Church History - Part III

My Church History - Part III

I left off in Part II circa 1990. In the prior years land had been acquired for a permanent church site but the city of Edmond would not cooperate with access zoning requirements. Long story short, that land was sold, five acres on N. Coltrane was purchased and church bonds were issued to raise the money for a building which was occupied sometime in 1991. In Sept or Oct of 1990, Russ McKnight notified the body that he would be retiring. Shortly after that, Russ was diagnosed with esphegeal cancer and thus begun one of the most difficult years that I have ever experienced.

Russ had surgery at Baptist Hospital and about 25-30 people from the church were there. I remember the nurse coming to the waiting room and asking if any of us were familty members and we all replied yes. We truly were brothers and sisters in Christ as Russ had so faithfully proclaimed during his ten years of teaching at FBC. The surgery report was not good and Russ experienced much misery over the follwing months until his death in October, 1991. I remember being at the hospital with Rosemary Burke and Russ' daughter Nancy on Sunday night before Russ passed away early Monday morning. Russ was barely aware of his surroundings and had the morphine pump in his left hand. Our prayer was that God would be pleased to call Russ home to eliminate the pain and bring Russ into heaven's portals. Our prayer was answered.

During the year of Russ' suffering, the church was debating the future direction of FBC. Russ believed strongly that the teaching ministry of the church was best served by a multitude of elders instead of a single teacher. Russ believed that a single teacher became elevated, not necessarily of his own doing, to a position of higher authority than others in the body and this he believed to be unscriptural. Each believer was at the same position in the body of Christ and there was no such division as the clergy and the laity.

Irrespective of this teaching, Mark Hitchcock was called as the new teaching elder(soon to be called senior pastor) and his first month at FBC was the month that Russ died and we had moved into our new building. Mitch Harris was a member of FBC and became the general contractor for construction of the building and used the body members where possible to keep the cost down. Many of us stained cabinents, painted, cleaned, etc and it truly was a labor of love.

Since I am so wordy and it is getting late, it looks like there will be a part IV and maybe part V. Russ' favorite quote was the following: Everything God Requires, He Provides!

The passage of time keeps confirming this is my life. He is my life and if Jesus Christ stops upholding all things by the power of his word (Hebrews 1:3), there is no hope. Have you trusted him? Do not delay!