Creative Steeples
The summer after my freshman year in Bible college, Dwight Turbett and I worked for a church in Little Rock, Arkansas. They had purchased their building from a night club. In order to make certain the neighborhood knew that it was now a church they erected a steeple in the form of a large hand pointing toward heaven. We spent our summer canvassing that section of town, inviting people to the “Church with the hand pointing heavenward.”
Many years later I preached at First Baptist Church of New York City, at the invitation of Pastor Richard Burke. He had been my speech teacher in college. The church edifice at 79th and Broadway was built in 1891. Though not technically steeples, the two unequal towers over the entrance to the auditorium are full of Biblical symbolism. The taller tower represents Christ as the Light of the world. The lower tower, which seems to be incomplete, represents the Church, which will remain incomplete until the return of Christ.
Dr. I. M. Haldeman, who pastored the church at the time the building was designed, worked with the architect to make certain he included the Biblical-related symbolism. The location of the building is very close to the place where the first pastor, John Gano, escaped an ambush as he left town to join George Washington as a chaplain.
Dr. Haldeman was also the pastor of First Baptist Church during the time of the amazing Billy Sunday Revival, and served on the committee which brought Sunday to town. That story is told in my novel “Sunday in New York.”
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