How Did I Get Here? Part 1.

I became a pastor in 1972 at the little West Bend UMC in Powell County, KY.  I was 20 years old, had two years of college behind me at Reinhardt College (now University) in Waleska, GA and had just started as a Junior at Asbury College (now University) in Wilmore, KY.  Becoming a pastor at 20 was the culmination of a 10 year process since I had received the call to preach.

I am reminded of this because Holbrook Campmeeting starts this Friday night.  This historic campground is a place where I experienced so much grace and spiritual growth as a child, young adult and adult.  However, in my formative years it had a tremendous impact on my soul.

My ancestors had been associated with the Campmeeting from the start over 170 years ago. My first time to Holbrook was 1952 when I was 3 months old.  We tented (stayed in a cabin) every year after that for the full ten days of celebration and food and fun.  This was first and foremost a religious experience.  I suggest every reader aquaint himself or herself with the Campmeeting movement and its impact on pioneer America.

That heritage of religious and spiritual fervor was well maintained at the Holbrook Campmeeting of my youth.  A typical day started with the Children's church in the Arbor at 9:00.  That was followed by the Prayer Meeting at 10.  The preaching services were at 11, 3 and 8 with a Men's Prayer Meeting in the Cemetery at 7 and Youth service following the 8 o'clock preaching service.

Sometime during my early childhood this Methodist Campmeeting began the tradition of having both a Methodist and Baptist preacher each year. The rural community was almost exclusively Methodist and Baptist.  My family was strongly Methodist, yet like most families in the area, had our share of Baptist cousins.  We all lived and worked together during the 10 days of Campmeeting with rarely any division on denominational-ism or theology.

The Methodists preached Wesleyan theology and the Baptists preached a form of Calvionism mixed with a heavy dose of Pre-millennium beliefs.  However, all were evangelical and declared the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the clear need for salvation and holy living. This early experience with ecumenism (as ecumenical as it could be at the time and place) gave good foundation for my work through the years with other Christians and denominations including many years working with the Walk to Emmaus and the Presidency of a Seminary that is Methodist, but educates more non-Methodists than Methodists.

When I was 10 years old we had two of the best preachers ever to come to Holbrook:  my pastor, Rev. John Ozley, and a pastor and evangelist from Oklahoma, Rev. Dr. Gene Winfrey, the Baptist preacher.  Both men have been life-long mentors for me and even in their 80's continue to encourage and challenge my faith.  That week of Campmeeting they preached with extreme unction.  I listened to their sermons beginning Friday night and continuing twice a day (our parents only required 2 preaching services a day plus either Children's Church or Youth Service) through Thursday. There was a great move of the Holy Spirit during that week and many people came to faith in Christ, many backsliders were reclaimed and homes and marriages were healed.

Then on Thursday night at the Youth Service, 10pm, Carl Smithwick spoke to the Youth about full-time Christian Service. Carl was the Chief Jailer of the Fulton County Jail and a member of my church and a personal mentor and spiritual guide.  This godly man told of his wasted years of indulgence before following Christ and invited us to commit our lives to Jesus as young people and serve Him all our days. He then invited us all to the Mourner's Bench to pray about surrendering our lives to God;s will for us.

It was kneeling there in the sawdust on the left side of the arbor on a dark and cool night that I distinctly heard the Lord call me to preach.  And I said, "yes." I first shared that call with Carl and Myrtle Smithwick, my older sister and my parents. They were all totally affirming, which was important as soon the evil one began to say, "Did God really say...?"  I shared it with the preachers Ozley and Winfrey and received the same affirmation.  At the time that was the whole of my ecclesiastical world: Orange Methodist Church and Holbrook Campmeeting. I would later receive the affirmation of the North Georgia Conference of the UMC and the Bishop would lay his hands on my head and say, "Take thou authority to preach..." but that was never more significant than the affirmation I received from the ecclesiastical authorities in my life in 1962.

I had been converted when I was eight years old (a story for another time) and had always loved the church and felt most at home in worship.  The church was at the center of our lives just after family.  If one were to diagram the world of my childhood it would look like concentric circles with family in the center, the church in the next circle, the campmeeting in the next, the family grocery store in the next and the school in the next and then the larger community of Cherokee and Forsyth Counties.  That was just about my whole world other than the invasion of TV and Radio (WCHK in Canton and WSB in Atlanta).

The call to preach was something I never doubted though was often tempted to do so.  In a rebellious time in High School I attempted to live as if Christ had no claim on my life.  I enjoyed hedonism and self-centeredness, like most youth.  But I could never fully give myself to it as much as I tried - as some friends from those days will testify that I really tried. However, at Camp Glisson, the Conference Youth Camp in Dahlonega, GA. in a local church youth retreat, I made a renewed commitment to Christ and the call to preach and set out to be faithful to the same. That was in October, 1969 and worth another article at a later date.

I really began preaching in February, 1972 after experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit in a Friday night Pentecostal cottage prayer meeting (also a story for another time) and found myself preaching an average of 13 times a week from February through September when I moved to Kentucky in September.

No one in my immediate family or ancestoral family had ever been to college so I knew very little about it.  We had no money, but after living at home and working during high school and my first two years at Reinhardt, I had saved enough money for tuition, room and board for the first year at Asbury. My plan was to simply enjoy going to school, being a college student and nothing else.  My plan soon was changed when God revealed an alternative.

I had been invited to preach at two Methodist churches in con junction with a Ford Philpot Evangelistic Crusade in  Powell County, KY.  (Also another article to come.) I preached the early service at West Bend UMC and then preached at 11 at the other church formerly on the circuit with West Bend, El Bethel.  After the service at El Bethel a group of men from West Bend confronted me at the door. I was scared to death. I had heard about the Hatfields and McCoys. I had heard about Kentucky hillbillies and here I was in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, the center of Appalachia and confronted by some very rough looking men, among them the ugliest man I have ever known, Robert. However, they were not there to string me up for some cultural or theological error, but to ask me to come be their pastor.

It seems the pastor at El Bethel had been their pastor, but they were such an contentious church he informed the District Superintendent that he was not going back there to preach and had not since Conference in June.  So from June to October they had been without a pastor, an uncommon experience in  the Methodist church at the time. I was shocked, flattered and scared to death. I told them I cold not give them an answer on the steps of the church, but I would pray about it.  They agreed to pray and asked me to at least come back and preach the next Sunday, which I was glad to do.

I drove the 65 miles back to Wilmore in a state of confused shock. While I was honored to be asked to be anyone's pastor, even if the truth was I was better than nothing, which is what they had, I did not want to assume responsibility of the pastorate.  I had worked since I was old enough to pick up a bale of hay or load a truck with chicken manure. I did not want to work. but I knew I had to at least pray about it.

We got back to campus and that night was invited to a prayer meeting in the adjoining dorm, to the room of someone I did not know.  I went and as we knelt around the room to pray, various ones spoke their fervent prayers.  I did not hear much becasue I was so consumed with this delima that had presented itself to me that day. Deep on prayer and struggling with my soul, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder and heard a voice I did not recognize say, "Feed my sheep."  In case I did not get it the first time, he said it twice more, removed his hand and knelt down across the room.  In spite of my shock, I peeked to see who it was and it was the person in whose room we were praying, someone I had only met 30 minutes before and who nothing of my situation.

So there and then  I said, "Yes."  I returned to West Bend on Sunday and told them if the DS wanted to appoint me to be their pastor, I would do it.  I also asked the student who laid his hands on my why he did that.  He said, "I have no idea.  It was just clear to me the Lord wanted me to do that."  I asked him if he knew what it meant.  Again he said, "I have no idea, but just trusted you would know."  Did I ever!

And thus began my pastoral ministry at the ripe age of 20 with no License to Preach or formal training of any kind and about 4 books in my library:  a Schofield Bible, a Matthew Henry Condensed Commentary, a Young's Concordance and a book of sermon outlines, both of the latter given to me by my pastor, John Ozley.

Therefore, the call to preach which came to me at Holbrook Campmeeting in 1962 became a formal occupation in 1972.  Now, 38 years later, I still love to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ and teach others how to be more effective in the ministry of transforming lives through the power of the Gospel.