All of those who are Christians, I think, have times and events in our lives that when we look back on them we clearly see the hand of God orchestrating and superintending. It is good that we remember these because they remind us of the goodness of the Lord Christ and because they serve as encouragements when we face other tight situations.
In the Psalms we see this kind of thing often. In the Psalms this is called “recital theology.” These are texts where the Psalmist is reciting some greatness of God in the past often in order to give him hope for the future.
Psalm 136 is one such example where the Psalmist practices recital theology. He remembers God’s previous provision to the end of being confident in God for the future;
to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.
I have tried to teach from the pulpit that we should all have our own recital theology. We should all have the ability to remember God’s past goodness and provision so that we never despair of the Lord Christ’s ability to deliver us from present trials.
As such, I’d like to do a series of these where we (and sometimes just I, before Jane came along) saw the Spirit of God provide in ways I could never have expected or anticipated at the time.
The first one I like to recall is when we took up our first ministerial charge.
The year was 1988. I had been finished with Seminary since December of 1987. I had sent out a few sending resumes looking to see if I could find some interest but to no avail. I was operating without any institutional support and so I did not have a natural network or structure to work within. Further, I was still doing a good deal of reading as I was moving from Arminianism to a Reformed understanding.
I was still working part time at United Airlines (about 30 hours a week) but it was clear that something had to change. We were living in a really nasty situation (a hovel that we shared with mice, palmetto bugs, termites, and bees — depending on the time of year). It was, as you can imagine, very inexpensive (150.00 dollars a month) but it was the kind of place one lives in when one is scraping buy in Seminary. It was not the kind of place where one settles in for long term.
Laura-Jane had been born in July of 1986. She had experienced more than one bout of getting stung up by bees while sleeping. However, by 1988 we learned that Jane was with child with Anna and fitting four in this living situation was something we could have done if we had to but certainly not ideal.
The quarters we were living in, there in South Carolina had only one room that was air conditioned (and SC can get oppressively hot in the summer) and that air conditioned room was due to the kindness of the Church we were attending at the time. They saw Jane’s condition when she was pregnant with Laura and bought us a small unit and installed it in our bedroom. We were very thankful for that kindness of that small church.
Similarly, in the winter time we had one small heater in the house that could not heat the whole house and we had to keep a portable kerosene heater running to keep whatever other room in the house we were occupying warm.
This was our situation in 1988. We knew we had to change things but we were, by all observations seemingly stuck.
The God’s providence and provision descended upon us. A chap who was a couple years ahead of me in Seminary and who I had known just a wee bit was pastoring a church in rural South Carolina about 45 minutes from where we lived. I had lost touch with him and didn’t even know what had become of him after he graduated Seminary. Come to find out he had been filling the pulpit at a PCA country church in Longtown, SC. That Church had been a vibrant church before experiencing a church split before my friend arrived and so it was experiencing hard times. My friend, who was affiliated with the PCA, had some trouble getting fully ordained in the PCA (that’s a story in itself but is ancillary to this story) and was told he could not fill the pulpit of this small rural church until the PCA ordained him. The refusal of his ordination was political and he was not happy with the PCA and the Church as well was not pleased with the PCA. The Church believed that the man was capable and orthodox and that the Presbytery was being a further hindrance to their ability, as a Church, to get back on track after a devastating split.
Before he left that congregation the Elders at Longtown Presbyterian asked him to recommend a name for them to phone in order to secure pulpit supply. For reasons that to this day amaze me, he recommended me and gave them my phone contact. The reason this amazed me is that I didn’t really know John that well. We had had a few interactions over the course of time but we were more acquaintances than friends. I was amazed (and remain amazed almost forty years later) that he gave the Elders my name and that he would recommend me.
Well, the Elders phoned me in September of 1988 and asked me to come fill their pulpit one week. I did so. At that point they asked me to come the following Sunday and I did. Pretty soon I was out at Longtown SC filling the pulpit weekly and doing visitations with the Elders in various homes.
By March or so, they asked me to consider coming to live out in Longtown. I told them that really wasn’t financially feasible. A few weeks later they said they wanted to make it financially feasible by purchasing and bringing a brand new double wide trailer and sitting it on a portion of the 80 acres the Church owned. They also said they wanted to add a substantial front porch so we could entertain folks on the porch.
There was just one hitch in all this and it disappointed me that I had to admit it to them. The hitch was that I was still figuring matters out in terms of being Reformed vs. being Arminian. I had grown up Wesleyan and my experience, before moving to South Carolina, was all Reformed churches were liberal. Now while in Seminary, I learned that was not true but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still struggling to get my head around Reformed theology. I mean, I had taken the required classes in Seminary. I had done the reading required. I did well in the classes but I still was not convinced. In point of fact I was not convinced of either Arminianism or Reformed theology at that point.
And I had to tell them that. I had to tell them that I couldn’t try to be ordained in the PCA because I just was not there yet. I thought that would be the end of their pursuit. It wasn’t. The Elders said to me when I told them this, “Look, we’ve been listening to your preaching now for a few months. We are confident that you are headed in a direction you don’t even realize yet. If you promise to keep studying and reading on this subject, we would still like to consider you to come. You don’t need to worry about denominational issues because we are leaving the PCA. Our departure from the PCA has nothing to do with you. We are leaving whether you come or not.”
So, seeing this as God’s open door we showed up in our new home about a month after Anna was born in 1989 and we stayed there for over six years. I kept my job at United and commuted the 45 minute drive and worked as a tentmaker for those six years. I continued to keep up my reading and eventually God convinced me that Reformed theology alone was consistent with His revelation of Himself. Before we left Longtown Presbyterian we even had our three children baptized in the context of infant Baptism (though they were all toddlers at the time).
The new home was glorious, compared to where we had been living. The children had all kinds of room to run and play. Eventually the Church put up a playhouse for the children and a out building for storage for us. All of this Lord Christ dropped in our laps in the most unexpected manner possible. His provision came out of nowhere. It was not the first time and it would not be the last but it is one of those times where the impact of it remains beyond my ability to reckon.
The church also paid us a small stipend weekly while we were there. Remember, they had just gone through a split themselves and so there was not a lot of money for a salary. Some of those first few Sundays, I remember we would have only 9 people in the service — most of them widows. The group that split off built a PCUSA chapel just down the road about 5 miles. We would eventually build up to about 25 people on any given Sunday before the door closed at Longtown and the Lord Christ brought us to Michigan. Longtown, Presbyterian is still open today. They are again now part of the PCA. I know very little about how all that came about but I rejoice to know that the Church continues to glorify God where it is at.
And almost 40 years later I marvel at God’s hand of provision for Jane and I and the children (Anthony came along in 1990). Those years at Longtown were a challenge but we never doubted that tiny congregation and community loved us. It was hard on us when the time came, because United Airlines was closing its operation in Columbia, SC, we had to leave that congregation and that place.
Most of those folks we ministered to their in Longtown almost 40 years ago have gone to be with Christ. I think if Jane and I just showed up today for worship at Longtown Presbyterian no one would recognize us because the congregation is a different congregation than the one we served. I think there might be one or two who might recognize us, but on the whole we could slip in and out on a given Sunday just being visitors in the area who decided to visit one random Sunday.
However, these many years later I remain amazed at how the Lord Christ opened up a situation that I could not have foreseen in a million years. I am amazed at His work not only in providing a home for the McAtee family but also in distinctly placing us in the ministry. All of this is part of my recital theology and I return to it over and over again when I am in a sticky wicket that I have no idea how I am going to get out of.
And then six years later, when we moved to Michigan the Lord Christ did it all over again.
But that is a different chapter in my recital theology and is for another time.
