Oh no! I thought, my heart suddenly sinking, Pa was telling them not to say anything and let him be the one to break the bad news! I don’t know what I would think myself, but I couldn’t stand it for Christopher if the church voted against him!
They walked toward us. I couldn’t tell a thing from anyone’s face. They looked pretty somber.
I finally couldn’t wait any longer!
“Pa!” I said in exasperation.
He glanced up, still with a blank expression, as if he didn’t have a notion what I could mean.
“Pa . . . what did they say?” I exclaimed.
“About what?”
“You know! Do they want us or not?”
Slowly now Pa’s face broke into a grin.
“’Course they want you,” he said, then stuck out his hand to Christopher. “Congratulations, son . . . or should I say Rev. Braxton?”
They shook hands, and then everyone else gathered around us, all talking at once.
“No Reverend, please,” said Christopher with a sigh of thankful relief. “With all due respect to your late minister, it is a title I am not altogether comfortable with. I will be no different as a pastor than as a layman, and Christopher will suit me just fine for both roles.”
“They really want Christopher to be the minister?” I asked excitedly. “Why did you all come out of there with such long faces?”
“I thought I’d make you sweat a little,” laughed Pa.
“Oh, Pa . . . how could you do it?”
“Yes, they want you,” said Almeda. “Harriet stood up the instant you were gone and said that she knew beyond any doubt that God had sent you to Miracle Springs to replace her husband. She said she knew Avery would be wonderfully pleased.”
“A few of them said Christopher might be a little radical,” said Tad.
“But then others said some radical religion might be good for ’em,” added Zack.
“Everyone thinks this is quite a young man you found for yourself, Corrie,” said Almeda.
“I agree,” I added, looking up into Christopher’s face.
He was smiling now. I was so happy for him!
“Well, come on,” said Pa. “They told us to bring you back in.”
We turned and followed him back up the steps into the church. Mr. Shaw was at the door with a big smile on his face, his hand outstretched.
“The vote was unanimous!” he said, shaking Christopher’s hand.
“Come on back inside—both of you,” Mr. Shaw was saying. “The congregation wants to greet its new pastor.”
Christopher smiled and took my hand, and we walked back into the church. The moment we appeared, for the second time that day, everyone broke into applause, and now rose to go. We stood at the back of the church near the door and greeted everyone on their way outside. Christopher made sure Harriet Rutledge shared the greeting time with us. That reminded me of the sad fact that her husband was so soon gone, which was the only reason all this was happening. We stood on one side of the door and she on the other.
It took forever for the church to empty out.
They all wanted to speak personally to the three of us, telling Harriet how much they had loved Rev. Rutledge and expressing their condolences and at the same time telling Christopher and me how glad they were that we were going to be the new minister and minister’s wife of Miracle Springs.
In between handshakes, just after Mrs. Sinclair and Mrs. Gilly had both said very nearly that same thing, he bent down and whispered laughing in my ear, “I wonder what they’ll say about us when they get away from the church!”
Even the banker Mr. Royce seemed moved. The only time I’d ever seen that man show any sensitive emotion at all was when he’d come over to our house for Christmas dinner several years back. But on this day, as he shook hands with Christopher on the way out of church, I could tell that what had been said had gone even deeper inside him. He clutched Christopher’s hand longer than usual and just stared at him deeply in the eyes as if he was trying to say something. But he couldn’t get any words out. Finally he gave Christopher’s hand another shake, mouthed the two words Thank you without hardly any sound to them, then hurried off down the steps and to his carriage without a word to anyone.
Even after the enthusiastic vote, the church committee wanted to make the affirmation of their call to Christopher official. They came to the house that same afternoon, about an hour later, said they’d met again, considered everything both Christopher and the congregation had said, and wanted him to know that the call was unanimous and official, then handed him a written letter of invitation containing each of their four signatures, as well as Harriet’s.
Christopher thanked them. “But I still intend to give you one final opportunity to change your minds,” he added, “before I shall give you my final answer. I said earlier that I wanted you to hear my story and have the chance to weigh its implications.”
“Are we to take that to mean, Mr. Braxton,” asked Mr. Harding, somewhat confused by Christopher’s words, “that you will or will not occupy the pulpit this evening?”
“I will be happy to conduct this evening’s service,” Christopher replied.
“Well, be assured, Mr. Braxton, that the whole church is behind you.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that very much. But I will reserve further comment until after this evening’s service, when you shall have the opportunity I mentioned.”
They all shook hands, then the committee turned and left, three of them in Mr. Harding’s carriage, and Aunt Katie by foot. As we watched them go, Christopher slipped his arm around my waist. We stood side by side gazing down the road until they were out of sight.
“What did you mean,” I asked, “by saying you wanted to give them one final chance to change their minds?”
“You will have to wait and find out tonight with everyone else,” smiled Christopher.
Christopher let his arm fall. We joined hands and began walking up along the creek, praying as we went.
“Father,” Christopher said softly, “we ask for you to make your will absolutely clear to us. Speak through the remainder of this day to our hearts and our minds. Place within us the thoughts you want us to have. Direct our thoughts, Lord. Direct them into the channels of your choosing in such a way that we can know they are coming from you and that you mean them to direct the course of our steps. Give me guidance concerning what I am to say this evening. Let my words, whatever is your will concerning the future, speak to the people, even if it be but to one individual, in such a way that life becomes better than it was before—because someone knows you, their Father, in a more personal way.”
Christopher stopped and sighed. It was a good, contented sigh. I could tell he felt confident that the decision was in God’s hands and that we would be shown what to do.
“Lord,” I said, “give us both the same direction. Confirm to us separately whether this offer is truly from your hand. Guide our steps, guide our thoughts, guide our conversations and prayers as we reflect upon it. We give this decision over into your hands completely.”
“Yes, Lord,” Christopher added, “we place it entirely into your care. We thank you for this opportunity, and we commit it to you, so that your purposes might be accomplished through it.”
It fell quiet between us. It was a warm afternoon and as we walked, the smells and sounds of the woods and the creek beside us were wonderfully peaceful.
“Would you like to know what I think . . . personally?” I said after we had gone on a little farther in silence.
“Yes . . . yes I would,” replied Christopher.
“I think it sounds rather exciting.”
Chapter 15
That Evening
The church was nearly as full that evening as it had been in the morning. Word had spread throughout the afternoon of what Christopher had told the committee about deferring his decision, so there was a lot of curiosity about what new thing he was going to say. There were those that figured h
e had decided against taking the position after all and now wanted to explain his reasons.
“I want to express first of all,” Christopher began, “how grateful both my wife Corrie and I are for the warmth of your gracious love toward us. I know how beloved Avery Rutledge was to all of you. In the short time since I have been in Miracle Springs I have been closely enough acquainted with him to know why. Corrie and I spent a good deal of time in the Rutledge home, both before our marriage and since, and we considered Avery and his dear wife to be close and special friends.
“It is not easy for a congregation to lose a man such as Avery—the only pastor this growing church has ever known. In light of that, I consider it a rare honor that you have opened yourselves so quickly and hospitably to me in calling me to fill his now-vacant shoes. Corrie, of course, you have all known as long as you have known your former pastor. But until this morning most of you knew very little about me, and I am humbled that your invitation has been so enthusiastic.
“Naturally, as you might well imagine, my prayers in recent days have been energetic and not without a good deal of emotion. I am, as you know, a native Easterner. Up until a year or two ago, California might as well have been a foreign country as far as I was concerned.”
A few chuckles went around the room.
“Then I had the good fortune to meet and fall in love with the young lady who would become my wife, and suddenly California was the most exciting state in the Union!”
More chuckles followed, and embarrassment on my part. It was always more embarrassing for me to hear someone else talking about me, even than to stand up and do the talking myself.
“To be honest,” Christopher went on, “when I told Corrie that I intended to come from Virginia here to Miracle Springs, the only thing I had in mind at the time was to ask her father for her hand in marriage—which, I want publicly to thank him for granting,” he added, glancing over to where Pa was sitting. Pa nodded with a smile.
“The point is that I did not stop fully to consider what moving here might mean in terms of my own future. My brain was a little too occupied with Corrie at the time to think about anything beyond seeing her again!”
Christopher paused a moment, and his expression became more thoughtful.
“As you know,” he went on, “in recent months I have been planning for us to pursue our future once more in the East. But there has been no clear and distinct leading with regard to that future. Now suddenly I find myself faced with an offer that would essentially make me a Californian myself.
“All this is by way of saying that, even though I came to Miracle Springs as a stranger to all but one of you, after the prayer and soul-searching of these past few days since your committee’s offer to me, I now realize that I consider this more of a home than any place I have been before. Suddenly thoughts of returning to the East—though Corrie and I are booked on a ship due to leave San Francisco later this very week!—now seem remote and unreal. You heard the story of my early years this morning, and you know what a struggle it has been for me to find a place to call home and to find a family with whom I could know I was loved.
“I have found such here, in this place . . . with you. I am more grateful than you can know for the open arms that Drum and Almeda and their family have held out to me. I feel that same love flowing from the rest of you too. That is what I have come to know with a contentment that I believe has come from my heavenly Father—this is my home . . . here with you.”
As Christopher paused for a breath, I could tell everyone was touched by what he said. I was dabbing my own eyes, and I saw Almeda doing the same, and here and there a quiet amen sounded in thankful affirmation.
“Therefore, with all that as introduction, I want to reaffirm, as I said this morning, that I am prepared to accept your invitation to—”
Before he could even finish the sentence, he was interrupted by more amens and applause from everyone.
Christopher laughed.
“Thank you. You are all very kind. However, you didn’t let me finish! And the second thing I was going to say is equally as important as the first.”
Again he paused while everyone settled down, curious about what he was going to add.
“I said that I was prepared to accept your invitation to become the minister of the Miracle Springs Community Church,” he said, giving special emphasis to the word. “Yet just as I felt you needed to know more about me and my background before I could accept your invitation, I think it is only fair that you know more about what kind of a pastor I would be as well. In other words, there remains one further proviso to my acceptance, one further opportunity I must give you to speak now or forever hold your peace, as it were.”
There was some shifting around as everyone listened, and Christopher could tell the people were uncertain about what he meant.
“Let me try to explain,” he said. “I am a firm believer in not making hasty decisions. I fear that much damage is done by rushing to the conclusion that God is leading in some matter, when we are listening instead to our own emotions and desires. Rarely does one err by waiting.
“However . . .” and here Christopher smiled, “in this present case, we do not have a great deal of time, as Corrie and I have all our worldly possession packed away in preparation to leave for San Francisco the day after tomorrow! Therefore, I must make a decision—and quickly. In order to prevent my mistaking God’s leading, therefore, I felt it wise, notwithstanding your vote of this morning, to allow you one final opportunity to reconsider your decision.
“In order to give you what additional information is possible that might cause you to see me in a different light, I want this evening to tell you very candidly why you might want to do so. I would utter no word to sway anyone favorably, to woo or impress. I would have not a single one among you say six months or a year from now, ‘If only I had known this . . . I would not have voted in favor of the man.’”
Again Christopher paused, this time to draw in a deep breath.
“Therefore,” he continued, “this evening I am going to do my best to tell you what sort of pastor I will likely be. I will say it in a word—I will consider it my sacred duty to challenge you, not to pamper you, to challenge you with the same precepts by which I challenge myself.
“If you are uncomfortable with what I say, therefore, it would be good to speak up now and withdraw the call before Corrie and I change our plans. I have seen too many churches get into difficulty with pastors because they knew not what manner of man they were inviting into their pulpit.
“Too often the pulpit is seen as a position of prestige rather than a position of servanthood. I do not see it so. I would have you fully aware of any and every grievance you might someday want to bring against me. I would have us bring our differences into the light ahead of time, so that they do not cause division between us later.
“When I pastored before, in Richmond, the precepts I taught fell unwelcome on many ears. I came to be viewed as something of a radical, as holding fanatical spiritual positions. Most of my congregation wanted a brand of Christianity that would enable them to feel good and retain the comforts to which their societal positions entitled them, but which would exact no cost—no cost to their selves, no cost to their pride, no cost to their time or bank accounts. They did not want to be challenged. Their desire was for a restful Christianity which made few demands upon the conscience. Servanthood and self-sacrifice were in no wise elements of their spiritual creed. My words, therefore, were unwelcome in their ears.
“The situation grew untenable, and when I finally left that pastorate my vision for the ministry was at death’s door. I vowed I would never again seek a pulpit, nor would I ever occupy one without ascertaining first whether the congregation desired the brand of Christianity which burns in my heart. Knowing our late friend Avery Rutledge as I feel I did, I think I know the answer to my question already. After hearing him preach only a time or two, I knew I had discovered a kindred spirit. However, I must b
e faithful to this commitment I made to myself several years ago.
“This is why I say I am prepared to accept your invitation. I said so this morning, and I say so again. But I want again to give you the final say in the matter of a decision. For with me in this pulpit, you will be challenged, even as I challenge myself. You will be confronted with servanthood and self-denial, even as I attempt to live out those truths in my own life. You will be called upon to examine the cost of following Jesus and of heeding the voice of your conscience. What we will seek together will not be cozy, comfortable Christianity, but rather the discipleship of sacrificial Christlikeness.
“If I am your pastor, I will see it as my duty and obligation, as I said, to challenge, not to pamper. I will not hope to send you back to your homes every Sunday not feeling warm and comfortable, but rather with the same prayerful discomforts with which I am myself afflicted.
“Is this what you want? Then I am your man. Is this not what you want? Then I am not your man.
“Do these bold words strike fear in your hearts? Perhaps you find the spirit of indignation rising up within you, whispering into your ear, Who does the presumptuous young fellow think he is?”
Christopher paused and looked throughout the silent church.
“I would have you examine your reactions,” he added, “be they favorable or negative. I would have you be anything but lukewarm and noncommittal, because nothing is more killing to a growing faith than that.”
Again he paused, this time with a very serious expression.
“I leave the matter before you one final time,” he said, “—Corrie, if you would join me . . .” Christopher said, stepping down and walking to where I sat. He offered his arm. I stood and took it. “Drum, Almeda, and the rest of you,” Christopher added, looking at Zack, Tad, Becky, and Ruth, “I think it might be best for all of you to come with us as well, so that the church can be free to discuss the matter.”
He now turned and addressed the congregation again.
A New Beginning Page 8