After having
spent the summer gallivanting around out of doors in
the heady wine of our recent conversion in 1971, through Skip O'Neill's
influence with a hippie fellow traveler who frequented Robin Hood Dell
in the
Lehigh Parkway in Allentown (which was the real place of origin of
the
F.F./C.O.B.U., if there is an earthly place of origin actually to be
considered), as the most forgettable members of society we moved into
a most
forgettable and forlorn-looking little house at 128 S. Church St.,
down in
the backstreets of the city. This was in September of 1971, just when
it was
starting to get a little crisp outside and we needed our own 'indoors'
in
which to nurse our fellowship. The first of those who 'lived in' in
the
history of the FF/COBU, therefore, were Skip and Pam, who were married
soon
afterward, and myself, joined shortly by James 'Jingo' Stauffer and
Judy, who
were also married soon afterward. Jingo quarreled irreconcilably with
Stewart
in the early going, and he and Judy were with us only for a few months,
suddenly moving across and down the street a little to 137. Patty
Daniels
(Seif) was in close orbit in those days, and Steve 'Zach' Zatko moved
in in
Jingo and Judy's place. For eight months, until Spring had fully come
again,
our daily Bible studying and fervently praying young Christian singles'
group, (for such it had become without anyone's deliberation about
it)
swelled to bursting out of that little house, and, when Jingo suddenly
up and
left the house across the street, we moved in there (Skip and Pam,
Rem and
Janet Lederer, and myself), while Zach continued at 128 with other
brothers
and sisters who moved in in our places. So now we had something of
a little
colony going, and we soon rented other quarters, across the parking
lot from
137, to accommodate our constantly growing numbers. So 128 was the
first F.F.
fellowship house, to answer your question, for the eight months between
September of 1971 and April of 1972. Stewart came around every day,
looking
after a luxuriant spiritual plant that had marvelously sprung up without
him,
right under his nose, and seemed to call for a daily watering from
him, to
which duty he perhaps too diligently attended, anxiously thinking too
much of
his supposed responsibility, I think, and laying the groundwork for
the high
anxiety that, by its impatience with the more easy-going faith personified
by
Skip O'Neill, would one day discourage the church. Jingo was
cruelly and
unnecessarily jettisoned, in my opinion, by Stewart, who said things
to him
from which no young Christian ought to be expected to recover, in the
grip of
this inordinate impatience and anxiety that mystified and spooked us;
for we
had grown accustomed to and expectant of Jesus's constant and kind
attentions
in person. Stewart always seemed to me to be trying to retrieve Jesus
from
somewhere, and seemed to impart the need to live as though Jesus was
going
to get away from us if we didn't diligently, almost sleeplessly and
vigilantly attend to the business of keeping Him around, as though
He were so
reluctant to stay with us, having first graciously appeared in our
lives! But
at least two of the fruits of Stewart's influence were a sobriety and
an
aggressiveness which had much to do with the rearing up of a
church that
eventually made its mark in Time Magazine in the 1970's, which I have
since
taken to have been fundamental to Stewart's ambitions. That that sobriety
should have degenerated into morbidity, and that aggressiveness into
contempt, lead to questions as to their real origins, which I suppose
to have
been in Stewart's personality in the first place; I don't think that
they
were spiritual gifts having been added to him.
So that was
'128', the first fellowship house, eight months between
1971 and 1972, Stewart coming around every day and kids getting saved
and
coming around in droves. In the days of 128 the hippie culture in Robin
Hood
Dell was decimated and discouraged under our influence. They all either
converted or they drifted off in the shame of knowing that they ought
to have
been converted, and didn't wish to immediately trade worthlessness
for
eternity.