JCK-at-large SITE

I was a bit miffed and saddened when I heard the news.  What, our old Alma Mater mothballed?  Eastern Pentecostal Bible College, good old EPBC?  For “improved accessibility and affordability” — for a fresh start in Mississauga? How could they?  

Memories came flooding back of those few beautiful years among friends.  How was this possible?  Heavens, Peterborough in the sixties was such a charming town, nary a homeless vagrant in the streets — did we even have a drug problem in Canada?  Cheap pizza a-plenty, milkshakes thick and chocolaty around the venerable YMCA on George where we devoted the afternoons to the pools and showers, Crocker, McPherson, Norrie and company. John Crocker could swim like a fish, raised in South Africa. You wanted to be on his water polo team.

Life was so much simpler.  I checked in one year with $300 dollars in my pocket and an old VW Beetle outside — and pled for mercy.  Could I sell the vintage VW and pay with the proceeds?  Residence included!  One morning I was laid aside with a flu and would not be attending class.  But my fellows, down the hall, did not believe this.  They thought I was was simply faking.  So they marched down the residence hall at break-time, carried me out of bed like the paraplegic suspended between his four friends — and heaved me into a snow bank!

We had a booming choir in those days, over fifty strong.  I remember auditioning for Mrs. C. B. Smith and bellowing a bass so loud that she said, “That’s good enough, you can join.”  Oh we sang “Pentecostal Fire is Falling” and The Beatitudes: “Blessed Are The Poor in Spirit…”   Then, to spark up a choral visit, we could call on the Joy Bells Ladies Trio with their superb White Sisters harmony: “Now I Am Saved, I Can Shout Hallelujah!”   Awesome.  My Representatives Trio could sing “How Big is God,” with three-key-changes thrown in! One evening in Kitchener our trio launched “Noah Found Grace” with such rare harmonies and modulations, we were surprised that our faculty representative apologised mildly our behalf.  What was the problem? We decided it must have been that our great final line was deemed inappropriate: “And he landed high and dry!”

High and dry?  But why should our fine old college be “high and dry” today, at the end of a lease?  This after shaping so many superb 20th Century ministries, salt of the earth people who would carry the gospel of grace from major city centres to small town New Brunswick, from Bilbao to Bobcaygeon — chaplains, pastors, community leaders; riveting evangelists, “personal workers”, missionaries, teachers and organisational leaders; social workers and counsellors, church planters….  I wouldn’t have guessed it at the time, but some outstanding pentecostal preachers were being honed in our group, naturally gifted orators who would bring down the power at camp meetings and revival meetings across Canada! Others would build flagship churches here and in the USA, launch outreach ministries out of the side of a tractor trailer in city parks and call it “Surging Revival!”  Mercy, out of Surging Revival came visionary leaders for some of the most impactful churches of the 20th Century!  Self propagating, transformational, Kingdom-culture ministry centres!  Entrepreneurs! Visionaries! Guys who would buy twenty acres with next to no money down because they had a prophetic vision of great days to come for their town!  One of my classmates must have planted five churches in benighted Spain, in cities absolutely darkened to the liberating Good News — churches that stand to this day, flourishing and multiplying in that most needy land.

How could we fail to be inspired, with our slate of visiting guest speakers, the likes of Laurie Price, Terry Law, George Cunningham and the young Albert Vaters?  “Don’t go to sleep on me now!,” one guest shouted as he began to move among our startled student body.  These preachers came ready to impact young lives with their great passion. “The baptism in the Spirit is like buying a pair of shoes,” the preacher said. “Tongues comes with it!”  Awesome days.  Add our seasoned faculty members, reminding us to be “living sacrifices” as we threw a piece of kindling into the flames.  Enduring sacrifices indeed!  C. H. Bronsdon, Beulah Smith, E.G.McNutt, George Ewald, Gordon and Mrs. Atter, V. G. Brown — sermons and exhortations that were built for a lifetime!

Then, if we had not absorbed enough, there were internship summers at places like Pembroke with R. Stuart Mulligan, pastor supremus, where one learned more about the strength and dignity of the pastoral office than a textbook could ever provide.  I witnessed so much about pastoral graces and congeniality in Stu — from his wonderful humour and vast skills at defusing most everything.  He would have late night visitors after church on Sundays, like James MacKnight and Ken Bombay. I would eavesdrop on pastoral small talk about great Sundays in “The Valley.” You could pick up a pastoral calling in Pembroke just by being around. 

So I felt a little sad to hear that the old campus has run its course — the old one time Hospital converted into a Bible College in the fifties, in a beautiful Ontario town of 40,000; once surrounded by beautiful foliage and romantic walking paths at the confluence of the Trent and Otonabee; in many ways simply an idyllic college town.  To be sure, so many enduring romances blossomed along those river walkways.

But alas times have changed.  The old college is now a mere vestige of what it was.  Changed city, changed demographics, refined priorities, radically changed society.  How could the old campus possibly meet 21st Century demands, its world now awash in online learning, IT, AI and Zoom Conferencing?  Accessibility is the thing!  Affordability!  Competency and sustainability!  These are the driving priorities for a Pentecostal training centre. Change must happen!  And no doubt this change, the big shift of 2024, holds great promise for the future. 

Still, I look back at those college years with much affection.  The last thing that mattered to our carefree band in the sixties was accessibility, sustainability and the like.  We were having such good times with our friends, all sharing the highest calling.  It was a rare and beautiful community in hindsight — though of course we didn’t realise it at the time.  How often, in our rough and tumble world to follow, would we ever again get to enjoy such a communitas amicorum?  

No, such things never occurred to us as important.  For us, all that mattered was the shared calling, and having fun.  Hopefully in that order!