Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

t the end of my first year of law school, I had the fortune to be asked to take over the “coffee business.” The coffee business consisted of three hundred-cup coffeemakers set up in the student lounge that provided fresh, hot coffee throughout all hours of the ceaseless study day. The Christian Legal Society had somehow managed to secure this sweet coffee monopoly and the tradition was for an out-going third-year CLS member to pass it on to an upcoming second-year guy. Being asked was good fortune because I believe that I had only attended three or four CLS meetings throughout the year.

On one of the last weeks of my freshman year, Mike, the outgoing third-year guy, handed me the keys to my sole source of income for the following year. He described the secrets of keeping the brew going, the most important of which was the timers. Since the hundred-cup pots took over an hour to brew and some law students (myself included) hit the halls before sun up, Mike had set up timers to begin around 4:30 a.m. every morning. As he finished with all the ins-and-outs, he kind of gave me a smirky smile and said, “The biggest thing is to watch the timers. They melt.” With that he was gone - on to the treasured profession of representing murderers and crackheads.

After the summer, I took Mike’s advice and asked a fellow CLS member (I think he attended more meetings than I did) to partner up with me. Though that would cut into my profits, I wouldn’t have to deal with the coffee seven days a week. The guy I picked was one of those no-nonsense Republican demagogues of the Christian Right (I’ll call him George). I knew that he was much more organized than I was and I thought that would be an asset.

The first couple of weeks of our second year went pretty smooth. We had purchased new timers, stocked up on creme and coffee, and even added a few touches like better cups. And with these first heydays of classes, everyone was anteing up their fair share. And that was number-one. Instead of manning a booth and doling out cups, the business was based on the honor system - a measly 15¢ cup. After those first few Fridays of restocking our wares and hitting the bank with all that change, George and I began mapping out spending plans of grandeur - law school students have so many unfulfilled needs.

The glory days didn’t remain too glorious. Soon after the niceties of the first days of classes, the professors began to bear down on their subjects (you can take that either way). Daily fifty page reading assignments for each class became the norm and boisterous laughter turned into fearful shrieks. Many students, instead of using our nice, new cups, began bringing in their 7-Up Big Gulp mugs for coffee. George and I would sit there, right next to our beloved coffee pots, and watch as student after student drank what seemed to be gallons of joe without leaving so much as a plug nickel. George got so fumed about it that he began guarding the pots and asking students, “You’re going to pay for that, right?” Some would have the nerve to say, “No,” while topping off their 22-ounce. Needless to say, George’s reputation around school had less to do with his outstanding scholastic achievements and more to do with his bad cop persona.

Around this time I experienced my first quiet riot heading into the school parking lot one day. About twenty students met me at the door and began yelling at me. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I knew that it had something to do with the big, black 7-Up mugs that they were furiously waving at me. They followed me (joined by an innumerable amount of others) to the coffee pots. One of them shot out ahead and tipped the little coffee spigot and nothing came out. Ugh - the timers had melted. Mike had warned us about them. The hundred-up coffee pots drank so much electrical juice through the sockets that they eventually would melt the timers. You just never knew exactly when it would happen. This particular morning all of them had bitten the dust. I believe that if I hadn’t had such a terrified look on my face, the throng would have burned me in effigy (probably right in front of George). At about 9:00 a.m., ungodly late by law student time, we finally had our first drips of brew and the caffeine smoothed down everyone’s emotions.

The course of the rest of the year proved to be a never-ending race to beat meltdown. We went to Radio Shack, Target, Home Depot, you name it, to find timers that wouldn’t melt at 5:00 in the morning or at least would give us some kind of advance warning. We found out that mankind had not yet discovered such technology. Consequently, there were mornings where I would have to peel out from the school parking lot and lay in wait for my 9:00 a.m. class to avoid a lack-of-caffeine frenzy (I think George had it a lot worse because he was the bad cop).

The ironic thing about all this is that our gross revenues after those first two weeks amounted to just 15% - the mob only paid us 15% of the time for their coffee (15¢ less than 15% of the time). Somehow these people, mobsters is probably the better word, believed they had a divine right to fill up their Big Gulps as many times as they wanted without even an abject thought of recompense. God only knows how many times I wanted those timers to melt just to spite them (yes, I’d ask the Lord to forgive me and then go to school early to make sure that meltdown #687 hadn’t happened).

A ministry-friend of mine, Mel Montgomery, has taken over the business of procuring, re-mixing, and putting on the internet rare recordings of ministers such as J.R. Goodwin, F.F. Bosworth, Howard Carter, and George Jeffreys. Unlike my coffee fiasco which was entirely for profit (we eeked out a small profit even with just 15%), Mel has worked tirelessly for the greater good of the Body of Christ in preserving these recordings and making them freely available for everyone to hear. His website shows 28,625 visitors for 2007 alone. And, frankly, I’m sure that the vast majority of those visitors have come to Mel’s well with their Big Gulp mugs in hand, but without a thought of rewarding Mel for a job well done.

I encourage you to go to Mel’s site and listen to some of the wayfarers of faith that have gone before us and set the foundation. Then I encourage you to live big: donate something to him or at least let him know that you appreciate his work. While the honor system should be alive and well in the Body of Christ, most of the time it isn’t. Sometimes a few of us need to make up for the Big Gulp swilling guy in front.

Mel’s site is here.