Memories at Broadway
When someone is asked to write an article on their favorite memories from the church that figuratively, and in some cases, literally, raised them it turns out it’s difficult to narrow down all those memories into a select few. You could go to your first memories of running all over the building, which even at 33 years old is really big, but seemed like the most expansive building ever constructed to a young child. There is also the baptistry. Where, as an ever-evolving pre-teen I decided to accept Christ with a confession and quick dunking from my wader-clad father. There’s the beautiful auditorium where I stood as a quaking man waiting for the woman I had asked to spend the rest of my life to come walking down the aisle with her father the day we got married. So, considering all those candidates, hopefully you can empathize with the magnitude of the task I’ve been given. But I believe I have two foundational memories that have shaped the little boy wandering these halls into the man who waited on that beautiful woman who would eventually add another generation of my family to the story of this wonderful congregation.
The first is not a singular memory, but rather a collection. I am forever convinced it was this church’s love for people outside these walls which instilled an awareness of the need to care for those with whom we may not normally engage. Now this takes a little bit of confession. As a very young child watching his parents serve food to the people of our city at Carpenter’s Kitchen, it seemed like an inconvenience. I do recall having all of us kids cooped up in the storage room wasn’t the worst thing – at least there were snacks, and ample hide and seek spots. As I grew older, I can remember watching not only my parents, but the parents of my friends and other adults in the congregation serving. It is only as an adult and a relatively new parent reflecting on those memories, that I can see how all those Sundays of helping with Carpenter’s Kitchen shaped my heart now and how I would like to demonstrate and show my son the heart of this Church and its heart for the people we are lucky to serve there.
The second is an eventful trip to Peru, that I was lucky enough to take with members of the youth group and a unique cast of adults to help with a Peruvian Church youth conference. This trip happened at what I would describe as the perfect time in my life. I was an American teenager, who had never been out of the highly developed western culture. It was on this trip that I not only saw true poverty for the first time, but soul convicting joy of the people in the mountains of Peru. It was way up in the town of Tinta when Hipolito Treviños motioned to me and Ben Oliver to come with him on the bus. We rode the bus up to the next town with a full complement of humans, chickens, and probably some assortment of other animals. We got off the bus and had my first orange Jello served in plastic cup upside down on a plate, hoped back on the bus returning to Tinta. What we later found out, was that there were several girls who had seen Ben and I get on a Peruvian bus unannounced and were apparently quite concerned for us. They went and told the rest of the group we had left on a bus. We did survive, and ultimately gained an appreciation for the blessings we have, along with a good measure of perspective of the wider world in which we live.
This Church has blessed me from the day of my birth to the day of my son’s birth and continues to do so each day. This church, and most importantly the people of it, have guided and shown me what a body of believers looks like and how they treat others. With a legacy like that, it is easy to say that I have been more than blessed by those who have poured into my life these 30 some-odd years. I will forever be grateful for this church and its impact on my life.