ChetSmith

The Department of World Missions, Church of the Nazarene, requested that this writer write a story telling of his call to
the ministry. The story was submitted to Helen Temple who compiled a group of stories on the call to the ministry. The
book Put in the Sickle, was published in 1981 by the Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City, Missouri. The following is that
story:
GOD CAN SPEAK THROUGH A SONG
My father was the pastor, and my job was to mow the church lawn next door, in Miami, Fla. The yard was big, and it
was a pretty heavy task for a boy of thirteen with a push mower.
I was working at the job one day when I heard someone calling my name. I looked around in all directions, but there
was no one within shouting distance. I started on again, and again I heard my name called, very quietly, yet very
clearly.        My breath seemed to stop.   In those still moments God spoke: "You are to preach My Word in ToriJon."
He did not repeat His words. Once was enough. I was frozen in my tracks. I did not know what to do or whom to talk to.
I stopped mowing and ran into the house and into my bedroom. On my desk was the world atlas that Dad had given
me for my schooling. I grabbed it as if it meant life and death and flung it on my bed. To my amazement it opened to
Mexico, and there in the northwest province of the country stood out "Torijon" like a neon light. T did not have to look
for it. It found me. Like the star of Bethlehem it was there, and I knew without any doubt that God had called me to
missions.
The years came and went quickly. When I was in high school, the world became very tempting. In my unsettledness,
torn between a longing to try the world and my parents' teaching. I became very rebellious. Those were hard years for
my parents.
Yet   inside I still remembered that day on the church lawn. I said to myself, if God wants me to be a missionary or a
preacher, I guess I should do some preparation. I signed up for Spanish, convinced that it would be a cinch since God
had called me to Mexico. Well I could not have been more wrong. I failed both years of Spanish and had to go to
summer school just to get credit. Even today, Spanish is a most difficult language for me to learn.
Because of my years of rebellion and the sin that had crept into my life, I came to graduation time and did not have
enough credits to graduate. Bitterly disappointed, and wanting to run away from the call that had nagged me through
high school years, I joined the navy. It was a decision of the last resort. The beautiful, hazel-eyed, blond Ellen, whom I
had dated all through high school, had received her diploma and gone off to Eastern Nazarene College. I was sure I
had lost her forever. I hoped the navy would help me forget my destiny, but it brought only loneliness. Then Ellen
returned home after one year and enrolled in a nursing program in one of the hospitals in Baltimore, Maryland. We
kept the postman in business over the months that followed, and on August 23, 1952, we were married.
The navy took us from Washington, D.C., to California and then back home to Baltimore two years later. I received
my honorable discharge and the question was before me: What was I going to do in life?
We already had our first child, Chester Allen Smith III. Through all the years after God spoke to me on the church
lawn in Miami, Florida, I had never really settled down spiritually. I read my Bible and prayed, but there was never that
close love between God and me. I was still trying to do my own will.
My parents had taken other pastorates in   other states, and Ellen and I settled down outside of Washington, D.C. I
took a job with Lance, Inc., selling their products. I owned my own truck and had a good territory which brought us a
comfortable living. We owned a beautiful home and two cars. Everything was going my way. I was busy in the church -
teaching Sunday School and on the church board - and we had three beautiful children. What more could a young
fellow ask for? I was very happy with my work, and there were no problems on the horizon for us.
On September 1, 1964, driving back from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on a road I had traveled a hundred times and
knew like the back of my hand, my spirit became strangely restless. I turned on the radio, but no amount or kind of
music seemed to settle me down. I began to sing a few choruses softly to myself. The words flowed through my mind:
Not my will, but Thine . . . Not my will, but Thine . Not my will, but Thy will, be done in me . . . May thy Spirit Divine, fill
this being of mine . .. Not my will, but Thy will, be done, Lord, in me."(1)
I sung it through once, then again, and again for the third time. On the fourth time through, the song moved from my
lips to my heart. Tears flooded my eye vision blurred until I had to pull the truck off onto the shoulder of the road.
There on that lonely road I admitted to God that I had been selfishly seeking my own will.
I promised, "Lord, whatever You want me to do, where ever You want me to go, I will do it."
That night I signed a blank contract with the Lord. I gave Him permission to fill in   All the small print. I knew that in
some way He was going to lead me to my Torijon. But how could I be able to go into any type of ministry at my age? I
was 32 years old, married, and looking forward to our fourth child. How could I confront my wife and children with the
possibility of   leaving this job, our home, and going to some unknown future?
I battled within myself; yet the words of the chorus rang continually in my heart, and the promise I had made to God
was constantly present. How would I tell Ellen?
In desperation I went to my pastor. He heard me out and then put it bluntly: "Chet, if you can do anything else in life
and have the blessing of God and be happy, do it."
I had expected him to pat me on the back and say, “I see you're following in your father's footsteps"; or "You'll make a
good preacher"; but his shocking advice to do anything else if I could and still have God's blessing, really shook me to
the depths.
I went back to praying and wrestling with the problem by myself for several months, but there was no peace to be
found.
At last, one day as we were returning from visiting my in laws in Baltimore, I told Ellen and the children that I felt God
was leading me into the ministry.
Ellen stared at me. "Where did you come up with that ' crazy idea?" she demanded.
    Again my spirit was dashed, but I had brought it our into the open and the call intensified. Over the next six
months, I had many opportunities to preach around the Washington - Philadelphia District, but Ellen would not come
to hear me. Whenever I asked her to come, she answered, "You can preach if you want, but this is my home and you
are going to support us."
Ellen was a beautiful Christian. She was devoted to the Lord. But she could not see me as a minister or herself as a
minister's wife, and she was convinced I was mistaken and would wreck our lives if she let me.
It was a Thursday night in September, 1965, when the phone rang. When I answered it, the district superintendent on
the other end told me, "Chester, I have been talking to the Lord about a church in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and
He brought your name to my mind. Will you consider going and supplying the pulpit and being their pastor?"
"I'll pray about it," I answered and hung up the phone. Before I could say a word, Ellen blurted out, "I guess that was
the district superintendent, and he wants you to go pastor some church. Well, you can go and pastor if You want, but I
am not going to give up my home, and you are still going to have to support us."
I could not sleep that night. I waited before the Lord until early in the morning. Friday night I again went to my knees,
searching for the Lord's will and His answer to this problem. I knew it would not be His will to break up a family, for He
gave me Ellen and the children before He opened the door to preach.
I called some of the people of the church and asked them to join me in this prayer. for I needed the strength that their
prayers would bring. Saturday night I prayed again, and sometime after midnight, God asked, "Why don't you just
leave this to Me?"
I did.
Sunday morning we went to church as usual and sang in the choir. I was in the tenor section and Ellen was with the
sopranos. It was our annual Homecoming Sunday, and one of the former members of the church whom God had
called into the ministry was the special speaker. During the music of the congregation and choir, I saw tears running
down Ellen's cheeks.        I prayed, "Sic her, Lord."
    Rev. Gage got up to preach and took his text from John 15:16. But instead of a three point sermon, he told the
story of his call to preach at the age of thirty and his struggle with his family, and how God had to reveal the call to
his wife.
As he finished, with no formal invitation to the altar, or even a closing hymn Ellen was out of her seat and fell across
the altar. Heaven came down and filled that church. The cries and shouts of the people echoed through the room.
God revealed His Torijon to Ellen, and it was hers from then on.
The next Sunday morning we rose at four o'clock, dressed our four sleepy children, and headed 125 miles across the
mountains to a new adventure, a new world, our ToriJon. For ten Sundays wecontinued to drive 250 miles, sometimes
through many inches of snow, to a people who were warm and considerate to an unlearned local preacher.
One night after church we were all in the car ready to head back to Washington, D.C., when the car would not start. I
got angry and pounded on the dash. "I'm going to get rid of this piece of junk!" I shouted. I was horrified at the feeling
that had welled up from inside. Worse still, some of the members of the church had heard my explosion of carnality. I
drove home with a heart filled with remorse. The next week was spent in heart-searching, and I found myself asking
God to cleanse me and fill me with His Holy Spirit. At last, one day at the edge of Rock Creek Park He came in His
fullness, and the experience still holds today. We pastored the fine people in Shippensburg for three years, and not
once did Ellen question if what we were doing was God's will. Instead, she often told me, "Honey, if you're going to be
at your best for the Lord, you are going to have to go to school.'' When the Bible College opened in Colorado
Springs, we made plans to move out there. It was a new Torijon, an unknown future. But we knew God was there. In
my first year at the Bible College, we learned that Ellen was expecting our fifth child. We had no money and no
insurance. It looked as though my schooling was over almost before it began. Dark clouds of gloom filled our home. It
was not that we did not want another child; but why now, when we could not manage it financially? God worked out a
miracle. A home was given us to live in, in exchange for my wife working in a flower nursery. Ellen's mother sent
$25.00 a month which paid the doctor's bill, and our income tax return came back and paid the hospital bill.
In my second year of school I was called to pastor the Lowell Boulevard Church of the Nazarene in Denver. For a year
and a half, I drove back and forth to finish my schooling. The people were very patient With me while I studied. We
praise the Lord for the way he built that church from seventy-two to over 125 with a bus ministry and an active calling
program. After three years the Lord led us to Fort Worth and after to Hydro, Oklahoma, where I took more schooling
at Bethany Nazarene college. While in Oklahoma, I learned a new trade, laying carpet. I had the opportunity to lay
carpet many times later in my ministry.
In September, 1976; we were called by Dr. Morsch about the Drew park church in Tampa, Florida. It was like a new
Torijon! For the first time I did not feel I needed to pray a prayer of surrender over this call. It was a small church, and
they could not support a full time pastor, but I felt this was God's move. We packed our belongings into two U-Haul
trailers and headed across the miles to Tampa to a new area, a new people, a new Torijon.
God has been with us here in Tampa.        We have seen the old property sold for $52,000 and the door opened to
purchase a beautiful two and one-half acre plot in the growing area in Tampa. We got an old frame house free with
the property because the owner though it was worthless. We decided to remove some of the walls of the old house
and make it into a temporary worship area. When we moved into this new area, we lost about half of our
congregation, some because they did not want to travel so far, and some because they were afraid of a big debt.
None were lost to the church, for they all joined other Nazarene churches, but we felt their loss keenly. After buying
the property we had about $12,000 left. What could we do?        We were down to about twenty-five in church
membership, and our income was less than $600 a month. How could we build a church?
    After much prayer we decided to build onto the old house church with the money we had left. With much prayer
and hard work, we built a beautiful 2,800 square foot church worth $80,000 and ended with a debt of only $14,000.
The church has grown from the low 20s to the 50s and some times into the 60s in attendance. This is only the
beginning of what God has promised to do for those who will sign their name on the bottom line and let Him fill in all
details.
    God has blessed Ellen's and my obedience to His will. He has called our two oldest sons into the ministry. All five
of our children are serving the Lord victoriously. Several months ago our fifteen year old son asked, "Dad, do you
think God will let me do anything else besides preach?"
I answered, "Son, just continue to say yes to His will, and He will direct your path." That call I received as a thirteen
year old boy to preach in Torijon is still true today. Instead of going to Mexico to pastor Spanish speaking people,
Spanish and Latin people are coming to me. We have five Latin families attending our church now, and this ministry is
growing every meek. We translate all the services for those who can not speak or understand English. It is a unique
and challenging ministry. Many of these Latin people have found spiritual freedom from the burden of sin at our altar.
I do not have to search any longer, for I have found my ToriJon.
(from Put in the Sickle, published in 1981 by the Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City, Missouri.)
Following five and a half years of ministry in Tampa, Florida Pastor Chet and his family moved to the Carolina’s where
he closed out his full time ministry. While in North Carolina Chet completed his doctoral studies in pastoral ministry.
Chet insisted upon his people calling him Pastor Chet and not referring to him as Dr. Chet or Dr. Smith. From a boy
that quit school, did not go to college till he was married and in his thirties, he feels bless that Jesus would consider
him worthy to present the blessed Word of God to His people and a lost world.