Last week we had not only rhubarb from our own patch, but some that a friend had given us as well! I made several rhubarb meringue pies, two of which we either shared at Grandpa's birthday party or gave away to a bereaved family who were struggling through an estate sale.
I tried a recipe that I found in a cookbook that was given me by an old friend, the wife of Pastor Jack Benninger of Zion Wesleyan Methodist Church.
This was the pastor who was willing to baptize my husband, who had never been baptized since his old church never practiced baptism.
The church had rules about everything from number of eyelets a woman's shoe must have (at least four so that it could be modest enough and cover her foot well enough)
and what color her hose could be (black or white)
to what kind of watch a man was allowed (only pocket watches)
and what color of hat he was allowed to wear (no bright colors. A young man got into trouble for wearing a bright yellow hat to school.)
Yet they may not be baptized--a clearly written command in New Testament Scripture--because that is what the Baptists do.
My husband decided that he would obey the command of Christ rather than the command of man, and one Saturday evening, on our first anniversary, he was dunked in the cold water of an Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Church baptistry in New Castle, PA, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--
after the pastor made the mistake of saying, "I baptize thee, Jonathan Paul Yates--"
and had to be duly corrected!
Nevertheless, Jonathan was successfully baptized.
Our own children have been baptized by twos and threes.
The three oldest were baptized in a lake by a God's Missionary Church pastor (Wesleyan Methodist beliefs) who was concerned about actually obeying the Scripture and teaching about it. On the lake shore as well stood several grandparents from Jonathan's old church who had claimed to be saved and sanctified for decades. It was a humbling experience for those who had made such high claims yet had never obeyed the first command of the gospel after the command to repent and believe in Christ.
Two others of our children were baptized in a water-filled trough at a Baptist church. The elderly pastor of the nearby Cowboy Church where Crystal's graduation service was held was having a baptismal service in the winter.
With only rare opportunities for baptism in a Wesleyan Methodist background church,
our girls decided they wanted to be baptized in the trough!
The Baptist pastor, the evening beforehand, with us parents present, made sure our girls understood the meaning of the gospel and that they had truly repented and believed in Christ.
Then our last two boys were baptized in our own muddy pond--after giving up on being baptized by someone we had asked who did not follow through. A licensed church elder, dear old Ward French, hardly able to hobble out in the mud,
went out into the pond with a cane, supported by Jonathan, and baptized our two boys.
Obeying Christ in the matter of baptism is not easy, even in conservative, evangelical churches that claim to believe and obey the gospel.
But when is obeying Christ easy?
It usually results in going against not just the world, the flesh, and the devil, but often against church establishment which contains huge focuses on the commands of man or else on social relationships, and on keeping the status quo while ignoring the clear commands of Christ Himself in the New Testament.
We
have learned to have friends among many kinds of churches--not just the
Wesleyan Methodist heritage which have been a part of our
lives--but also the Mennonites, Baptists, Presbyterians, Apostolic
Christians, and people who have been so burnt on church (or have such high ideals) that they can't
attend anywhere.
Jonathan and I were impressed a few years ago when the pastor of a church we decided to check out
prayed for the churches right around his church. There was a Nazarene group meeting in a house next door to this fellowship, a Lutheran group meeting on the other property, and another church meeting nearby as well.
Jonathan and I had never heard a pastor pray for the churches on all sides of our church before.
Those other churches out there were ones to be avoided, made fun of, and preached against.
Whoever heard of humbly praying for them all by name during church service?
If you haven't, you are not alone. We had never heard that happen before either.
And no one left this pastor's church group to join the other, either, just because the pastor humbly acknowledged the other churches as existing, fellow churches.
He simply prayed that they also would proclaim the gospel as written in God's Word.
And then that pastor preached God's Word--straight through one book after another--
not leaving out the portions he knew would offend somebody like Jonathan once
was told,
"I can't read those certain Scriptures, because these certain people would be offended,"
or in words to that effect.
Instead, this preacher taught from one of Paul's epistles and then from Malachi.
Shaking and trembling, he preached from Malachi about what God thinks of divorce, for example.
And to my knowledge, no one, including the divorced and remarried in the church, left the church over that.
Instead, people started coming to that church more and more.
The pastor still preaches through God's Word, and the church is burgeoning.
Amazing!
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