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The Skunkhollow Phenom, Pt 1

skunk-hollow-tavern.jpgEarly in my seminary days we were assigned one entire summer as interns to minister and learn ministry at the side of a superb, visionary servant of God by the name of  Pastor Paul Veenstra in the Chula Vista Christian Reformed Church of Chula Vista California. It was an awesome summer of being discipled by a man who had a burning passion for souls. We grew so much under his ministry and life and caught his intense vision for the lost very quickly, as well as the demanding implementation of that vision.


This would not by any means be a summer of sitting on his front porch in the evenings watching the paint peel. No playing church here. I was so tired at the end of each day and wiped out the instant I hit the bed, I couldn’t even hear my wife say, if she ever did say, “Feeling romantic tonight?” We would be on the go morning, noon, and night. He was a man of action based on careful planning, objectives, goals, and much praying. We were coworkers, and only coworkers can truly learn from each other. Nothing like on the job training going from door to door to enroll kids for Bible School!

While touring Chula Vista one day and getting a good look at the city, one particular church building caught our attention. It was a very striking, unorthodox building in its shape which could be seen long before we got there. It then became apparent to us that the church had been built to represent Noah’s Ark.

I for one had never seen anything so innovative and daring in church architecture before. Pictured in the stained-glass windows were shapes of animals peeking out at us. It was so vivid that you could almost hear the noises of the animals in this jungle-boat, ark-church. Noah would have felt right at home I am sure.

We could not resist, so we turned into the church parking lot and found that the ark church doors were open to visitors. What confronted us in the foyer of this ark church was indelibly impressed upon our minds. Beautifully and strikingly carved in the walls were grazing sheep. There were sheep everywhere feeding in the pastures that were so pastorally captured by the skilled hands of the artist.

Upon further investigation, a peculiarity was noticed by us. Here a sheep, there a sheep, everywhere a sheep-sheep, but we could not find anywhere the form of the Good Shepherd etched in those walls. Was it a pastoral goof-up by the artificer? Or had he simply run out of room in a crowded pasture with so many sheep and lambs? We looked all over the foyer, and then we went into the church sanctuary thinking that surely we would find the representation of the Good Shepherd somewhere in there. No, we did not, and for the moment the mystery of the absent shepherd was left unsolved.
After touring this magnificent ark, and upon leaving the building, suddenly and somewhat unnervingly, the answer appeared before our very eyes. There on the outer wall of the ark, pursuing one lost and wandering sheep was the figure of the Good Shepherd for all to see. It was so striking and convicting, for in front of us was a vivid documentary of authentic Christianity.

And we were all reminded of the words of Jesus in Luke 15:4-7,

“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost

one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open

pasture, and go after the one which is lost

until he finds it?”
“And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing.”

“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and

his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I

have found my sheep which was lost!”

“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven

over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous

persons who need no repentance.”

HELLO – I AM PASTOR JAY FROM SHUNKHOLLOW

Just when I thought I had regained some semblance of control of the matters in the church, what first appeared as three refreshing streams suddenly became a strong-current river – Spirit River.

It was a day much like any other day, so I thought. But it would soon prove to be a day that would forever change the course of our ministry and lives like nothing before.

When the “River of the Holy Spirit” begins to flow in a believer’s life, the power will always sweep you beyond 70 degree comfort zone religion – from the familiar into the unfamiliar – from the safe into the risky. Just ask Jesus Christ! Just ask the apostles! I would soon find out that there are at times some very Colorado-River-like-rapids in Spirit River. Couldn’t we just bask in the sun beside those three refreshing streams that God sent our way? I am afraid not!
There was a knock on the parsonage door, and when I opened the door there stood before me a young man whom I had never seen or met before in my life. He introduced himself as a pastor of a nearby church. I asked him what church and where. He informed me that he was pastor of a church in a nearby community called Skunkhollow. At that moment I smelled that something unusual was about to happen.
He went on to describe his parish and told us that it was a very poor community with old dilapidated homes, some of which were converted chicken coops. I immediately conjured up in my mind old, rundown, rickety houses with severe posture problems and paint-peeling sidings. You know the kind don’t you, with the outer walls slanting in and roofs sagging? When you ride through those rural slums each house looks like an upside down W!
“Why was a pastor from a community called Skunkhollow visiting me,” I thought to myself. And why couldn’t he have been from a place called “Rolling Meadows” or even at worse “Horse Creek?” After all, I was a pastor in a dignified and picturesque community on the banks of the Grand River, a town with some historic significance. What was this unusual creature from “Skunkhollow” doing on my front steps? I will tell you why, because through him Spirit River was about to make the Grand River look like a stagnant, dirty, little ditch.
And I thought that the parents of the three desert streams were proud! There I was standing before this Skunkhollow pastor with my heart and head swelling with pride. In those moments I discovered that I was closer to the devil than to Jesus. Pride was both the devil’s sin and the devil’s ruin, and has been his strategy with mankind ever since. Pride has this method every time:

“PRIDE LIKE A WRESTLER GIVES US A HIGH LIFT UP, ONLY TO

FIND OURSELVES BODY-SLAMMED DOWN AND HARD.”
I was about to be humbled by God through this “Skunkhollow Phenom.” The principle that I have learned in my life walking with God is this:
“GOD OFTEN SENDS PEOPLE INTO OUR LIVES NOT ONLY THAT WE

CAN KNOW THEM, BUT EVEN MORE THAT WE CAN BETTER

COME TO KNOW OURSELVES THROUGH THEM,

EVEN IF IT KILLS US.”
Remember if you will the very extreme case of Peter, Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11.
Out of decency I invited him into the house. Without allowing much time for small talk, he quickly went to the reason for his visit. Just like God’s visitations to men in the Bible, as He likewise never wasted any time on weather or politics. He got right to the point as did Pastor Jay from Skunkhollow. Though he did not know me, he said that he was strongly convinced that I must join him in evangelism ministry on Friday and Saturday nights. Like the Lord, he was direct and spoke in the imperative.

I asked him what ministry he was talking about. He referred to the bars and night clubs close to our communities. The reason for going to these booze halls was that Skunkhollow was an intoxicated community with lots of drinking and alcoholics who went to these joints on weekends and spent their sparse money on beer, whiskey, and such.

He also intimated that I might find some of my own parishioners there as well even as he said he would his, which comment I took exception to. And that God was calling us to go and witness to the customers  in these bars and lead them from sin into new life in Christ. Moreover, he reminded me that Jesus sent His disciples out two by two, which I gathered from him was synonymous with Pastor Jay and Pastor Bob.

At this point I know that I frowned and grimaced. I am sure that he saw it and thought that I was “Yella.” I quickly propelled my mind a thousand miles away from the prospect of such a thing every happening to me. My hands and my feet suddenly became freezing cold. I remember feeling something like being subjected to a holdup by an armed robber from Skunkhollow.

Once again my senses were all clouded by fear much as they had been in that parental alligator swamp not too long ago.

I tend to over dramatize things like this in my mind. I had the sense in me from Bible and church history, what following Jesus to wild, dangerous, and crazy places could actually do to someone. Fact:

“I MEAN, GET CAUGHT IN THE RIVER CURRENT OF GOD’S PURPOSES

AND YOU COULD BE CARRIED AWAY IN AN IRRESISTIBLE,

POWERFUL COURSE. YOU MIGHT SWIM ABOVE THE

SURGE FOR A WHILE, BUT THEN YOU ARE

SWALLOWED UP AND SEEN NO MORE.”
After all, remember the story of Jim Elliot who gave his life to save the Auca Indians by a river in Ecuador and was seen no more. I know that is a stretch, but that is how I felt.

And yet somehow I was strangely intrigued. Even though I wanted to separate myself from him, there was an excitement in me as well. At the same time it was as if he were pushing me to say enthusiastically “Yes” or “Amen” right then and there. I am the type of guy who doesn’t even like it when a song leader in church tries to get the audience to clap in rhythm or a preacher forces the congregation to say amen in unison like a bunch of parrots. In short, I really felt that I was being put on the spot.
As if this was not enough to handle, he said that we were going to wear black shirts with those snap-in snap-out white plastic collar inserts so the tavern clientele would recognize us as clergy and not customers. He then quickly asked me what size shirt I wore and just like that my shirt size came out of my mouth.

To this very day I have no idea why I shirt-sized myself to him. What in the world was I thinking! Then he prayed with my wife and me, and challenged us to pray about it, and said that he would be back on the coming Friday at about 5:30 p.m. He left as abruptly as he had come.

Either I had just been visited by an angel or a devil. At the time I wasn’t sure which. And what is more, ministry in bars!? What would my church board say? What would the church people say!? What if I would lose my church, my ministry, even my ordination just to go and save these drunks? And that with a no-name preacher from a little no-place called Skunkhollow! Quite ridiculous if you really think about it!

What about losing my pulpit, i.e. my throne? It had already become a bit tipsy with the opposition from the parents of the three desert streams. Speaking of those parents, when I met and greeted them in church, they looked and felt like they were a thousand miles away. The thought of alienating them and their relatives even more, that is far too high of a cost. I sounded like the complaining Micah in Judges 18:24,

“You have taken away my gods which I have made…

and what do I have besides?”
Never in a millions years, but I didn’t have a million years, I only had a few days until Friday. This could never work. I must not even entertain it. For the moment I wrote him off as “Freddie Fanatic.”

Furthermore, he reminded me of those super-spiritual people who insist that they know God’s will for your life. Then you inquire of them as to how in the world they could tell you something so personal and private, and do so with such imposing certainty. Their response is that they had a dream or a vision which showed them that you are being called by God to be a missionary in Africa. I generally tell them that since they had the dream, they should go and do mission work in Africa.

IS GOD IN THIS MADNESS?

If this had been a business proposition, the moment would soon come when the “Skunkhollow Phenom” would ask for a big down payment, and the down payment would be me. But why rock the boat even though there seemed to be very little plot to the dull drama of the church. It neither grew nor shrank as babies replaced the dead, and there had not been a new convert adult baptism in recorded history.
I wasn’t at all sure that God was in this either. It has to this day not been easy for me at times to discover the ways and the will of God. Following the will of God is not always as obvious as tracking deer in the snow. Journeying with God is not as casual a thing as packing your suitcase and throwing in an extra pair of socks for good measure.

But then again why should it always be an easy find, when we think about what the Psalmist says about God in Psalm 77:19,

“Thy way was in the sea, and Thy paths in the mighty waters, and

Thy footsteps may not be known.”

Think about it:

“HE WHO WALKS UPON WATER LEAVES NO FOOTPRINTS.”

And again the Psalmist in Psalmist 18:9,

“He bowed the heavens also, and came down with thick

darkness under His feet.”

There it is again:

“THE PERSON WHO WALKS IN THE DARK IS NOT SUBJECT

TO CLOSE SCRUTINY.”

The sum total of all of this is that there is often a thick cloud around God’s ways. God’s guidance doesn’t always make sense to the finite or even the highly religious mind. Some of God’s greatest plans in our lives start with very strange and small, curious, beginnings, like God in a baby lying in a manger in a little no place of a town called Bethlehem.

But then again, this little preacher from a little place could potentially be like the little cloud that first appeared to Elijah’s servant. Do you remember that? It was no bigger than a man’s hand. (I Kings 18:44) It wasn’t long before that little cloud grew and spread. It changed the face of the entire heavens, and then poured itself out in mighty storm with torrential rain and fierce wind. I saw a storm on the horizon when I thought about this little Skunkhollow cloud.

THE LITTLE CLOUD REAPPEARS

The little cloud in my sky reappeared just as he said he would at 5:30 p.m. on that late Friday afternoon. He was dressed in a black shirt with a white collar and looked to me like a Catholic Priest. He had a package with him, and when he came in the house he said, “Here, I went to the Catholic Bookstore and bought you this shirt. It’s on me. Why don’t you try it on and see if it fits!”

Lo and behold, for whatever reason, I went into our main floor master bedroom and tried on the priestly garb. Horrors of horrors, it fit perfectly. This can’t be happening! There we both stood looking like Catholic Fathers ready for confession or mass or only God knows what.

How can I even wear this uniform? I felt like a deserter! In my Reformed tradition, you shouldn’t be caught dead in this kind of Catholic garb, let alone dressed up in it and going to a bar. This was like betraying the entire Protestant Reformation.

I mean, going to the taverns was bad enough, but wearing the outfit of the enemy made the bar hopping look like a mere clergy misdemeanor. What we had here, in being dressed like Catholic priests, was high treason. I was even experiencing, dressed like I was, an eroded sense of being a Protestant pastor. My God, have I lost my mind?

My wife said to both of us that we looked very nice and distinguished. That itself sounded like Divine approval given the saintly and devout woman that she is. We had spent much time in prayer and now there she is affirming me in my Protestant/Catholic traitor’s uniform.

More than that, the stupid thing was a perfect fit. I could tell through her smile that she wanted me to go with Pastor Skunkhollow (as I began to refer to him) and with her blessing. I, more than anyone, know her look of approval as well as disapproval. To my amazement and even horror, this was the former!

It seemed like all systems were a go. I felt like I was going on a NASA space mission, and was hoping against hope that the countdown would be terminated because of unsafe conditions. You know how precise things must be for the flight. Ever-shifting atmospheric and celestial factors must line up just right to afford that small and fleeting window of opportunity. Yet, strangely, there was the sense in our spaceship that all systems were in order, and that all factors were right.

Before I knew it, I was kissing my wife and my giggling, amused kids goodbye, and was on my way with Pastor Skunkhollow to the bar-mission field. What was this strange, irresistible current that was sweeping me so helplessly into the unthinkable and frightening unknown?

(Please Go To THE SKUNKHOLLOW PHENOM Pt. 2 which will be posted shortly)

Bob Klingenberg

Bob Klingenberg is a retired Assemblies of God pastor who writes from Michigan.

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