June 27, 2021 (Sunday)
(Part 2: As I sit here recuperating from a couple of trips to the hospital, I approach my 90th birthday in September. The situation has prompted me to think back over my life as “my plans and God’s decisions.”)
During the summer of 1948, I went back to Liberty Road Baptist Church, Houston, where I had accepted Christ six years before. I rededicated my life and began preaching. In yesterday’s blog I described going to college and serving voluntarily with student pastors before serving on the staff of First Baptist Church, Groesbeck and then becoming the ordained pastor of Oletha Baptist Church, 50 miles east of Waco, where I was a Junior in Baylor University.
Wanda was a student at Baylor and was born and raised in Oletha, and had earned a degree in music after only 2 years and 9 months, completing four years of studies with perfect grades. She had attended all the summers and taken extra courses besides. I had graduated a year later in 1953, resigned the church and went back home to Houston, working in our family restaurants and in a grocery store that summer, awaiting a move to Fort Worth to attend the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. On October 3, 1953, Wanda and I married. At the end of the year, we moved to Lampasas, Texas, where I became pastor of a mission of the First Baptist Church of that city. While there, the mission organized into the Northside Baptist Church. I met G.M. “Mack” Cole, pastor of the First Baptist Church, 5 years older than I, a Marine veteran, who became a pivotal influence in my life. He was a pastor’s son, and had a lifetime of experience in churches. He introduced me to his friend, Gene McCombs, with whom I commuted to the seminary in Fort Worth twice a week in the spring of 1955. We became good friends. He had married Mary, the sister of W.D. Broadway, who became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Rockport about that time.
During the summer of 1955, I resigned the Lampasas church to resume my seminary education in Fort Worth. I got a job at General Motors but the work schedules and the class room schedules did not complement each other, so I resigned that job and went to work part time at a granary and feed store, and Wanda got a job as Public School Music Teacher in Azle. She had held that position with the Cleburne Public School District when we had married. We lived nearby in the community of Briar, where the Baptist Church there called me to become the pastor in 1957. Upon graduation in 1959, Bro. Waldrip, who had recommended me to Oletha, recommended me to become the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Kosse, Texas, and I became the pastor there upon my seminary graduation. Our oldest child, David, had been born in Burnet, near Lampasas, and our second child, Danny, was born in 1955 in Fort Worth. After our move to Kosse, our third child, Debbie, was born at nearby Marlin in 1959. After two years at Kosse, my friend Mack Cole recommended me to the Vickery Baptist Church of Dallas in 1961. While pastor there, our fourth child, Dianna, was born in 1963. By the time 1964 rolled around, Gene McCombs, W.E. Broadway and I were all pastors in Dallas and our friendship grew strong. In 1964, W.D. recommended me to his former pastorate, the First Baptist Church of Rockport, and I become pastor there, remaining as pastor in that church for 31 years, and as a Rockport resident to this day, 57 years later. Our fifth child, Dwight, was born in Corpus Christi in 1966.
Remember Herb Zimmerman, with whom I worked as a volunteer at the Prairie Point Baptist Church? Well, he later became pastor of the Keys Valley Baptist Church near Belton and asked me to come for a couple of revival meetings and pulpit supply. It was there that I met the Smiths, who recommended me to the Lampasas congregation. So let me recap: I met Herb Zimmerman at the Liberty Road Baptist Church in Houston. I went with him to his student pastorate near Groesbeck, and later joined the staff of the First Baptist Church of Groesbeck, whose pastor, Olen Waldrip rcommended me to become the pastor at Oletha, where I met the girl who would become my wife. Herb then moved to another church and asked me to join him for special services from time to time. It was there that I met the Smiths, who recommended me to Lampasas, where I met Mack Cole and Gene McCombs. Through Mack I met Gene and through Gene I met W.D. and through W.D. I was recommended to Rockport.
You can trace a chain of friends who were instrumental in my moves from one church to the next, and even after a 31-year ministry in Rockport, it was through contacts with friends that I served for another 19 years as pastor or interim pastor. One of the churches was Timbergrove Baptst Church in Houston. Troy and Ruth Conner were on the staff and were leaders of the Timbergrove church. They were my lifelong friends but this was the first time we served in permanent church positions in the same church. I also served as Interim pastor at First Baptist, Refugio, First Baptist, Rockport and Bethel Baptist, Ingleside. I finally retired completely as the Covid quarantine began.
I’ve told you about the people who have been instrumental in all the moves from one place to another. But just as Paul reasoned that his move to the west in sharing the gospel was the result of the Holy Spirit’s work, even though he made day by day decisions about what to do next, so I believe that my series of moves and the friends who became part of my life and ministry have all been part of God’s wonderful plan for my life. And let us not forget that one person’s actions affect the lives of many other people. We are on target when we say that “God has this!” I made many decisions along the way, but the overwhelming explanation for the blessed ministry God gave me is the work of the Holy Spirit of the Living God. As the proverb tells us: “We plan. God decides.”
As I began writing these two blogs about how our decisions dovetail with the work of the Holy Spirit, I was visited by Allen Ray and Betsy Moers, and they shared with me how the same kind of events had shaped their life together. I am sure that each of you reading this will come to the same conclusion about yourself and God’s work in your own life. Think it over. “To God be the glory. Great things He has done!”
HERE I AM, LORD
Daniel Laurent Schutte
1981
I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them,
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide,
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them,
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
generic viagra over the counter Even if you were very successful, you basically got paid nothing