Ask the Pastors S6 E16: "West Hills: A History (Part 2)"

(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 is the second part of a special two part podcast recapping West Hill's Church history. And if you missed the first part, we encourage you to hit pause on this episode and go back and listen to the previous one. A few months ago, pastor will sat down with some key figures from throughout the history of our church, had a conversation with them. Our first part covered the first 17 years of West Hills Church history. Now we are going to hear of God's faithfulness over the last 35 years of our history. In our last episode, we left off at a tragic split that God used to build his church and to plant a new church. Let's listen,

(00:58):

But that was 88, so that's 88. And church is reeling cut almost in half. So how did you see God provide through that? And so you're in leadership at the time, Doug, and you kind of vicariously too. I'm sure Cindy, and I mean you all are here through that, but are you all in leadership roles at the church at that point in time? Barbara, Sandy, June,

(01:33):

My husband was.

(01:35):

Was he also on the

(01:37):

Deacon at that time? Deon

(01:38):

Board. Okay.

(01:41):

I was on the call committee for Jerry Marshall. I do not know that version that you're talking about, Wayne McCullum. McCullum was also on that call committee. I think if that was a big thing Wayne and I would've known about, remember and would remember it. And I just don't, I do know that he did have a great respect for the church. You mentioned in

(02:16):

Chicago,

(02:18):

Willow Creek. Oh, interesting. I did know that. But I think it's interesting that as somebody has said, the rest of the story is that the people who went with him eventually half of them left him.

(02:32):

Almost all of 'em in a year were gone.

(02:34):

Yeah. They had all gone. They are the founders of the Crossing. So I think

(02:41):

That's where I knew the Crossing came into the story too.

(02:43):

Right. So I think

• Read more

  (02:44):

  Crossing

  (02:45):

  Church, the

  (02:45):

  Barnabas story.

  (02:46):

  Yeah.

  (02:47):

  One of the biggest

  (02:47):

  Churches in already and what God did. There's three churches today, three churches,

  (02:52):

  New community, church, the Crossing and now West Hills.

  (02:57):

  Yeah. God's power of redemption and taking all that brokenness and turning it for good. That's amazing. Well, let's back up and just all throughout there, obviously the ministry of the church goes on and I'd love to hear more and maybe Cindy, you and I don't know if any of the rest of y'all played a role in volunteering. One of, when I hear stories of people not infrequently coming back to West Hills even today and saying, oh yeah, they're in their thirties and forties and saying, oh yeah, I came to this church 30 years ago for Awana, and Awana was apparently one of the biggest, I think ministries and outreaches of the church. But I'd be curious to hear just more of even the ministries that we've heard about, the deaf ministry. Obviously we can talk about the pastoral ministry and corporate worship, but what were some of those other behind the scenes, or not behind the scenes, but you know what I'm saying? The actual ministry that has been impactful over the years that has touched lives through the ministry of the church.

  (04:11):

  One of the big ministries was our preschool and Fred Lois Loman. I think she ran it the entire time. I'm not sure. It was a huge ministry. I think it was well respected. It was a morning program here. It was definitely not daycare. It was preschool. And she ran it very,

  (04:31):

  It was like a Monday to Friday.

  (04:33):

  It might've been Wednesday, Friday.

  (04:35):

  Okay. I have never even heard that There was a preschool

  (04:37):

  Here. Oh yeah, there was a preschool here.

  (04:39):

  Wow.

  (04:40):

  Yeah. Let me go back though early on something that maybe we should emphasize. So what was our distinctive from some of the Southern Baptist churches that populated this area? And what my father used to say and what we tried to implement, it's always imperfect, was at that era, a lot of Southern Baptist churches, and Barbara, correct me if I overstate this, but every Sunday there would be an altar call and there was a real strong emphasis on evangelism. And we had a very strong emphasis on evangelism. But we also were concerned about raising Christians who were mature in their faith and had what we would in that day, you would use the word maybe a deeper Christian life, were some of the terms that were used. And so we emphasized that we were not only concerned about evangelism, but once people were here that they grow discipleship in their faith. But going back to evangelism, that was very important. I mean, some of the things that we did, you don't do anymore. When we were starting the church, and even when we were at the school, all these new houses were being built, we would go around

  (06:14):

  Door

  (06:14):

  To door on Sunday afternoon with a brochure that introduced the church. And I did this with my father and other members of the leaders of the church would do this, shaking people, ringing on people's doorbells, talking to them. People actually would talk to

  (06:33):

  You back then.

  (06:34):

  Back then. Now that that's considered sort of an affront to do that. But it was relevant to that era, and we did a lot of that. There's something in here, approximately 1,500 invitational survey calls have been made by the congregation. This was in 71. So I mean, we just did a lot of this. And we had talks in this denominational newspaper about early on having a women's group with a bible study, a book study that had an evangelistic message, talks about my dad being involved in a program called Men Sharing Christ, which was some training for the men of the church in evangelism. And later we got involved in using evangelism explosion from down at JD Kennedy's church in Coral Ridge, Florida. So I mean, there was always an emphasis on evangelism, but also deeper discipleship.

  (07:47):

  Yeah.

  (07:47):

  Wow.

  (07:48):

  Very

  (07:49):

  Neat.

  (07:49):

  One of the outreach programs that my husband and I were involved with was we would take bread. We had a little basket ministry we called it, and every visitor that came here and would give us enough information that we could get to their house that week, we would take a loaf of bread and other little things

  (08:14):

  That was still going when I got here in 2015.

  (08:16):

  Really?

  (08:17):

  Yeah. I don't remember who it was at one point, it was the buildings, but was driving all over town to newcomers houses to drop off loafs of bread.

  (08:28):

  I thought that was a good ministry.

  (08:31):

  I don't know other ministries y'all can think of or stories from that time that get, we

  (08:38):

  Had a good women's ministry on Tuesday morning with a good Bible study and we had a guest speaker. Might be a doctor, might be so-and-so. So it was quite

  (08:52):

  Effective. It was called Spice of Life. It was just a group in the early years. I caught the tail end of it, but it's like a cooking club. No, but if you look around here, you might find a paperback version of a recipe book made by the Spice of Life ladies. There's two of them, two versions out there.

  (09:11):

  I

  (09:11):

  Still have mine.

  (09:13):

  I still

  (09:13):

  Have mine. Really?

  (09:16):

  Yeah. That's really neat. Okay, so let's go back, because we've been going almost an hour. We haven't even got to Pastor Gary who was here for 29 and a half years. So that takes us up to Jerry left in 88, maybe some interim after that for a little bit. So I mean, if Gary was here 29 years until 2019, that would've been 1990. Right. So Gary came in 1990 Sound right?

  (09:45):

  Yes. Somewhere around there. Yeah.

  (09:46):

  Okay. And seems to me like a lot of what you would consider bigger changes in terms of rocking the boat and the history of the church came even since then. So talk me through that. I know there was the name change from Bethany Baptist to West Hills Community Church. I know there was ripping the pews out, getting chairs, choir robes, switching from hymnals. I mean, a lot of those worship war types of decisions were made sometime in the nineties, early two thousands. So tell me more about just how y'all saw the church and the culture and all of that change in the nineties, two thousands under Pastor Gary's

  (10:47):

  Leadership. Well, it seems like we used to know everybody and now we know

  (10:55):

  That's one thing in terms of the culture of the church. So even with that, you're saying through these first three pastors, this church was still pretty, had stabilized around what? A hundred people, less than a hundred.

  (11:14):

  We actually got up to attendance, including the deaf of approaching 300. You said there was 70 Under my dad's tenure. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think that was before his stroke, so it would've been the late seventies.

  (11:34):

  But you still knew

  (11:34):

  Everybody.

  (11:35):

  Remember Sunday we had a special, I don't remember what was special about it, but the deaf were in the choir. They did the choir that Sunday. And I know we had to bring chairs in. And pastor, your dad was still pastor here, and he said, we are very close to 400.

  (11:58):

  Wow.

  (11:58):

  And we had the balcony and we had people out. It was a special Sunday.

  (12:03):

  Well, that's like where we are now. We are very close to 400 now. So you were there in the late seventies, and then with some of those pastoral transitions and everything in the eighties, there was some

  (12:17):

  Decline. When you have an interim, typically people don't want to commit to a church, new people who are coming in. And we had some short tenures of pastors. And I think from a numeric standpoint, those were

  (12:35):

  Difficult. What happened to John Dickow? By the way? You said he was only here three years?

  (12:39):

  No, five. Five. He was here five. And he went to another church and eventually took some leadership position in our denomination later down the road for a few years. Okay, okay.

  (12:56):

  I don't recall that there was any issue at all. It was more of a decision he'd made on his own of just

  (13:04):

  Discerning God's call.

  (13:06):

  Okay. Yeah, I was just curious. So yeah, but still with the interim and Jerry, shorter tenure. So Gary brought stability when he came in because he's here for 29 and a half years. But at the same time, stability while also, like I said, some of those big changes. I'm curious to hear, because I can't imagine leading a church through some of those big decisions, changing the name, pulling the organ out, putting drums up there, all those kinds of things. So that, did it feel like a stable time in the Or did it feel tumultuous? Was there a lot of flux? A lot of people leaving. I mean, I'm grateful by the time I got here in 2015, those of y'all who had stuck around it was like, I can't do anything to run them off because Gary tried and they're still here. But tell me about those years.

  (14:03):

  Those are difficult. I think even some of us around the table had different viewpoints on some of those, like the name change. I know Barbara was not keen on that, and I don't recall where June was. And you weren't a

  (14:17):

  Fan?

  (14:18):

  I

  (14:19):

  Don't remember. You don't remember.

  (14:21):

  I was on the committee.

  (14:22):

  You were on the committee, which

  (14:23):

  Meant I did not go for the name change either.

  (14:27):

  Okay.

  (14:28):

  So it was a split committee. I think the issue challenge was we were Baptist in a southern Baptist town. So what kind of Baptist were we, which is challenging. And the Southern Baptist were going through some of their frictions over theological liberalism. And so in the greater world, Baptists were being known rightly or wrongly as contentious. And so those were some of the currents of what was going on. Wasn't one of the instigators of the name change? Well, and the denomination itself changed,

  (15:07):

  But changed right From Baptist General Conference to converge.

  (15:11):

  Well, that came later and I

  (15:13):

  Oh, did it? Okay. I

  (15:14):

  Still don't quite understand what that is.

  (15:16):

  No one does. Sounds very cultish. But anyway, so converge, that name changed was after the Baptist? That was quite a bit later. Yeah. Was it quite a bit? Okay. Well, somewhat later. Yeah. I thought that was around 2008. And West Hills changed the name in, was it 2002, I think? Something

  (15:38):

  Like

  (15:38):

  That?

  (15:39):

  Well, we had been part

  (15:42):

  Of, okay, this is Sally and Brian Arison, by the way. And

  (15:45):

  We had been part of a church plant that folded. It was out of Central Pre. And so we were all looking for a church and there was a family, the Ericksons, they had two young adopted sons. They would invite, our son was friends with them, and they would invite us to come to church here, but it was a Baptist church, and I had grown up strict Southern Baptist, and I would go, nope. But then they changed the name and as soon as they did,

  (16:16):

  We were here. So you got fruit, you've got fruit from even those contentious decisions that I'm sure.

  (16:23):

  And we were, I mean, it was the most welcoming place we'd ever been. The cutoffs were here and they were just unbelievable. So everybody just had us at the door

  (16:34):

  Because again, and I could be wrong about the dates and stuff, but from the story I've been told, it seemed like a lot of those changes were happening at the same time with Oregon choir, hymnals, pews, name change, building the dos, a lot of those things happened. So was that again, was there an exodus from the church at that time, or did most of the people on board along for the ride for that?

  (17:09):

  Well, you'd have to ask. I think some people didn't like some of the changes, but most of them stuck with it.

  (17:16):

  Okay. When did you guys leave?

  (17:19):

  2012. 2012.

  (17:20):

  So y'all were here through the changes? Yeah. And then were you going to jump in, Jim?

  (17:29):

  No.

  (17:29):

  No. Okay. Sorry. And then I'm just getting my history and timeline right. When was the building expansion? Was that before y'all left? Also,

  (17:39):

  The building expansion was finished right before the financial crisis of 2008.

  (17:44):

  Okay. So it was started sometime before

  (17:48):

  That. So we got into some financial strain about the time of the building expansion, because just before the building, and Brian and I were involved in this, but I mean the building expansion, we'd been talking about various things, expanding the sanctuary, and then finally we decided to expand out the direction we did with ep. Was

  (18:16):

  The church still around the same, like

  (18:17):

  Pushing 400 at that time? No. No. It

  (18:20):

  Was lower. Less than that.

  (18:21):

  It was probably somewhere in the two hundreds, but I don't know that exactly.

  (18:25):

  So that's a practical question. Back when it was pushing 400 under your dad, were y'all all just, I mean, the fire field capacity of the sanctuary is like two

  (18:34):

  50 or something? Well, yeah. I mean, 400 was probably a peak. It wasn't a consistent, was it one or two services? One service? It was, yeah. Well, yeah, it wasn't a consistent, I was going to say, I don't know how fit we were. Probably. My guess is we were in the high two hundreds in that time, consistently. I have to go back and look at records. So just before we actually, we had been talking about expanding the building, but just before we did that, and Gary was probably the driving force behind that. And just before that, the land next door came up for sale and we'd always wanted that land,

  (19:19):

  The land tour west where Promise Christian

  (19:21):

  Academy is now. Yes. So we didn't own it at that point. It was a quick deal and we made a decision to buy it.

  (19:31):

  We needed money

  (19:33):

  And we bought it, and I think we paid about 900,000 or something like that for it. And then we moved forward with the building program at the same time, and that was too much.

  (19:47):

  It's a heavy hit

  (19:48):

  Because we bought the land primarily with debt, and that was a strain. And that's part of those financial strains

  (19:58):

  On the 2008 hits.

  (19:59):

  Yeah. Yeah. Part of the reason that Cindy and I was in leadership and involved in some things, and part of the reason that we left was somewhat related to those

  (20:11):

  We left much later, but I think you could say that.

  (20:14):

  Well, that started some of our, yeah. Yeah. Strange challenges. I just wasn't entirely in sync with, I was in leadership and I was a little bit out of sync with the rest of the leadership about some issues that weren't theological, just more administrative, practical.

  (20:32):

  When was the flood in there? I know that's a big talking point too. And again, the version of the story I've heard that was pretty intricately interwoven with some of those struggles too, where we're in debt and then the flood hits and we're out of our sanctuary for over a year and the church just shrinks with everybody stuck in this little black box that nobody So was that,

  (21:01):

  That was after,

  (21:02):

  It had

  (21:02):

  To be after 2012?

  (21:04):

  I think it was in 2012 is what I've heard.

  (21:06):

  Could have been.

  (21:07):

  Remember? Okay. So in 2012, was that, I mean, from y'all,

  (21:12):

  Is it a story of hiring somebody? It came because of the roofing job. And was that a story of not hiring perhaps the best people for building, for redoing the roof because it was open? It was.

  (21:25):

  That's what I heard. It

  (21:26):

  Was a setup to happen. You take the roof off of something, bad weather comes,

  (21:30):

  The tarp blew off over the

  (21:31):

  Night. That's how water works.

  (21:33):

  Yeah.

  (21:33):

  We were here that afternoon right before the rain started

  (21:38):

  When everybody was coming back from the mission trip. Didn't go on the mission trip?

  (21:41):

  No, we were here. Clarence was here cleaning, and we were here doing something maybe with Clarence, I don't remember. But anyway, we left and we'd gotten just down the road, it started raining and Clarence called. He said, oh my God, you've got to come here. And it's coming in everywhere. It was coming, just pouring in through the roof. And we were going, oh. And there were no tarps up there. And so tarp, we were just like, what are we going to do? And Gary had been gone and he pulled up in the driveway right? As all this was happening

  (22:15):

  Too. Yeah. That's why I heard they were coming back from a mission trip and Michigan and come back to that. And the whole western half of the church is underwater. And so out of the building or out of the sanctuary I should say, for how long did y'all meet in the Dosa

  (22:33):

  Over a year? I don't know. I

  (22:35):

  Don't

  (22:35):

  Remember.

  (22:36):

  Again, the story I heard was that in combination with a lot of the debt issues, financial, and it was just a lot of even leadership decisions being made out of a place of fear and that the church felt it and shrunk and that, I mean, by the time I came in 2015, I think it was just a little over a hundred people on a Sunday on average. So I mean, the version of the story I heard was the church. And that year that you're out of the sanctuary cut in half, something like that. I mean, does that sound accurate?

  (23:18):

  I don't know, but I think the record should show that we had a music director who came and really gave us a shot in the arm.

  (23:30):

  Is that Lance? No,

  (23:31):

  Villa.

  (23:32):

  Tim Vanderbilt.

  (23:33):

  Tim Vanderbilt. Oh yes. That's a good, and he really, I know there was our group, at least maybe the older people. Man, he really, I, like I said, just really helped us with the worship.

  (23:51):

  This is in the nineties probably,

  (23:53):

  And was more than just, he was the associate pastor. He was more, I mean, music was a big part of it, but he did a lot of other things

  (24:03):

  And the Lord had a lot for him to do because look how he was found by a couple of missionaries on a pile of junk and where was it? Korea.

  (24:13):

  Korea.

  (24:13):

  That's his birth story. She's

  (24:14):

  Telling it you.

  (24:15):

  Yeah. Whoa.

  (24:16):

  He was abandoned us.

  (24:17):

  Maybe he had been thrown away and I understand that the trash was burning and someone heard him crying and got the little baby out, and then he was later adopted by a, I think Swedish Baptist pastor. Is that correct?

  (24:42):

  I don't recall that part of the story.

  (24:44):

  I thought they were missionary. Missionary.

  (24:46):

  Wow.

  (24:47):

  Yeah, he left

  (24:49):

  Under the doorstep.

  (24:50):

  It's an amazing story that he had. We lost him way too early in life. He was only 50 when he

  (24:56):

  Passed away. I think he appeared under the doorstep of the pastor who was having a deacons meeting at his house and a basket.

  (25:07):

  Yeah, I've definitely heard that. So he was here through the nineties as associate pastor under Gary,

  (25:14):

  But then God used him when he left because he became a prison minister. As he was dying, he had cancer. And he said they gave him six months, and he lived a few years, and that whole time he was going around preaching about how great God was, and a lot of it was at the prison ministry.

  (25:37):

  He was fabulous. And we could tell the story of Bethany with just the people that worked on staff that we had and we're leaving out. A lot of people, like Dave Cross was here years ago as a Covenant Seminary intern, and he was here when Elmer Fisher was here. Then he went on, he met his wife and he went on and worked with New Tribe's Mission and now with another group. But we have so many names of people, youth pastors, wonderful people.

  (26:10):

  I could tell lots of stories about Dave Cross. He lived with us while he was here.

  (26:17):

  So did Tim Vanderbilt for a while. Right.

  (26:19):

  Tim lived

  (26:19):

  With us. Right.

  (26:20):

  Everybody lived at

  (26:21):

  Barbara's house

  (26:22):

  At some point.

  (26:23):

  And

  (26:24):

  We do have some records of fun things like we have dinner theaters with a dinner. I mean, you can only accommodate a hundred or so. But my friend Joyce and I used to cater those and then we didn't want to do it anymore. Then my daughter started taking it over. But anyhow, I was going to tell you about that Miller family, he was in music and we hired him from Central Press, I think. And anyhow, his son was converted at five in this church. So when I see his mother, she'll mention that. And he has a ministry in Guatemala and it's huge. He has schools for teach kids cooking hairdressing. It's fabulous. So we don't know all the good that came out of things.

  (27:27):

  You'll never know. Right? You'll never know.

  (27:29):

  Right. One thing you should know about June is she studied, she's a dietician and her specialty is cooking for large groups, and she's cooked for so many large groups in the kitchen that you have. And she has done weddings and banquets, all kinds of things throughout all of her life. Years ago she worked at one of the Delmar Gardens nursing home next door, Jewish Center for the Aged. And Doug worked in pots and pans and washed dishes with her

  (27:55):

  Foot. My, he and his brother used to do foot mopping.

  (28:02):

  What other big milestone moments am I missing in the history of, I know there was the planting of Christchurch. That would've been sometime. Were you guys still here at that point? Officially? We had left. You had just left. So

  (28:21):

  I would put planting in quotes.

  (28:23):

  Okay. Yeah. Well, and again, I've heard different versions of that story too.

  (28:28):

  Well, we have planted several churches, Emmanuel in St. Charles.

  (28:33):

  What was Emmanuel? Never.

  (28:35):

  It was our plant.

  (28:36):

  These were all BGC churches that we worked to plant, I mean, or any of 'em still around today. The history of a church is, as you know, there are times where the Lord is really blessing. There are times where maybe in part because of our or shortcomings difficulties are encountered, or maybe it's just external circumstances, but we worked to plant a church out in St. Charles County. We planted one in South County. Neither of those made it. The South County one actually merged into, I think an evangelical free church down there when they really saw, they weren't going to make it as an independent church, but there were a lot of people there. And they joined an existing church and we worked with a couple, there were several others, and for whatever reason, none of them really endured as a BGC church.

  (29:36):

  That's what I was going to ask. If there are any of those churches that have been planted out of this one that are around, I mean, I've heard of, again, the kind of accidental plant of the crossing. And I've heard the new community

  (29:48):

  Church story, the more formal ones were Christchurch, were Emmanuel in St. Charles, the one in South County, which I don't recall the name of. There was one a little bit further out in sort of the Baldwin area where Dan Tuka, our associate pastor went there and I believe there was one other. So yeah, I mean

  (30:14):

  Who rear engine Lance Swearingen.

  (30:17):

  Lance Lance was out in St. Charles later. So there were two efforts in St. Charles that one merged into another church essentially. I think

  (30:26):

  Were most of those just growing so big here and we need to,

  (30:31):

  I think from the beginning we had an emphasis on church planning. The denomination had an emphasis on church planning. There's some statistical work. I don't know if it still holds that high percentage of new believers. More people become believers through church plants and from existing churches where we can get caught up in just sort of continuing the existing organization.

  (31:05):

  We bought land out on 1 0 9 Turca Church Manchester. Was that Tuka

  (31:14):

  Church. Wow. So many. Interesting. So yeah, we could probably back up and do a lot of the different milestone, other ones that occur to y'all as being really big and formative in the

  (31:26):

  History of the church. Well, one thing was at one point we were considered the sister church of the African American church that Harry Wallace was in charge of.

  (31:35):

  Oh Christ Fellowship.

  (31:36):

  And we would go, Brian and I were kind of involved with them a good bit, but at one point they invited our congregation to come there and have church with them. And then they fed us a picnic or it was, it was good. So then we had them back here, and I will never forget this. We were cooking, I think it was June, me, Jan Berg and Gary Brooks kept saying, there's not enough food. There's not going to be enough food and two loaves, whatever. And there was enough food. But that was really a big thing. And when I think about our church emphasizing growing culturally, I think it would be a great idea for some of the people who've never even been to African-American church to go to Harry's church.

  (32:25):

  Oh, they came here? Or was it last year? Two years ago. Remember they had a son. Brian remembers because it dramatically impacted the culture of our worship that morning.

  (32:35):

  Well, I don't, when

  (32:36):

  I asked him how much I would have to pay him to just close up there and just come join our church and can we merge and I'll even let you preach some, but you just got to bring your people here every Sunday

  (32:46):

  We were there, one,

  (32:47):

  They wouldn't do it.

  (32:48):

  And Harry was preaching and there was this lady going up and down the aisle. Okay. We were at Harry's church and he was preaching and he preaches in this sing song kind of thing he gets sent to. But there was a lady the entire time who was going up and down the aisles. This was really the preach. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. And it went on the entire time and nobody noticed it.

  (33:18):

  Yeah. Well, I'm sure they did. Nobody said anything.

  (33:22):

  We noticed it.

  (33:23):

  Oh yeah. You noticed. Yeah. That's great. Other, just on the historical, like, oh, how can we not mention this other big moments ministries, people that need to be mentioned here? I know, again, we've already gone way over an hour and I want to respect everyone's time. We're already going to have to split this into at least two or three different parts of podcast episodes for people to listen to. But other things you'd want to throw out. I want to end by asking y'all a more subjective question of just how has God used this church in your own life over the years, but anything else on the historical side of things?

  (34:08):

  One of my favorite memories here is on Sunday nights we had testimony services and I came after some of the issues happened with Leanne, now Leanne Freeman. But the whole story of how Leanne's parents, Kathleen and Joe found the Lord. Leanne was in a terrible car accident. And this was such a small community back then. Everybody knew about it. She was a Parkway West student. People just said, Elmer, you've got to go to the hospital and meet the parents. Long story short, he led 'em to the Lord. And that family had a lot. Things happened to them that were so difficult, including Leanne's health over the years. But God used especially Kathleen as a person to draw people to Christ. And she had her neighbors come. You could not watch Kathleen's hard life. She had breast cancer number of times. Her daughter had spinal meningitis almost died. Leanne's whole life changed later. Joe took his life because she had been living with him and he had pretty severe bipolar illness. You could not watch Kathleen's life and not see the Lord Jesus Christ in it. And then she was found dead one day when she didn't answer the phone and she'd fallen asleep in her chair with her Bible in front of her. I think she was just turned 80.

  (35:34):

  I don't remember. She left us way too soon. But there are stories like that that pulled the people together and we got to watch God work that way. Yeah, I can think of several of those.

  (35:51):

  Yeah.

  (35:52):

  Leanne and Larry called me last night, but Joe Legget brought John to this church, and that's where we met

  (36:02):

  Your husband, Jr. John Smith. And you guys met here. Wow. I don't think I realized that either.

  (36:08):

  Yeah. And you were a good catch too.

  (36:13):

  Yes, she was. That's a pretty easy answer to the question of how has God used and blessed your life through the ministry of this church With how many 60 years of marriage?

  (36:24):

  No, we were married for 46 years.

  (36:26):

  46, okay. Before

  (36:27):

  He passed.

  (36:28):

  Yeah. So marriage, you guys met, you said through the ministry of the church. Other ways that, just in closing here, I don't know, two minutes or less, that you have been blessed personally through the ministry of the church and or seeing God use this church to bless the lives of others. If there's any last little stories you want to tell.

  (36:51):

  Well, I would say I was Southern Baptist, graduate of a Baptist college, but I grew when Pastor Fisher became my pastor, I grew spiritually. I give this church all the credit.

  (37:12):

  Well, yeah, we want give the Lord the credit, give God all the glory was around. He'd want to say that. Yeah, give God the

  (37:17):

  Glory. It was getting about time for Mike to go to college. And so I was talking to Pastor Fisher about it and trying to decide where we were going to go. And Pastor Fisher said he will go to Bethel, and he did. And that's where he met Diana.

  (37:34):

  Wow. Wow. Very neat. How about, I don't know, Brian, Sally, you guys have jumped in here. Do you want to share a quick, how has God used this church in your life?

  (37:52):

  So yeah, this is Brian. I think I was saved before I came to West Hills, but I was baptized here by Gary Brooks, and that was a turning point in my

  (38:06):

  Life. I'm

  (38:07):

  Getting choked up just thinking about it, but I have grown so much because of the ministries of this church and the people that we know and love. I mean, I've shared with you that the reason that we did not move earlier this year is because our lives are just too intertwined with all of yours, with so many other people at this church, and we could not see ourselves leaving.

  (38:32):

  That's a good story.

  (38:33):

  That is a great story. That is a great story. Doug and Cindy, do y'all want to just last words on how God's used this church in your life, family's life?

  (38:45):

  Well, when we, as a family, when I was in junior high school, when we moved down here, starting at church is a family effort. And moving down here was probably one of the best things, perhaps the best thing that ever happened to our family together because we all worked together on a common goal and we prayed and went through the ups and downs of church planting together, which is hard work. It's not for the timid. And there are great blessings and there are setbacks that are challenging. And it really deepened my faith personally to go through and see how the Lord blessed us and sustained us, and even today sustains West Hills. So I think it was extremely formative for our family. And then of course, Cindy and I met here and the Lord's blessed us with 41 and a half years of marriage. That's been a tremendous blessing.

  (39:59):

  We met at Bethany, but there was a small, we called it the youth group, even though we'd all graduated from college or at least for that age. And that group just kept growing and growing. We had Campus Crusade staff in it. We had a law student from Wash U, a dental student from Washington University. People came from all over. And then about, we got married in 1983, pretty much that year that the youth group collapsed because everybody got married to each other. To each other. There were so many weddings, but it was a strong group. And we reached out with Covenant Presbyterian Church and did outreach and joined with them, and it was just a really good time

  (40:42):

  Back

  (40:42):

  Then.

  (40:44):

  Thank you. Sandy And June, last words.

  (40:48):

  Oh, last words.

  (40:49):

  Okay. How has God used this church

  (40:52):

  To

  (40:52):

  Bless you and bless them?

  (40:53):

  It's kind of nice for me to say that it started in my living room and it's a testimony that we have this many people, and I think you're a good pastor.

  (41:05):

  Thank you. Thank you. You

  (41:08):

  Were smart to get to college. You were smart to stay in.

  (41:13):

  Well, you were faithful to answer God's call to plant this church so many years ago. And like you said, think of how many lives have been touched and all the names that have been named on this podcast. And if we went another hour and a half, you'd name another 5,000. So,

  (41:31):

  Well, I just want to say too, when we were at the BGC that year that we decided a lot of things. We heard this guy from Lincoln, Nebraska, I can't think of his name. But anyhow, he said, there's somebody in this room that God wants to use to do something. And I said, Hey, Lynn, that's

  (41:56):

  Us. Wow. Praise God. Thank you for obeying the call. And on behalf of the hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands of probably thousands of lives that have been touched through the ministry of this church, just thank you for your faithfulness.

  (42:13):

  I like that a thousand. Wow. That's good.

  (42:16):

  It probably is in the thousands. I mean, think about it. Like I said, oh yeah, easily. Oh man, you've been pushing 400 back 50 years ago and pushing 400 again now that's already getting close to a thousand. So anyway, that's Barbara, you wanted to say one? Nope. Okay. Well, thank you. And I want to thank on behalf of the church, thank all of you for taking this time to share your stories. Help us fill in the gaps. Again, for me, the impetus for this really came out of just recently preaching and sharing from Psalm 78 where ASF says, will open my mouth and utter things that we have heard and known. We will not hide them from our children, but tell the coming generation the glorious steeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders he has done. And I just thought God has done glorious wonders here in and through the life of this church over the years. And here's command to tell 'em to our children and our children's children and pass 'em on to the next generation. And especially June with you in particular, being the last founding member of the church and coming up on your hundredth birthday. And God willing, you won't be here forever. I'm sure you're ready for heaven. Maybe getting closer. Yeah. I don't know.

  (43:31):

  Well, my family,

  (43:32):

  I'm ready.

  (43:33):

  My family wants me to go to Bethesda, but those rooms are so small and I have eight rooms and stuff under the bed.

  (43:43):

  No, but we will mourn and celebrate in equal parts whenever you do go home to be with the Lord. But I thought, Hey, before you do, we want to capture all of your stories and have a chance to publicly thank you once again for your faithfulness. And same for Barbara Sandy. So many of y'all thank you for taking the time. And as we do, pass the torch on to the next

  (44:09):

  Generation. Even mention you used to pray after school and leave tracks in the mailboxes or something, or food. Yeah. You and Barbara, we had him in the street for a while.

  (44:23):

  So Len Stroms favorite hymn was to God be the Glory. And we would often sing that on anniversaries or times special times of the church celebrating. And I think that's an apt reminder.

  (44:46):

  It is to him be the glory. Great things. He has

  (44:49):

  My kids, they wanted to be here. And I'd say, you got your homework done. Oh, yeah, yeah. Then we come home and they were doing homework.

  (44:59):

  That's always good when kids are begging to stay at church longer.

  (45:03):

  I know. And that hadn't changed either. I mean, at least for my family, my kids are always begging. They love it here. So again, thank y'all. I mean yes to God, be all the glory. And also, we know he works through people, imperfect people even like us. And I thank y'all for being a part of that, allowing him to use you to help build the ministry of this church that continues to just minister to so many. And so thank you. Thank you to our watchers listeners, and yeah, excited to see what God, I mean, I can't end without, as the current pastor saying, and even with all of that, I have to believe that our best years are still to come. So let's not forget the great years, the glory years, but let's continue trusting God that he has even more in store for the life of this church. So we'll give him all the praise. Yes. Thank y'all.

  (45:59):

  Amen.

  (46:00):

  God bless you.

  (46:01):

  Thank you.

  (46:04):

  Well, that's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills or by asking them online through our website at www.westhillsstl.org. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to catch you next week.