February 3, 1980, was the Lord’s day. Lois and I had been teaching at Jefferson Christian Academy in Birmingham, Alabama, and I was the Associate Minister at the Center Point congregation, working with Jim Dearman. However, I missed being able to preach each Lord’s day and being able to study as I once was able to do in my first two years of work in Auburn, Indiana. I had answered an advertisement in the Gospel Advocate which had put placed by the Shelbyville Road Church of Christ in Indianapolis. They were looking for a minister between the ages of 30 to 50. W. L. Totty had been preaching for the congregation since its beginning, but he had announced his retirement. I had heard of brother Totty because when I was checking on the church in Northern Indiana brother Frank Young, one of the instructors at the Memphis School of Preaching suggested that I contact brother Totty.
As I recall, Lois and I drove up on a Saturday and the church put us up in the Holiday Inn at the Beech Grove Exit which was not far from the church building. I remember walking into the foyer and meeting several brethren, one of whom was W. L. Totty. He was a little man with steely eyes and a firm handshake. I did not teach the Bible class that morning but preached both Sunday morning and evening. My lessons were “The Lost Book in the House of God,” and “Upon This Rock I Will Build My Church.” The lessons were warmly received. Brother Totty told me that he was not making the decision, but if he were, he would tell me just to pack my bags and move to Indiana.
In the afternoon I met with two of the three elders, Benton Kemp and Clarence Short. The third elder, William Bartley was in Florida at the time. In that meeting as we were discussing my working with the church here, brother Kemp asked me, “Do you call names?” Well, I did not know where that question would lead me, but I answered it forthrightly, as best I can remember, by saying, “I do when necessity calls for it.” Brother Kemp said, “Well, we want you to.” I shall never forget his words. There was a man of kindred spirit. A week or so later, the elders called me and offered me the work. I accepted it, but would have to commute to and from Birmingham until school was out, which is what I did. The rest, as they say, is history – thirty-five years of history, almost a generation of forty years.
In some ways I feel like Jacob who prayed to God as he was returning home to Canaan after he had spent twenty years in Padan-Aram: “O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord sadist unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I am not worthy of the least of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou has shown unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.” (Gen 32 9-10.) Though my home is not originally Indiana, Lois and I came back with a U-Haul truck with all of our belongings. Since 1980 we have been blessed with three fine sons, two daughters-in-law, four grandchildren and another on the way and many dear friends, some still living and many who are now gone.
When I first came here brother Totty used to tell me, “I hope you will stay as long as I have.” I would always answer, “Well, I’m not sure the brethren here will want me that long.” He said, “Yes, they are used to keeping a preacher.” I related this to brother Bill Heinselman, a friend of brother Totty’s and mine, who is now deceased. He said, “ Well, if you do stay that long, it will not be the same congregation.” How true. Many who were here when I came have gone on to their reward; others have come along.
Ten years ago when the church here surprised me with a twenty-five year celebration at MCL cafeteria, three preacher friends spoke: John Chowning, Jim Dearman and Holger Neubauer. It saddens me beyond words almost to say that Holger has joined the ranks of those who advocate the Max King theory. Jim Dearman spoke by DVD and thanked the congregation here for keeping me twenty-five years and saving me from the brotherhood. I think he thought it was supposed to be a roast.
Some things have changed in thirty-five years, but some things have remained the same. I still have the same secretary, Nadene Welch, but she is not able to do what she used to do. I still have some hair, but not as much and it has changed from blonde to white. I used to be willing to debate at the drop of a hat, even dropping the hat; now, however, though still willing to debate, I hope a little wiser about who, when and what to debate. The gospel has not changed, and I still count it a great blessing and serious charge to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. I have always loved to teach the Bible whether privately or publicly. I still enjoy writing for The Informer.
In thirty-five years my preaching has taken me to nineteen states and to Jamaica, Taiwan and Ukraine. According to my record, I have preached 5,011 sermons as of this past Lord’s day. This does not count Bible classes taught. Some sermons I have felt were good; others, not-so-good; but always the truth as best as I could present them. As G. K. Wallace used to say, you cannot hit a homerun every time you get up to bat. But I have always tried to do my best. Many years ago I was sitting in the College Church auditorium in Searcy, Arkansas, and watched as J. Harvey Dykes, a speech teacher at Harding, got up to preach to us. After about five minutes into the lesson, he said, “This just isn’t working out,” or something to that effect. Then, he sat down. I have never forgotten that. There have been some times when I felt that is what I should do Brother Hardeman used to say that if you cannot strike oil in thirty minutes, quit boring. Not too long after coming here, I did have an elder tell me after a particular sermon that that was the worst sermon I had ever preached. I thought about arguing with him that I had preached some far worse, but I did not.
Many of the gospel meetings I have preached were when my boys were growing up. The only thing that kept me away from my family was gospel meetings and lectureships. Otherwise, I would have preferred to have been home and to have preached at Shelbyville Road. For years I would brag to individuals privately that nowhere was my preaching appreciated more, it seemed, than at Shelbyville Road. I have been invited to go to India and Africa to teach in schools, and though I enjoy the opportunities, my duties as one of two elders
here keeps me from packing my bags.
Since being at the Shelbyville Road congregation, I have conducted 42 weddings. The first wedding I did was in Auburn, Indiana. The assembly stood through the long, tedious ceremony of seven minutes. I had failed to invite the audience to be seated. One wedding was done in the dark. Right before the ceremony the electricity went out. I asked the bride, Susan Bean, if she wanted to wait until the lights came back on. She told me no. She had waited long enough to get married and did not want to put it off any longer. Her future husband, Jon Cagle was all for getting through with the ceremony as well. I used a flashlight to read my words; Nadene sang from memory the wedding march, and the knot was tied. One day a young lady called me and asked if I would perform their wedding ceremony. I ask her the usual questions to see if she and her fiancée had a scriptural right to marry. They did. So, I pulled out my calendar, and asked when they wanted to get married. She said told me that they wanted to get married that day; so, I told them to come on. We filled out the license, I said the words, and they took off. However, I had forgotten to get them to sign the license! So, I looked at the address that was given, and it was a trailer park in Whiteland, Indiana. So, I took off to the trailer, knocked on their door, and fortunately, they were there. So, asked them to sign their license, and I left.
To date I have preached 142 funerals. They are always tough, but they are opportunities to try to comfort and teach the truth. Now days, people do not want funerals; they just want eulogies. They do not want to think about their appointment with death, yet Solomon said, “It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to heart” (Ecc. 7:2,) I have been involved in some very difficult funerals. It is never easy. I have preached the funerals of infants and the aged. I have seen people react differently at funerals. I have seen individuals almost try to crawl into the casket with the decease. I remember one lady who stood at the casket and stomped her feet and clenched her fists. She was so angry because the person had died. My first funeral which was before I came to Shelbyville Road was in Auburn, Indiana. The young woman was about 26 years of age, and an unfaithful member of the church. She had been to a discotheque (dance hall) on a Wednesday night. Her little boy was with a babysitter, I think. She was abducted and found ten days later in a river in Fort Wayne having been shot in the head. The media covered the death and the funeral. Her mother was a faithful member of the church. When brother Joseph Cox of Louisville, KY, died, one of his sons, Merrill, asked three preachers to have a part in the funeral: Brother Vernon Harris, Brother Warren Rainwater and me. The interesting thing about the request is that brother Merrill limited us to ten minutes, not ten minutes for each of us, but ten minutes total! He wanted Harris to speak three minutes, me to speak three minutes and since Rainwater had known Cox the longest, he gave him four minutes! It wasn’t a miracle, but all three preachers stuck to his time limit. I have preached or had a part in the funerals of my grannie’s, my mother’s, my dad’s, my mother-in-law’s, and my father-in-law’s. I could not bring myself to speak at my brother’s. I was too much in shock, I suppose.
God has blessed me to be able to preach for so many years. The brethren have been good and patient with me as well. I have made mistakes in preaching and writing. I have repented and confessed openly of my errors. I hope with kindness brethren will blow away the chaff and hold on to that which I have taught that good and true. I am thankful for friends, near and far who have encouraged me at times when I was down. But I am especially thankful for my dear Lois, kind and gentle, who has always been supportive of my efforts for good. May God continue to bless us all as we strive to make heaven our home.