over there across the road. I said, we want the one that we picked out now, because people could come and park and they could go downstairs and they didn't have to enter the kitchen. I mean,

  (27:02):

  It had a walk-in basement. Basement, yes.

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  So anyhow, and

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  This was

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  Before the building. This was

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  Three years before the building. This would be in 1969,

  (27:13):

  Which typically you think of a parsonage being tied to the building. So pass, walk back and forth.

  (27:18):

  Those guys, the other two, cliff and Marvin, they thought we should have that other one because it was all built and we could just move in, there wouldn't be any hassle about it. And then I thought, well, the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and said, no, that's not a good choice. Take the other one. So anyhow,

  (27:44):

  So June was right. That was good enough for them.

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  So

  (27:47):

  That's how y'all decided to purchase? Yeah. What was your first home here in St.

  (27:52):

  Louis? So when we moved here, the house was being built and it wasn't done. So we stayed in the basement. Our whole family of six people stayed in the basement of the horns Tony and Helen Horn for a few weeks until the parsonage was completed.

  (28:12):

  Tell them the story about how they pounded your kitchen.

  (28:16):

  Well, then when we moved into the parsonage, the church had what Helen Horn called a pounding, where they give you a pound of everything. Oh, good, okay, that's better. And a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, things like that. And so Helen went to Berg's on 1 41 and Olive there and bought more groceries than we had ever seen in our life. And she piled it into the pantry and totally filled it. And then she bought a bunch of chickens and put 'em in the freezer. It was crazy. I remember that because it was sort of overwhelming and really appreciative to us as we were moving down here. And my dad actually took a cut and pay to come down here. I remember my parents up in Illinois.

  (29:13):

  Where was he before that?

  (29:14):

  He was at Cumberland Baptist Church in Mount Prospect, Illinois. And I remember them talking around the kitchen table. Can we live on $700 a month? And that's what we, well, these numbers, you have to inflate them for inflation. But yeah, so it was a step of faith on the part of our family, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to our family. And we can talk about that too.

  (29:45):

  Yeah.

  (29:46):

  Wow.

  (29:46):

  Yeah. No, I would be curious to hear more about just how it impacted the life of your family too, Doug and, yeah, Barbara jumping.

  (29:57):

  Well, I just like to say why I was here, why my family was

  (30:01):

  Here, please.

  (30:02):

  Because I was Doug's math teacher at Parkway West High School, and my husband and I were looking for a church.

  (30:09):

  Did he invite you?

  (30:10):

  And he kept inviting. And at that time I was Southern Baptist and didn't think I would ever belong to any church except Southern Baptist. And he said, no, you just need to come. He kept insisting and insisting. And so finally we came and like I said, 11 deaf people came with me. And when we came first interviewing with the pastor before we actually attended a service, and he took us into the auditorium and said, now this is

  (30:42):

  With his dad.

  (30:44):

  This the death. This

  (30:45):

  Is with Elmer? Yeah.

  (30:45):

  Well, yes. Yes. Eler.

  (30:48):

  Okay. So you're interviewing him about, is this the church

  (30:51):

  For us? Well, yeah, because you bring 11 death with you. How does the church feel about that?

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  And what was your connection there?

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  I was the interpreter of the death at Baldwin Baptist

  (31:03):

  Church,

  (31:03):

  And we were exiting that church, and we had gone to several churches in this area, and they would always put us in the balcony or the back corner of the church where we wouldn't be a distraction. But Pastor Fisher said, here's our auditorium, where would you like to sit? And I remember Clovis William saying, we want to sit right up there by the organ because we can feel that with our hands and our feet. And pastor said, okay. And I was dumbfounded that he would put us right at the front of the church.

  (31:40):

  Now I can't pay people to sit on the front row now. So the times have changed?

  (31:44):

  Yeah.

  (31:45):

  Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank You'all for being front row people. Second row y'all on the second row.

  (31:51):

  And there was one other time. Well, that just impressed us so much. And when we had to make the decision whether to go back to Baldwin or to come to Bethany, all of the deaf said, Beth, Annie, Beth, Annie, we want to go to Beth Annie. And it was because the people here received us so well. They were so gracious and wonderful and

  (32:17):

  Open.

  (32:18):

  And then one other thing that really impressed the deaf, I don't know if Doug remembers this or not, but one time we came and it was raining and you and Steve had umbrellas. Do you remember going out and having umbrellas and helping

  (32:33):

  People? Maybe not that specific one, but I think there were several times when we did that. Yeah, I don't think we were the only people doing, I think some other people

  (32:41):

  At church. Well, you were young and they were impressed that two young people would be out there doing, I don't think they may have not known at that time, you were the pastor sons. But anyway, it was another impress. I'm just trying to have you see the flavor,

  (32:55):

  Paint the picture,

  (32:56):

  Yeah. Of the beginning of this church.

  (32:58):

  That's wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, a real James two kind of moment that's sitting on the front row. I love that. And how about you, Sandy, because this, I mean, catches up to where you are in the story. So building's built, you come right around that time in 75. So tell us about what brought you there.

  (33:19):

  Well, I just kept passing it as I was going down the highway. And

  (33:24):

  Were you guys already at a church at that point too?

  (33:27):

  Yeah. And it was over on that Baptist church on Laou and Green Trails. Baptist? Baptist Church,

  (33:35):

  Parkway Baptist.

  (33:37):

  You were at Green Trails Baptist

  (33:38):

  Church?

  (33:39):

  Yeah.

  (33:39):

  Greens. I don't even think it exists anymore.

  (33:41):

  Yeah, no, I was just sitting here thinking when the church was about finished, Tony Horn was on the roof in a Superman costume. Do you remember that? Yeah.

  (33:52):

  What was that all about?

  (33:53):

  Oh, he was really funny. And he was just on the roof in his costume.

  (33:59):

  He was our building chairman. And a fundraising endeavor or no? No, Tony was just a little bit crazy.

  (34:09):

  Yeah, I never met him. I am trying to think. I overlapped. I met Helen, I think I was here literally a week before she passed away, maybe two weeks I remember coming. And when I was hired in 2015, and Andy was still pushing her in the wheelchair. It wasn't even a week or two, I think that fall before she passed. But I heard nothing but great things about them too. One of the three, four founding couples.

  (34:39):

  So

  (34:42):

  What else? So how long, let's come back to the deaf, because I know there was active deaf ministry at the church for many years, and eventually a deaf church that was planted out of Bethany Baptist there. So

  (34:58):

  When

  (34:58):

  Did that start? I mean, were you at the center of that or,

  (35:01):

  Yes. In the early years when I was here, I was really not associated that much with the hearing church because I was with the deaf. The deaf church just exploded. Well, it wasn't a church then. It was just 11 people. But when they left, and I don't remember when the deaf left because either the deaf had to leave or the hearing, we got too big for all of us to be in this building. And there were 75 people left. So it grew in that period of time. And one the reasons the death ministry, well, one of the reasons I think it grew, who knows, but pastor had had a stroke, and this is Pastor Fisher I'm referring to, and he was confined to his bed a lot. And one of the things he would do, he would take the membership and he would pray for certain members of the family that day, and then you would get a note saying that he had prayed for you. Well, for the death. And for me, that was amazing. And I think the Lord use that example to bring other deaf in. And I have to say about that time, God raised up a deaf man, Tom Lovis, who at one time literally slammed the door in my face and said, I am a Catholic, I don't need you. And I was scared to death to go visit him again. But again, Clovis Williams, one of the deaf people went with me and invited him. And a year later, well, he came to visit here, and for a year he studied the book of John.

  (37:00):

  He was very curious, very intelligent man. And after one year he talked with Pastor Fisher to let him know that he had accepted Christ and he wanted to be baptized. So a man who almost threw me out of his home a year or two later was a Christian.

  (37:19):

  Wow. And so he was a part of that deaf community that helped go and

  (37:23):

  Plant

  (37:23):

  That church. Subsequently,

  (37:24):

  This church later ordained him. He became the pastor.

  (37:27):

  Wow. About when was that, you said, was that around when Elmer had, that

  (37:34):

  Had to be in the early

  (37:35):

  To mid

  (37:36):

  Eighties? I think.

  (37:38):

  So let me back up then. I don't want to skip too far. So how long was your dad, the pastor here?

  (37:45):

  About 12

  (37:45):

  Years. 12 years, okay. So 71?

  (37:50):

  Well, yeah, it depends on how you count it. The church legally organized in 70, but he came November one of 69, 9.

  (37:59):

  So early

  (38:00):

  Eighties and left August of 82. 82.

  (38:05):

  Okay. So 12, 13 years.

  (38:08):

  Yeah.

  (38:08):

  And tell me more about even just, you started to tell the story of you got in the building, 75 started to really grow pretty quickly. Take off. Yeah. How did it impact the culture of, I mean, it sounds like still there's very much a tight-knit community welcoming, hospitable culture of the church at that point. But how did that grow the ministries of the church? I mean, how long was it before your dad started getting more? Was it still kind of volunteer staffing or were they hiring more staff and getting other deacons, elders, leaders? What was the culture and the ministries and the kind of infrastructure of the church looking like?

  (38:56):

  Yeah. I don't know how much I can remember with specificity. We did hire an associate pastor somewhere, I think in the mid to late 1970s. Okay. Yeah. Before that name, Dan pka. And we had a secretary, probably part-time, various numbers of hours of a church secretary. And that was pretty much it. During his tenure, he had a stroke. In what year would've that been Cindy?

  (39:37):

  So he died in, he was 56 when he died in 1982 and had the stroke when he was 50 if you do the math.

  (39:45):

  So he had a very severe stroke and was out of the pulpit for 18 months. And very graciously the church continued to pay his full salary. And we had, I think a couple of interim pastors who were retired pastors. And then he came back to the pulpit and served for a few years and then went to a church out in California.

  (40:17):

  And

  (40:18):

  Then was there about a year and a half before he passed away. Wow. Okay.

  (40:23):

  So he did make a recovery and

  (40:25):

  Bounce

  (40:26):

  Back from that? Yes. So he left the pastorate here in what year then? You said

  (40:31):

  82?

  (40:31):

  No, he died in 82. He left in 81.

  (40:34):

  81, yes. In 81. Okay. Yeah, it would've been like the

  (40:38):

  August

  (40:39):

  Of 81, I believe.

  (40:40):

  And was it an interim pastor that replaced him or For

  (40:46):

  A while, yes. We had an interim for a while, and I don't remember exactly how long, but our second And

  (40:55):

  Were y'all still in town at that point?

  (40:56):

  Oh yeah.

  (40:57):

  Okay. So you graduated high school, all

  (40:59):

  That? I remained here. My family abandoned

  (41:02):

  Me. Yeah.

  (41:02):

  Okay, gotcha. No, we all went to school up at Bethel. It's now Bethel University. And my siblings married people who went to Bethel, and they ended up at least for some time in the Twin Cities staying up north. And my parents went to California and I was here with Cindy.

  (41:23):

  So yeah, you moved back and so interim pastor for a year or two,

  (41:31):

  Something like that? Yeah, it, yeah, it was a while. And then John Dickow was our second pastor.

  (41:38):

  Okay. So yeah, around 83, 84.

  (41:45):

  So he married us and we got married in May of 83. So I think he was probably here probably if your dad left in

  (41:54):

  81, maybe.

  (41:55):

  He probably came in 82,

  (41:56):

  End of 82. Okay. So John Dickow. And where did he come from?

  (42:02):

  Nebraska or someplace.

  (42:04):

  Okay. I don't recall, but I am sure June's has it. Right.

  (42:08):

  Okay.

  (42:08):

  He was a pastor there. And then I think he was only here for four or five years. Five. And then he took a pastorate, I believe, in California. And then we went through a period without, we had interims for a while. And then we had our second pastor, and that's a little bit of a tail now. Third pastor. Third now, I'm

  (42:37):

  Sorry, third. So you're dead. Elmer Dickow, and then Jerry Marshall. Right,

  (42:43):

  Right.

  (42:44):

  So after the interim, so that would've been late eighties at that point, or if you had a couple of years of interim, maybe it was even into the nineties at that point, or couldn't have been into the nineties. I mean, Gary was here last 29. It was late eighties.

  (42:57):

  Jerry Marshall was only here a year and a half. And that's another story. But I know that

  (43:04):

  We want to give him the juicy stuff, Cindy,

  (43:06):

  We can do that too. That's probably why you have me here. Right. I know he left after our son was born, and our son was born in 1987. Jerry Marshall left in 1988, probably in the spring.

  (43:23):

  Okay. You said he was here only 18

  (43:26):

  Months, I think, and a half.

  (43:27):

  Okay.

  (43:28):

  Yes. He wanted to do a seeker sensitive church, and he wanted to do it yesterday.

  (43:32):

  Oh, that's interesting.

  (43:33):

  And he had a group of people that he'd already talked to. And one Sunday he stood up in pulpit and left. And the next Sunday, half the church was gone. We lost, Doug can tell you more. We not only lost the pastor, but we lost the head elder and Doug became the next guy.

  (43:53):

  Yeah. We didn't have elders then. We were deacons, but I mean we, yeah, we probably lost closer to 40%, but we lost a lot of the people, the leaders, and I was the vice chairman of the Deacon board, and I was the most senior person. So we lost the moderator, the vice moderator, and the chairman of the deacon board. And it was a shock to all of us since I guess Jerry didn't talk to those of us who we knew probably weren't interested. And so they all were gone.

  (44:25):

  It was all behind

  (44:27):

  Closed doors and we're struggling to pay the mortgage on the church. And Cindy and I went into crisis mode because we had to put out a letter right away to say, what's going on and what are we doing about it? So we put out a letter. Were you on staff at that point? No. No, she was, because

  (44:49):

  I knew you came. She was my brain.

  (44:52):

  I have a public relations background. It's kind of obvious that you need to do something, and usually that's communicating

  (44:59):

  PR nightmare.

  (45:00):

  It was really a hard time. I know that the deacon sat around the table and talked about, do we sell the church? What are our options here? We had another man, mark Bleier. I don't know if he was a deacon, but he was a very wise man. He'd been with Campus Crusade in Africa for a few years with his wife and family. He was now in St. Louis with a regular type job. He gave that sermon the first Sunday after Jerry left. And it was just a beautiful way of looking at this, that God's got plans no matter what. And

  (45:34):

  Yeah, he spoke on the passage where Paul and Barnabas split and had a disagreement.

  (45:43):

  God used

  (45:44):

  It for his purpose. He used that story to say, Hey, this has happened before, and God's church endures multiple. It was a real encouragement to those of us who were here, who were really hurting at that time reel. I'm sure

  (46:01):

  We will pause the story right there for now. Tune in next week for part two of how God has faithfully sustained our church through highs and lows. If you have a question, remember, you can submit those at the info bar or by submitting them online through our website at www.westhillssst.org. And if you enjoyed this week's episode, please be sure to hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening. Join us next week for Part two.