Is it possible to start a family church in Boston? Here’s my pioneer story.
I was born in poverty to tenant farmers in rural Maryland in 1943. I was the middle child of two siblings with parents that were very religious Lutherans. I was told that I was baptized as an infant. I remember catechism classes as boring memorization of information of little interest to my 11-year-old mind.
I joined the church at age 12. From ages 8-16, my only goal was to earn money to get my driver’s license and buy my first car, which I did. I never remember praying except a memorized prayer for Sunday lunch, the highlight meal of the week, consisting of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, peas, lima beans, and other fresh vegetables out of our garden.
From 16 to 18, I lived full of pride and selfishness, owning my own car (a 1955 Ford) and doing as I pleased. Also, I worked on the home farm for family and the neighbors for pay. My first jobs were picking raspberries for six cents a quart, green beans at two cents per pound, tomatoes at 10 cents for a half bushel. Later I earned $4.00 per day picking up rocks, forking manure, and other “fun” jobs on neighboring farms and for relatives.
My mother would take my earnings to the bank where I had accumulated $1,200.00 by my 16th birthday. My parents allowed my brother and me to raise a pig and earn the profit by selling the offspring. This project helped me reach my financial goals.
When I was nine years old, my parents bought their own small farm of 53 acres. It was so far in the country that mother called it in “the sticks.”
We walked a half-mile to school until age nine. Then it was a three-mile bus ride until 7th grade when it became a 9-mile school bus ride to school until graduation.
I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves with three classmates upon graduation from Middletown High School at age 18. After serving six months of active duty, I was extended to do seven more months during the Berlin Crisis of 1961- 62 and returned from Ft. Dix, NJ, and Ft. Meade, MD, to weekend duty in Frederick, MD with the 558th Signal Corp. I was trained as a wheeled vehicle mechanic and driver of military vehicles.
I had always enjoyed travel and the fun of driving tractors, cars, and motorcycles. I learned to fly a single-engine Cessna airplane thinking these fun and enjoyable experiences were what I needed to fill the emptiness of my life. Even some very nice young lady friends along the way did not satisfy the emptiness/loneliness that plagued me.
Meanwhile, my friend Mike kept telling me that I needed to be saved, born again, and become a Christian. I insisted I already was a Christian because of my involvement in my parents’ religion.
He did not give up!
He took me to his church on Sunday evenings. That’s where I first heard real Bible teaching regarding sin, righteousness, Heaven, Hell, and how to be right with God spiritually.
I finally agreed that I was lost and on my way to Hell. I asked the perfect Son of God, Jesus, who lived 33 years without sin and was crucified, buried, and resurrected for my sins to be my Saviour.
I bought my first Bible. I started to read it, began attending a Biblical church, made a public profession of faith, got baptized by immersion in water, and then went off to Bible college.
These are the three most significant rewards of Bible college:
1. Finding a godly wife who brought forth six healthy children. Then, we adopted our last son at seven years old from an orphanage in Russia.
2. Being able to travel during the summers to the Holy land (study tour of four weeks), Nova Scotia, camp evangelism for eight weeks, Hawaii, and involvement in off-campus evangelism.
3. Joyfully sharing my faith on the streets by witnessing with others, soul winning one-on-one, and preaching to groups of passers by.
These soulwinning experiences gave me the desire to change my major from Business Administration to Bible and Public Speaking. This change would eventually lead to my surrender to preach the Gospel as a missionary or as a pastor of a church. The process of total surrender to God’s will took time. I lost 4-5 years running from God’s calling.
Upon my total surrender to God’s will (which meant I would be willing to serve God without a wife, even if it meant Africa), I experienced the second greatest feeling (next to my salvation). It was for the first time since salvation that I could claim and experience being filled with the Holy Spirit – Joy! It brought fulfillment and satisfaction to my longing heart and soul and spirit.
After four years of Bible College and a marriage ceremony in Dallas, Texas, I was financially drained.
I was 27. My wife was 23. In 1970, I owned one old 1961 Ford packed with very nice wedding presents and a bride worth more than any money could ever buy!
After a brief honeymoon in Texas, we were off on an eight-week itinerary of preaching at eight different teen camps spread across the Midwest. We survived on “love offerings” that first summer and returned to Seminary for one year during which time our first child, Shera, was born.
After moving from the South to Indiana and another year of Seminary training, we moved to Chicago where I studied church planting under experienced church planter/consultant, Grant Rice. He took me on several mission trips to visit, study, and question church planters at different stages of their church plants.
At that time, I was supporting my family consisting of a second child, Scott, by selling World Book Encyclopedias door-to-door. This experience was chosen specifically to help me master the art of meeting strangers and convincing them of the need for an educational benefit – comparable to the spiritual need of people for a salvation experience to be found in a Biblical church. This was a most valuable lesson in my preparation to the challenge awaiting in Boston.
Church Planting
Along with the practical experience of sales and the classroom training of six years, I connected with a church planting pastor who needed an assistant in rural Northern Indiana to plant a New Testament church. After two years of co-laboring with Norman Floyd and upon Calvary Baptist Church’s ordination, we were commissioned and sent off to Boston as church planters.
We had managed to move from a marriage ceremony of “0” finances to a savings account of $4000 and a U-Haul trailer of used furniture to make our way to Boston. We left Indiana in late December 1973 and arrived in the snow and cold of Boston on the fourth week of January 1974. This was during the gas rationing days when you could only buy $1 worth of gas on the New Jersey Turnpike. We could barely make it between some of the longer exits to get the next $1 worth of gas to pull our large trailer of belongings.
We made connections with several churches on our trip from Chicago to Boston, telling of our journey of faith and goal to start a church in what we were led to believe and later confirmed to be perhaps the neediest mission field on planet earth.
Our distribution of tea bags served as prayer reminders for people to pray for us as they drank tea. This simple gift reminded them to pray for us as we labored in Boston, the home of the famous Boston Tea Party.
We rented a 5 1/2 room apartment in Medford for $175 per month for the first year on a main street. That location made it an easy-to-find location for our living room church. We started with the nursery and children’s classes in the adjoining bedroom.
After a few months of searching, we found a single family home of five rooms for sale for $32,900.00.
Our patience and negotiation skills were put to use, and we used our $4000 savings as the down payment for our first and only home of 44 years. Today, it is valued at $450,000 and occupied by us two semi-retirees and visited on occasion by our seven children and 19 grandchildren.
We are very grateful for God’s provision through both sets of our parents and several churches (some of which financed us as missionaries for as much as the first seven years) that helped get New England Baptist Church to self-supporting status.
We rejoice that none of our children departed from the faith and are now involved in ministry in churches of “like faith” to carry on what they were taught.
Our second joy is to see our vision of a church (born out of faith) become a reality and continue to do what it was planted to do. New England Baptist Church is still reaching the lost, baptizing believers, and teaching souls for Christ’s Kingdom under the leadership of our son-in- law and daughter, Pastor Joe and Esther Hawkins.
In writing this biography, I hope to inspire other young men and women to accept the challenge to come to New England to start a Biblical New Testament soulwinning church by faith. And to realize what God did through a country farm boy from the “sticks” of Maryland who married a refined lady of missionary parents.
God could do it again through you!
Sacrifice, yes, but rewards and blessings too numerous to recall!
God turned our $0 assets into a million-dollar portfolio in our 48 years of marriage and ministry.
As the Pastor, I signed the waiver to withdraw from Social Security taxes out of my employment income (not wanting to become dependent on the government for any old-age retirement income), but rather, chose to create my own retirement portfolio after about year 20 of the church being established. The IRAs and a 403b account have increased. The addition of an inherited property makes our total assets worth just over a million dollars. To God be the glory!
Our seven children have all been taught in our Christian Academy, attended Bible College, and earned degrees.
All debt-free.
In addition, our church property is valued at over 2 million dollars and has given over a million dollars to missionaries of like faith over the last 44 years. All of this to God’s glory!
The only debt was the purchase of our primary residence that was paid off in 17 years instead of the 30-year loan agreement. We give credit to God, parents, faithful friends, and church members who believed in our vision and helped it to become a reality today.
So please don’t allow Satan, family, or friends to dissuade you from the possibility of God blessing you beyond measure as you serve Him in New England. Our gracious Lord may bless you even greater than He did this poor farm boy.
May these words of encouragement motivate some to step up to the plate and say “by the grace of God, what God has done for others, He will do for me!!!”