August 31, 2012 (Friday)
Sunday will be my last day as Interim Pastor at Bethel Baptist Church, Ingleside. Their new pastor, Bob Upchurch, will begin his pastorate there on the following Sunday, September 9. I pray that he will have a long and successful ministry with that precious church.
Since it will be Labor Day weekend, it also marks a private anniversary of mine. It is the 64th anniversary of my first sermon. It was at the Liberty Road Baptist Church of Houston. I was not quite 17 years of age.
Sunday school and church were not part of my family’s life as I grew up, but neighbors (the Conner family, especially Troy, who became my lifelong friend), took me to Sunday school, church services, and a revival meeting when I was eleven years of age, when I professed my faith in Christ as my Savior. A long absence from church followed (except for attending Denver Assembly of God in Houston with my stepmother, Dorothy, when I was 13), until July 4, 1948, when I returned for a visit, only to discover I had a place there, and I rededicated my life. A month later, I told the pastor I thought I was being called to preach, and one month after that, on Labor Day, he let me preach in his absence. I suppose only a 16-year-old would consider such a dramatic, sudden change to be normal. A year later, I began to prepare for the ministry in college, and while still a Freshman joined the staff of First Baptist Church, Groesbeck. In my Junior year I became pastor of the Oletha Baptist Church at age 20. That church ordained me to the gospel ministry in November, 1951.
From 1951-1964, I pastored five churches. Then I moved to the First Baptist Church of Rockport , where I remained until 1996, when I retired. I then continued in the ministry in pulpit supplies, interim pastorates in Refugio, Rockport and Ingleside, and regular pastorates in Houston. On Sunday, after one and one half years as interim pastor for the second time, I bid farewell to the Bethel Baptist Church, with a heart full of wonderful memories, not only of the days at Bethel, but also of 64 years of ministry.