Answering the Call

 

Eric baptizing a neighbor, in Burrows

Pastor Chuck Smith, the founder of what is sometimes known as the Calvary Chapel Movement, has oft-quoted favorite phrases referred to as “Chuckisms,” one of which is “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” How did that relate to the Haley Family? Well, it was a process that took about 28 years.

In May of 1999, just after her birthday, Eric’s mother, the other Grandma Haley, passed away very comfortably, in the driver’s seat of her car in a parking lot. I didn’t go to her funeral because I had so many little bitty kids to take care of. But some of the older ones went with Eric and it is said that Susie beeped her dead Grandma’s nose as she quoted a line by Lucy VanPelt about a beep on the nose being a sign of great affection. It was the very picture of impropriety.

Grandma Haley left her children some inheritance, and there was some money available shortly after her death. At the same time, the old cement block fire station next door to our house in Burrows became available, as the township had received one of those grants for new fire stations in rural communities. The old fire station looked like a large garage and only resembled a fire station because there was always an antique fire truck parked outside. Most of those who showed up at the auction wanted to dicker on the price because they only really wanted it as a place to store junk. But we had the money, providentially, and paid cash for it. We weren’t sure what we were going to do with it, but Eric was pretty sure we needed it.

So we owned the large garage (with its own well!) during the Y2K scare, and we stored a little food out there and put in a wood burning stove, in case we were driven to desperation. But in 2001, when that was all over, we began looking at our situation.

The gas prices were rising and our car was falling apart. Eric drove back and forth to Lafayette every single day – six days to watch the store, and then the seventh day to take us all to church. We could never be involved in anything else during the week – it was too expensive. I went to Logansport to shop because it was a little closer.

Then, we had a great idea! We could just close the store in Lafayette, bring all the books to Burrows, and work from a building next door to our house. Most of our business was mail order anyway. People who walked into the bricks and mortar store were mostly there to put the books away in the wrong place or to shoplift. We could save a lot of money by bringing the business home. We just needed to get rid of the items that were there at the store on consignment. 

In the spring of 2001, we contacted every consignor in our records and asked them to remove their items. We told them that anything remaining after a certain date would go to auction. 

In the meantime, we told our pastor that we were leaving him.

This was no small thing. Calvary Chapel Lafayette was founded in 1982 by Pastor Joe Bell, as one of the earliest Calvary Chapel churches in Indiana, and we were there when he had the initial organizational prayer meeting in his basement. 

Since I had experience with the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California (at least the Saturday night concerts!), and in fact Eric and I had been married by Calvary Chapel’s associate pastor Don McClure, we were all in for a Calvary Chapel church plant in our hometown. So we were there for 19 years, involved in various forms of ministry, and moving from location to location as the church grew. 

It’s just that when we moved to Burrows, we were rather cut off from the church. In the days before cell phones, nobody wanted to call us long distance and run up their phone bill. And people hardly ever drove to our house.

The idea that we were bringing our business to Burrows resonated with us. But we had also noticed kids out playing in the streets as we left for Lafayette on Sunday mornings, and we thought, “How can we ever invite someone to church if our church is in another county?” So we were thinking about where we could go to church that was closer.

Well, Pastor Joe emailed us when we explained our plan to move the business. He said, “Hey, if you are moving your business, maybe you’ll want to have church in Carroll County too! How about it, Pastor Eric?”

I groaned. That was unexpected! We wrote him back and said we were trying to make life easier, not harder! So, while we were packing up boxes and boxes of books and unloading them on bookshelves in the old fire station (now, the garage), we were checking out a church in Delphi where quite a few of our homeschool friends were members.

Now you have to realize that Calvary Chapel as a movement had a Statement of Faith back then. It was printed on all of our bulletins and you could practically memorize it, it was so small and happy. For 19 years, our kids had seen that Statement of Faith, too. The first part of it was about how God wants us to worship him in spirit and in truth. That meant, we placed a great deal of emphasis on singing, and then the teaching of The Word.

The second part was about how we were not opposed to denominations as such, only that they tended to cause division among the Body of Christ.

There wasn’t a whole lot in there about what we believed. It was assumed that you would just go to church, hear the Word as it was taught line-upon-line and precept-upon-precept, and then you would know what we believed. And for the most part, we did.

So we met with the pastor of the church where our homeschool friends went, and he was asking how we could even want to go to his church. It seemed he was more familiar with our doctrine than we were! But we said it was okay, Calvary Chapel was pretty easy going about denominations and other churches in the Body of Christ.

We told Pastor Joe that we were going to start going to that church, and I know he was grieved about it and spent some time in prayer. He said, “Shouldn’t you have discussed this with your pastor?” We told him we’d see him again in about three months to visit, but he wanted to give us a big send-off first. We weren’t leaving because we’d had a falling out or anything – we truly thought it would be a good idea to minister where we’d been planted. 

Well, during that time at our friends’ church, we learned just how much we aren’t Calvinists. Even Susie had a hard time in Sunday School as a middle-school-aged kid. She was shocked when her teacher asked her if she would be okay with it if God sent him to hell. She couldn’t understand why God would send her teacher to hell if he was saved. But the teacher only stressed that God is sovereign and He does what He wants to do, so we can’t question that. 

This flies in the face of the truth that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, and the promise that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We had to tell Susie we disagreed with her teacher, and commend her for being alert.

There were several such shocking incidents, and Calvinism proved itself to be not compatible with Calvary Chapel beliefs. Two months later, we thought it had already been three months, and we went to Calvary Chapel again in relief. I had been feeling like a tree that had been toppled with its roots exposed, drying out and drying up. During the day, I was playing all the Maranatha! Music records I owned, all day long.

Pastor Joe just smiled when we came back and he said he didn’t think our venture into a different church would last long. He said once you’ve been in Calvary Chapel for awhile, it’s like an inoculation against anything else. We said, so, you were mentioning that Eric should be a pastor? Did you mean that?

Immediately, he visited Eric’s store, which he was still busy cleaning out, and handed him a pile of books. In the evenings, we read Calvary Chapel Distinctives, Harvest, and Why Grace Changes Everything, all by Pastor Chuck Smith… When we read the Distinctives, the light bulb went on. Yes, Yes, YES! This one really defined the movement so much better than the Statement of Faith. 

Books by Pastor Chuck, including Calvary Chapel Distinctives

But… it spoke about being called to the ministry. What about us? Were we called?

Thinking back, Eric could remember those days when he was first saved, and that he had believed God had called him to the ministry. He didn’t get his job as a chaplain’s assistant in the Air Force, and he never really pursued that after we got married, but he brought it up from time to time. We just didn’t know how we could go to Bible college with a couple of kids. We thought about Moody Bible Institute because the tuition was free there – but not the room and board. We didn’t know how we could afford that. So we just pursued business instead.

And then there was a turning point, and a rather sudden one. Eric had just walked out of the post office in Burrows, and he saw a car turning onto the highway from the parking lot. The driver, an older lady, did not see the oncoming truck! It struck her and disabled the car, turned her around, and put her on a collision course with the post office and Eric’s parked car. Eric ran to the car, pried the door open, grabbed the steering wheel, and forced the car into an embankment where it finally stopped. Then he prayed for the woman until an ambulance arrived. 

Eric knew that was a sacred moment, a “re-call.” Excitedly he told me that it mirrored a time when he was a young believer, when a bicyclist was hit by a car, and the first thing he could think of to do was to pray. Though when the adrenaline wore off, Eric was really sore from pushing the car all by himself, we later heard that all the lady could remember after the accident was being prayed for by a nice young man.

That experience was confirmation to him, that God had called him, at this time in his life, to the ministry.

Pastor Joe said the Lafayette church could commission Eric to start a new church plant in Carroll County. Then, after a while, they could license him and later, they could ordain him. We didn’t know how that could happen without Eric going to Bible college, but Pastor Joe said, “You’ve been sitting under my teaching for 19 years and you’ve been faithful in my ministry. Yes, you are qualified, and I believe you are called.”

So, Eric was called! I was pretty excited and supportive of him. I had seriously always wanted to be a pastor’s wife, but had had to settle for an airplane mechanic. We did lots of other things throughout the years, but this was truly wonderful, not just any old job. It is an awesome, awesome responsibility and a high privilege to be called to be an undershepherd of The Good Shepherd. It is the best “job” in the world.

Then I got sweaty palms. What about me?? Was I called? I was that mom of little kids who only owned sweatshirts! Our pastor’s wife Peggy was always a picture perfect pastor’s wife and I was sure I could not be a Peggy! I had to talk to Peggy, but I felt like hiding! All my past flooded back to me – the times I had ruined other people’s lives. Eric had the neat calling experience, but I didn’t. I just had a lot of sin and shame in my past. Sure, the Lord could forgive me, but could He use me? Really? We still had six kids in the house!

Peggy heard my fears when I finally expressed them to her. And she just said, “If your husband is called, then you are called!” Really? Even if I can’t play the piano or the guitar? All I can play is the accordion and drums. All those doubts...

Pastor Joe just said, “Keep reading those books I gave you,” so we did, and there was a whole set of Pastors Conference teachings as well. Then, he set a commissioning date for Wednesday night, September 12, 2001. But I had a pressing question that just wouldn’t go away, so I emailed him about it. I said, “Joe, you say Eric and I can pastor a church, but we have never given you full disclosure about our past …”

“Your past is forgiven,” he said. 

“But you might change your mind if you only knew…”

“The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable,” he replied, quoting Romans 11:29. So, I relaxed. 

Maybe, just maybe, God actually wanted people who didn’t feel good enough. Then we would know where all the successes come from – not from our own perfection, our natural abilities, nor even our winsomeness, but only from God’s Holy Spirit at work in our broken lives. It would be more difficult for someone who actually believed they were good enough, to give up the helm and let God do the work. 

On September 11, 2001, Lisa called our house and told us to turn on the TV. So we hooked up our set to the cable leading to the large aerial antenna outside and tuned in the best we could, and watched replay after replay of the footage of the horrible attack on America by Muslim terrorist jihadists. Our church opened up that evening for people who wanted to come and pray, seek God, and mourn for those lost lives. Most churches did. We noticed with interest that the church we’d been visiting did not. Calvinists seem to always be afraid people will pray “wrong.” Or at least that church did. We never went back there.

We asked Pastor Joe if he still wanted to have the commissioning service the very next night.

He said, “Yes, I think we need this now, more than ever.”

On September 12, our whole family lined up across the stage and sang a song the Lord gave Eric for the occasion – “My One Desire.” Then all of us laid hands on Daddy as he knelt in our midst, and we prayed, along with the church elders, for his ministry in Carroll County. And we fully expected God to use us all to fulfill His Great Commission through our family.

Pastor Joe and Eric, with Jerusalem as a backdrop

When I was younger, I saw church buildings in the various places where we lived. And I always thought, well, God doesn’t need any more pastors because He already has enough churches. You could say the same for hair stylists, dentists, or morticians. But I was forgetting the attrition rate. Pastors retire, die, or sometimes quit because of the stress of the ministry. Pastors need to pass the baton to young people who are new to the ministry and need to be trained in the faith. That’s why Paul had his Timothy, and why there is always a need to disciple those who are new converts. Some of them will be tomorrow’s pastors.

A pretty large percentage of our children have been called to the ministry in some way, even if it’s not their primary money making “job.” We have singers and musicians, teachers of children and youth, pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and wives of pastors and associate pastors and pastors-in-training. They make me proud, seeing them filling roles in the Kingdom of God. 

Because, Jesus Himself saw that the fields were ripe and ready to harvest. And we were to pray that the Lord of the Harvest would send more workers into His field. Answering the call of God is to fulfill Jesus’ prayer.

“Called by God” looks different for everybody. And I was flabbergasted that He would affirm that He could use me. This is what He said:

“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” ~1 Corinthians 1:26-29

This gives me hope! He has chosen the weak (like me!) to do His work, so that He will receive all the glory. Even so, Lord Jesus, we work, and we wait for You!