But after some time of struggle between theory, scholar, chicken and hat pin, my brother turned to us and said, "Get me the axe!"
Our Sunday dinner symbolized the necessary blend of the theoretical with the practical. It was my mother's best recipe—Chicken and Dumplings. That is the best thing that ever happened to a chicken. I later used more of her favorite recipes as I earned my way through Moody Bible Institute as a cook at The Grill in Oak Park, Illinois.
I married the clerk at the large grain elevator thirty-five miles into town (Cairo, Illinois). I had also seen her in the high school band of her town as the bands met annually at the Southern Illinois University campus, and in her local church youth group with whom we shared fellowship. We convinced my father that we needed to get married soon, although we were very young, in order to meet the MBI requirement of being married six months before entering school. A few years passed and two children came into our lives before we were to load our belongings into the cattle truck and head for Chicago.
I could wait no longer even though we were farming one thousand acres together. I had to tell my dad that God wanted me to prepare for the ministry. As we worked in the shop together, I finally mustered the courage to tell him. His immediate response was, "I don't want you here then."
He was not bitter. He merely wanted to assure me that if God wanted me in the ministry, he did not want to stand in the way. Later, while I was at Moody, Dad had a heart attack. I came back to the farm and offered to return, but his answer was "no." I watched him sell the farm and auction all of the equipment at scrap iron prices.
"Thanks, dad!"
At Moody Bible Institute, we were required to blend the classroom activities with the practical responsibilities of Christian service. I preached and sang in the rescue missions of Chicago. I led people to Christ in the huge wards of Cook County Hospital. I worked with the local pastor and his church in the educational ministries of the church.
At Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College and Seminary, I saw the value of the classroom because I worked constantly in the local church. I loved the class of senior citizens, including the dutchman who stood to his feet during my Sunday school class, and said, "Don't talk to us about sin if you are going to buy a Sunday paper."
Soon it was time to move on to my first assistant pastorate in Gary, Indiana where I learned the values of rejection. This sent me to First Baptist Church of Hackensack, New Jersey and Dr. Joseph M. Stowell. There I learned the values of overwhelming challenge accompanied by supportive acceptance. I believe I learned more in that year and a half with Dr. Stowell, before he became the National Representative of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, than I had learned in all of the years in the classroom. These were the valuable pastoral lessons of getting close to a man of God and learning by doing. The next year and a half as interim pastor of First Baptist Church would prove God's sufficiency and further equip me for what He wanted me to do.
It was on to Florida to become the first pastor following the missionary who planted Fellowship Baptist Church in Lakeland. I also began to work in the classroom of Spurgeon Baptist Bible College, seeking to blend the theoretical with the practical. That led to three years of living with the students while we sought to pour our lives into them. Spurgeon had come into existence with a vision to blend the Text with the context of planting churches around the world.