the story behind our name
The lighthouse keeper’s job was to keep the great lighthouse inside the harbor lit and also to light a line of smaller lower lights to guide ships through the narrow, rock-lined passage into the channel toward the harbor.
One particular night a violent storm hurled itself upon Lake Erie. The captain of a great ship squinted into the darkness. “Are you sure this is Cleveland?” he asked the pilot. “Quite sure, Sir,” replied the pilot, his hands clamped fast upon the wheel. “But where are the lower lights?” “They are out, Sir.” “Can you make it?” “We must sir, or we’ll perish.”
There was nothing else they could do. Desperately, the old pilot tried to find his way into the channel without the lower lights that should have been there—but the pitiless sea fractured and pulverized the ship against the rocky shoreline.
Many lives were lost that night—all because of one man had not lit the lower lights.
"As a Christian, we are called to be one of the lower lights shining brightly so that lost souls tossed about on the stormy sea of life may find safety and everlasting life in the haven shore that God has prepared."
"Brightly beams our Father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore
But to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore
Let the lower lights be burning, send a gleam across the wave
Some poor fainting struggling seaman, you may rescue you may save"
"LET THE LOWER LIGHTS BE BURNING" Hymn by P. B. Bliss
