An Abundance of Counselors

Dr. David Allen, Executive Director of the Bible Fellowship Church, recent published an article in the BFC OneVoice magazine. It was titled “Proverbial Wisdom for Today: Proverbs 11:14.” (see article here) This verse reads “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” As he notes, “The Bible Fellowship Church takes this proverb to heart.”

My wife and I began attending the BFC in August of 1976. We have made Bethel BFC in Emmaus our church home for the past 48 years. We raised our two children here – in fact we stopped at the church on our way home from the hospital after they were born and held a private service of dedicating them to God – just my wife and I standing at the altar, praying and presenting them to God with outstretched arms. So they literally began going to church before they were in our home. While Chris and family are now living in FL, Kim and family continue to attend here.

[Bethel BFC]

 

David notes that all the BFC pastors and church representatives meet each year and that they have done so since 1883. Bethel was formed as a local church in 1882, so we have participated in this conference every year. I have had the privilege of being the representative of Bethel on several occasions, and I continue to watch it via livestream to keep up with the discussion of important issues each year.

I fully support David’s bold repeated statement in this article that “In an abundance of counselors there is safety.” I’d like to give a personal perspective of how that practice has also been my practice for this last nearly half-century.

It was not too many years prior to when we began attending that the BFC had changed from a governance practice of the District Superintendent – Pastor model where decisions were made by the denominational leaders and the local pastor was the key decision maker. This had been replaced by each church having local Elders, of which the Pastor was one of the Elders. Bethel had begun using this model, but many of the local church policies were either not well documented or were non-existent. As one who is skilled in policy writing, I offered my services in putting together a policy manual for the church. But as I was not an elder at the time, I was assigned to work with one of the elders who brought my recommendations to the Board of Elders for consideration and passage. I was happy to work this way so that the resultant policies were not just my words but had been considered by an abundance of counselors.

I was interviewed for the position of Elder in 1982 and presented to the congregation for their confirmation that fall. I served in that capacity for 40 years until two years ago when I asked to be considered for the position of Elder Emeritus (more on that below).

Over those 40 years I have had the opportunity to serve in a number of other positions as a representative of Bethel BFC. Many of these have been within the denomination, but some have been outside the BFC where I was a representative of Bethel. But in all these cases, I was only one of an abundance of counselors. As David says multiple times in his article, if you do not have an abundance of counselors then you have a good possibility of failure. I’d like to detail some of my involvement over the past 40 years.

Denominational Involvement

·       Board of Higher Education – 5 years, 4 as chair. This board promoted higher education within the BFC. Its duties were subsumed by another board.

·       Pinebrook Junior College Board of Directors – 3 years. Oversaw the operations of the denominational junior college until just before it closed.

·       Surrogate Elder – When a new BFC work is transitioning from oversight by the denominational Church Extension Board to being self-sustaining church, the BFC appoints surrogate elders to interview their local elder candidates and to recommend them to take that position going forward. I was privileged to be a surrogate elder for the BFC work in Newark, DE, since their first pastor was from our church in Emmaus.

·       Board of Church Health – There are sometimes occasions where a particular church needs to have elders appointed by the denomination. That happened to one such church a few years ago when due to some disagreement between the lay elders and the pastor the lay elders both resigned. Since it is not good to have decisions made by a single individual, the Board of Church Health appoints surrogate elders from elsewhere in the denomination so that decisions can be the result of an abundance of counselors. I was appointed to be one such individual. The other surrogate elder and I interviewed all the individuals involved and made the recommendation to terminate the current pastor and then to reinstate the prior elders – all with the approval of the congregation. We then resigned ourselves as the church could make proper decisions going forward.

·       Scholarship Committee – a local organization was collecting funds to be given to pastors in the denomination and wanted to have multiple men serving on their board to make the decisions on disbursal of the funds. I served a three-year term with them.

Bethel Representative

·       Collegiate Outreach Board - 22 years, 18 as chair. This board oversees the work of a local missionary who has an outreach to Kutztown University. The board has representatives from a number of BFC churches in the area.

·       Lehigh Christian Academy – 3 years. This institution, at the time a P-8 school, has a governing body composed of representatives from a few area churches. Bethel was one of those churches for a number of years and I was the first representative from Bethel to LCA.

·       Lehigh Valley Christian High School – 18 years, 15 as chair. LCA and a few other Christian elementary schools in the area jointly sponsored and supported a Christian high school. Having been appointed to the LCA board, I was then appointed by them to be one of the LCA representatives to the LVCHS board.

Elder of Bethel BFC

·       Naturally, over my 40 years as an elder, I have had the opportunity to serve on various committees – Pastoral Relations Committee, Finance Committee, Admin team, etc.

·       Some of my most memorable experiences have been the opportunities I had to participate in baptisms. The first of these was of my son-in-law who specifically requested that I do so when he was baptized in the swimming pool at Victory Valley Camp when we had a summer church meeting there. But in the fall of 2020, I had the pleasure of baptizing all four of our grandsons in the baptistry at church. You can read about that and see the pictures of that event here.

·       Elder Emeritus – As I mentioned above, I have recently moved from the position of active Elder to Elder Emeritus. While that means that I no longer have to attend our monthly elder meetings and participate in decision-making, it is not just an honorary label. I still have to have my name come before the congregation every three years for confirmation that I meet the qualifications of an elder. I am still a Shepherding Elder and have a list of a number of church families that I look after and keep in contact with. I still pray for those on my list on a regular basis. And I wear a nametag each Sunday so that people know they can come to me for prayer or if they have questions about the church.

David noted in his article that many evangelical churches go through an aging cycle where decisions are made by one person, where the various ministries are run by staff rather than volunteers and the church slowly ages and dies. That has never been true at Bethel. Our nursery and young children’s area was recently renovated, and we have many children to care for each week (my wife and I serve as greeters one Sunday each month). We just baptized seven people this month and there is another baptism service scheduled for next month. And we are in a period where there will be six weddings among our families in six months. All our outreach activities (such as running the local food bank, a widow’s ministry, our senior fellowship) are run by a team of volunteers. A comment that has been true for many decades is often made by new attendees who say, “this feels like a family!” When my wife and I visited on that long-ago warm August evening that’s what we said. And it’s still what’s being said by newcomers all these years later.

But it’s that way not because we have a modern church (our church building dates to 1932), or because we have a great location in the suburbs (we are in the middle of town and parking is at a premium). And it’s not because we have a dynamic young pastor nor because we have the latest in worship bands with flashing lights. Rather, it’s because we have a church with an abundance of counselors who are collectively attuned to the needs of the congregation, who pray regularly for them, and who make the best decisions we can for one another.

Just this morning I encountered a lady at church who had tears in her eyes because she had gotten an upsetting result from a recent doctor’s examination. I was able to put my arm around her shoulders and pray for her – right in the middle of the lobby with all the comings and goings. I told her that there were many other people at church whom she could also turn to. I checked in with her again at the end of the service and she was smiling. Yes, the church is a family. And in the abundance of counselors (Pastors, Elders, Deacons) we can be successful!

 

Lost and Found

Today I was watching a few episodes of Lost and Found – Only Human on YouTube. This show out of New Zealand is about an investigator who helps people find missing relatives – usually people looking for their birth father or birth mother and sometimes about parents looking for missing children or people looking for lost siblings. Generally, the investigator is successful, but sometimes the individual being looked for has passed away, so they try to find other relatives instead. I do a lot of genealogical research for others as a hobby, so I relate pretty strongly with this investigator. I’d like to relate some of the searches I have done.

[Only Human]

 

Adoptee Looking for Birth Mother

This was some research I did a few years ago for the husband of my second cousin. I’ve detailed that story before (see here and here), so I’ll not list the details again. Although his birth mother had passed away, I was able to connect him with three of his half-siblings. So, the story does have a happy ending.

 

Given Away, but not Forgotten

[Names changed to protect privacy]

Sharon was the youngest of four siblings. When she was only 2, her mother passed away suddenly at age 30 after a short illness. While her father felt confident enough to continue caring for the older children (ages 4, 5, 8), he did not feel that he could raise Sharon. So, she was given up for adoption and taken in by a couple in the next county.

When Sharon grew up, she moved frequently, but eventually ended up back in the county of her birth. Her adoptive parents had told her of the circumstances of her parents, and as a result she still harbored some bad feelings toward her father. Knowing his name, she was able to locate his grave as he had also passed away when Sharon was only 9. Wanting to know more about her birth family, she asked if I could uncover any further information.

The first bit of exciting information I was able to locate for her was a copy of her father’s obituary (from 1977). In it, she was delighted to see that her name was listed. Even though she had been gone from the family for nearly 7 years at that point, she had not been forgotten! That was a life-changing revelation. I was then able to connect her with her two sisters who still lived in the area. Even though it had been 50 years since she was separated from the rest of the family it was nice for her to know who they were and that she was not “alone in the world.”

 

Three Fathers?

[Again, names changed for privacy purposes]

Betty’s mother was married three times. She had children with her first husband, Betty with her second husband, and has lived for the past several decades with her third husband. But that is not the reason for the topic of this section, as Betty knows all of these individuals. The source of confusion and investigation has to do with Betty’s biological father, Ben.

Ben’s mother, Bertha, married Bobby when she was only 18. But she was evidently not faithful to her husband. When she gave birth at age 19, the father was not Bobby, but a 28-year-old married man, Carl, who lived near them in Philadelphia. Bobby was upset by this, so divorced Bertha and married someone else the following year. Unable to support Ben on her own, Bertha put him up for adoption and he was adopted by a couple who lived in the next county. As is often the case in such situations, Ben’s adoptive parents had him initially as foster parents for the few months it took to complete all the background checks and paperwork. Thus, Ben had three “fathers” – his biological father (who had no part in his life), his biological mother’s husband (who left her before Ben was born), and his adoptive father.

Ben had only been married to Betty’s mother for a short time. They had divorced and he was living in another state when he passed away suddenly at the age of 43. Betty was only 16 at the time. Ben’s cause of death had been an aneurysm, but during the autopsy, it was discovered that he also had a number of cancerous tumors of a type that sometimes has a genetic cause.

Betty was the only child of Ben, and as she got older, married, and began to have children of her own, she was concerned that that genetic component might have been passed on to her or her children. She had done some initial research, using the DNA analysis available on both ancestry.com and 23-and-me. She had determined the name of Ben’s biological mother (who was still living), as well as Ben’s biological father (who had died a few years prior). But his biological mother was understandably not willing to share much information from this painful period in her life. Betty asked if I might help in her investigation as I am much more skilled than she is.

Using the skills that I have developed over the years, I was able to locate a few more generations of both of Ben’s biological parents and identify the age at which they died and, for some of his ancestors, get death records indicating a cause of death. So, I was happy to report to Betty that all of those ancestors lived long lives, and there had been no traces of cancer reported in any of them. Thus, there is unlikely to be a genetic component to the cancer that Ben had and both Betty and her offspring can rest easier.

Not the typical reason for doing ancestral research, but a perfectly valid one.

 

Being Accepted and Finding a Cousin

[Name changed to protect privacy]

Anna had a non-typical life growing up. Her parents had each had multiple marriages. Several of those marriages had children involved, so she had a collection of siblings, half-siblings, and stepsiblings. But this made it hard to have established relationships. Her father passed away at the age of 50 and her mother passed away at the age of 54, thus Anna found herself, not yet 30, with no living parents and relationships with her siblings very strained. She moved around, got involved in drugs, and felt like she was totally on her own. In poor health, she became classified as disabled and her sole income was through SSDI.

Finally, in her mid-50s, Anna moved to Emmaus and got an apartment in county-owned housing that took individuals who were disabled and unable to work. Unbeknownst to her initially, the high-rise she lived in was just a block from our church. In December, as was our custom, we had a Christmas luncheon at the church and delivered invitations to all the residents in that high-rise. Not wanting to pass up a free meal, Anna made the short trip to our church.

It was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She felt accepted, people introduced themselves to her and talked to her. Many of the people who come to that Christmas luncheon leave right afterwards and we never see them again. But Anna felt this church was like family. She accepted Christ and kept coming back for Sunday services.

As is my custom, I like to build family trees for people in the congregation and see how they are connected to others in the church – including to myself. Knowing only Anna’s name, address, and a rough age, I did so for her as well (totally without her input). The following week, I presented her with my finding and said, “Hello, cousin!” She was shocked. Not only had she found a church family, but she had found a biological family as well, albeit a very distant cousin.

It is now a couple of years later, Anna is still coming to church nearly every Sunday, and she and I smile as we say, “Good morning, cousin,” each time we see each other. Her life has been changed in many ways. The power of God and the power of connections!

 

Footnote

In the process of doing the above research, I also checked to see if these individuals were related to me. In addition to “Anna” being a distant cousin, I have determined that “Sharon” is a distant cousin of mine, and “Betty” is a distant cousin of my wife.

Utah Pierpont Mystery

Yesterday my grandson asked a question related to an article he had seen while doing his schoolwork. He had seen a reference to Pierpont Avenue in Salt Lake City, UT, and wondered how it related to the Pierpont family. As the historian of the Pierpont Family Association, I was naturally intrigued and thought that this deserved investigation. There were a lot of “rabbit trails” along the way, but in addition to finally answering his question, I also learned about a branch of the Pierpont family that I had not been aware of.

 

Pierpont Avenue

Pierpont Avenue is located in downtown Salt Lake City. It runs east-to-west between 200S and 300S, i.e. 2.5 blocks south of the main east-to-west street, Temple Street. It begins one block west of Main Street (thus only 3.5 blocks from Temple Square, the home of the Morman church). It is currently broken up into six segments with discontinuities caused by railroad lines, a small river, and, most recently, by the construction of both I-15 (which runs N-S) and I-80 (which runs E-W in the small space between 200W and Pierpont Avenue).

This section of I-80 was the last part of I-80 to be built. Although it was part of the original Interstate plan from 1956 which was proposed under the Eisenhower administration, the section near Salt Lake City did not open until 1986 (30 years later).

There are a number of buildings along this route which also carry the Pierpont name: Pierpont Building, Pierpont Place, Pierpont Townhouses, Pierpont by Urbana, and Pierpont Lofts. One of the questions that needed to be addressed was: were the buildings named after the street or was the street named after one of the buildings? Some of the buildings were obviously quite new, i.e., Pierpont Townhouses, but others looked like older buildings that had been remodeled. So, there were a few “rabbit trails” that I might need to follow.

But a more significant question was: is there a significant Pierpont family in Salt Lake City’s history that was being recognized in the naming of both the street and the buildings? I decided to investigate this possible family connection first.

 

The Salt Lake City Pierpont Family

The most significant Pierpont in Salt Lake City in its early years was Thomas Fairclough Pierpont. He had been born in England in 1836, came to the US as a teenager, and married a young lady, Naomi King, from England in 1858. He was nearly 22 and she was 17. They were married in Leeds, Greene County, NY which is just south of Albany. Their first child was born there, but when the Civil War broke out in 1861, the family moved to Canada where they remained until the close of the war. While there they had 3 more children. In late 1865 the family moved to Salt Lake City. He and Naomi went on to have a total of 10 children by 1879, of whom 7 survived to adulthood.

At some time during his life (probably during their time in NY), Thomas became a Morman. As was accepted at that time, Thomas married a second time to Juventa Beck in 1873. She was only 22 and Thomas was 37. He began having children with Juventa, even as he was still having children with Naomi – in one case having two children less than a month apart. The two families lived in separate homes. In addition to his 10 children (7 living) with Naomi, Thomas had 11 children with Juventa (10 living).

The population of Salt Lake City when the Pierpont family arrived in 1865 was only about 11,000, most of whom were Mormans, but by 1900 it was 7 times that. (With the Pierpont family supplying 17 living children and other Morman families similarly expanding, the population could grow quite quickly!)

While Thomas was a stalwart in the LDS church, they were not famous. In the 1900 census, Thomas is listed as a machinist who has not worked for over a year. He died in 1908 – both of his wives being listed on his gravestone.

[Gravestone]

 

His children kept up the same tradition of having large families, but they were not of the best of character. One of his sons, also named Thomas, had moved to Provo, UT when he was only 19 and, in the tradition of his father, had started the Provo Foundry and Machine company 10 years later. But he made the news in 1947 when he went to the home of his daughter-in-law and beat her in front of her four minor children – “intentionally, maliticously, wantonly and wilfully with the unlawful intent and purpose of the defendant of injuring, harassing and humiliating the plaintiff in front of the children.” [typos in original newspaper article]

In exploring the ancestry of Thomas (Sr.), I was able to trace his Pierpont family line in England back to 1565. The family even back then lived in Lancashire. The family name was recorded as Pierpont/Pierpoint/Parpoynt, but never as the more typical English spelling of Pierrepont as were the English ancestors of the New England Pierponts.

It’s 120 miles from the Pierrepont family home near Nottingham to the ancestral town of this Pierpont family near Liverpool – not a trivial distance back in 1575. Thus, I have not been able to make a connection between the two family lines. So, this is now another Pierpont family in the US – the other two being the New England Pierponts (who came to MA around 1640) and the MD/VA Pierpont/Pierpoint family of Henry Pierpoint who came to MD in 1665. So that’s still a great finding.

 

Pierpont Buildings

There remained the possible connection between one of the Pierpont buildings and Pierpont Avenue. Were they the source of the name? In looking for information on each of them, there appeared to be only one potential – the Pierpont Building. But the information I initially located showed the earliest date of 1911, three years after James Pierpont passed away in 1908. So I kept looking. Then, finally, I hit pay dirt! In an ad offering the sale of the building. The offering stated, “… the Oregon Shortline Railroad Company in 1897-98 constructed a building as offices for their operations. Before the first phase of the project was delivered, they decided to move forward on an annex and additional building to the west, both of which would be the new home for Utah’s first public high school – Salt Lake High School.”

With this date and the name of the company which built it, I noted that it was associated with a railroad, and I immediately thought of J. P. [Pierpont] Morgan. Some further checking revealed a newspaper article from Oct. 13, 1897 which listed all the railroads that he controlled, including the 1421 miles of the Oregon Short Line. Thus, I had the source of the name!

 

Learnings

J. Pierpont Morgan controlled the Oregon Short Line. The Oregon Short Line constructed a new company headquarters in 1897 in Salt Lake City and named it the Pierpont Building. Subsequently, the street in front of this building was named Pierpont Avenue. As other buildings were later built on that street (such as the Pierpont Townhouse, the Pierpont Place, etc.) they adopted the name of the street that they were on as part of their name. So, the Pierpont name in Salt Lake City is all from J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), a member of the New England Pierponts and a great*3 grandson of the Rev. James Pierpont.

The Pierpont family who were Mormans and who lived in Salt Lake City, while probably distant relatives of the New England Pierpont family, are a previously undocumented immigrant Pierpont family.

One final note – in the 1900 census, Thomas Fairclough Pierpont, his second wife, Juventa, and nine of their children were living at 127 Second Ave, just a half-dozen blocks from the new Pierpont Building which had been constructed just 2-3 years earlier. But while it bore their name, it was not named for their family, rather it was named for J. Pierpont Morgan who lived across the country in New York City. I wonder what they thought about this “other” Pierpont? And I wonder if their high school aged children attended school in the building which bore their name?