On Thursday, April 6^th, I will have a cardiac by-pass operation. Mary Earle, the lady who coached me on how to do this blog thing, told me two weeks ago that there was a way I could write my blog ahead of time and allow this website to hold it and then publish it on a prescribed date. Therefore, I wouldn’t miss sending out any blogs. This is a cool idea since, if all goes well, I will not be writing for at least ten days. However, I have not had the time to write ahead, so this blog will be the last for a while. I would ask you to go to Mary’s blog at http://mary-marysmoments.blogspot.com/ and give her blog a read. Then, when I come back, you will have two blogs to follow.

          I have been in the ministry for a long time. Literally decades. I have sat with many families as a family member went through the procedure I will be going through. The very idea of open heart surgery is frightening to people and it helps (I think, anyway) to have their pastor right there. There is tension, fear and anguish there in the waiting room. But it almost always works out well. Heart by-pass surgery is the single most common surgery performed in the United States. (Something I didn’t know until mine became necessary.) They have it down. An incredible number of people are walking around with a long scar down their chest and extending across their bellies and are living great lives. I feel confident.

          But not overly confident. Of all those many surgeries during which I have been with the families, all have turned out just fine except for two. Both were church members, both had minimal issues, both made it through the surgery, but both died from complications. Although I was friends with both, one was a really close friend. His death twelve years ago still bothers me.

          So, while I have a calm assurance that everything will be fine, I also know that it may not be. I have a wonderful church full of people praying for me. I have dear, dear friends praying for me. I have people I don’t even know praying for me. However, it may suit God’s will more for me to be one of the small percentage of people who do not survive. Believe it or not, I am fine with that, too. I think heaven will be a lot better than this place. If the Lord were to take me (after all, we all must die) He would see to the needs of Marsha, my wife. So, no matter which extreme it goes to, I am prepared.

          If you have been reading this blog over the last few weeks, you will have noticed that much of it has concerned the past years of the life of my wife and me. Funny stories, touching stories, weird stories. We have had an interesting life. I suppose it is human for me to be thinking in these terms as I face this surgery. In looking back, I have very few regrets. Most of those regrets are over the little things in life. It has been a life devoted to ministry, and it has been pretty cool.

          Honestly, though, it is not the life I envisioned back forty odd years ago. As a very young man I saw myself becoming a great, great preacher, someone who would shake the world for Christ. In my mind’s eye I saw the great river of Christianity running through history. In places along that river there were great rocks rising from the swiftly moving water. One of the rocks was the Apostle Paul, another was Charles Spurgeon. Another was Myles Coverdale and still another William Tyndale. D.L. Moody was one of those great rocks and Billy Graham was another. All great men of the faith, all gave a dynamic message to the world. In my mind, I could do that. Not for my glory. I really never wanted that, but I always wanted it for the glory of the Lord. For that I would devote my life.

          When I was a boy my father and I would start at one bridge that spanned a river or creek and walk in the water to the next bridge, fishing all along the way. My father taught me to look for rocks that protruded up from the river bed and broke the surface by no more than a foot. Those rocks broke the flow of the river and in the shelter of those rocks, fish would gather. They would feed on whatever the river brought to them while they sheltered. Eventually, they would move on and more would come and take their place. One day, as we walked a river with high shale walls, there was a small landslide. Some of the shale broke free and made a dash for the water. A mighty splash and a small tsunami washed over to the other side where we were. It made my heart race. I asked my father if big fish would gather amongst the big chunks of shale. No, he told me, the shale would wash away eventually because shale is brittle, and until then it would make the water around it to toxic for the fish.

          I guess it was the time spent on rivers and creeks as a boy that shaped the image in my mind of the river of Christianity flowing through the ages of history. Now, all these years later, I have had the pleasure of meeting some great Christian leaders whom I consider the great rocks. I have also known quite a few people who were like that shale slide. Made a big splash and thought a lot of themselves, but who washed away after a while and polluted the river for a bit. But in my mind’s eye now, knowing that my life may dramatically change shortly, I see myself as one of those smaller rocks. Firmly attached to the bedrock. Eroded some by years and years of disturbing the flow just enough to let a few shelter there with me. Nothing big, nothing flashy. Just steady, serving the needs of the fish of the river.

          I hope you didn’t expect anything profoundly theological in this edition of the blog. Today, all you get from me is this; I am profoundly grateful to the Lord God for letting me be that small disturbance in the river. I am so humbled that He has allowed me to minister as a pastor to three different churches that blessed my life in so many ways. I am awed that when He led me out of the pastorate for a period of time He allowed me to do a different kind of ministry, working with people I came to love and cherish. I tremble in His presence when I think of how He took a sixty year old man and allowed him one more opportunity with a new church to do the very thing he loves the most. And I am grateful for the woman He has put beside me to experience it all.

          I imagine I will be back with you in ten to fourteen days. But know, regardless of what happens, you have blessed me more than I have blessed you. God is a great and a mighty God, worthy of praise. So many cannot get that simple fact. He is awesome.

          God bless you all.

          To most people, 'jail' and 'prison' are one in the same. Somebody will talk about their sister's daughter's husband who has been in jail for the last four years. Actually, they were in jail till their trial and then they were sent to prison. They are not at all the same. Jail is temporary. Very short term sentences or awaiting trial. There is still hope. The magnitude of what could be coming hasn't really sunk in yet, especially to the new criminal. Prison, by contrast, is a different ballgame. Prison is a harsh reality. By the time someone emerges from prison, the world has changed. Their family dynamic has changed. They themselves have changed. Unless something has happened while in prison that has fundamentally changed their outlook on life, they are hardened in a way that the regular folk in the world cannot begin to understand. Prisons will have various programs that are meant to rehabilitate an inmate, but the only thing that consistently works is when an evangelical Christian organization has a prison ministry that presents the Gospel to to the inmates. Then, lives can be changed. 

            I have never been involved in that kind of prison ministry. I have never lived close enough to a prison to make that feasible. And, being a pastor, I have never really had the time such a ministry demands. As a pastor, I have been to prisons, though. A wayward church member or someone in the church who has a wayward family member. I have carried the Gospel into prison. But more often, I have been active in the jails of the areas in which I have pastored. At one time I had my own little jail ministry. Just me and an agreement with the local lock-up. I didn't 'preach' to the prisoners. I would go from one cell to the next, trying to talk with these men who didn't yet realize the fullness of their situation. Often, they were arrogant and boastful because they were sure they were going to beat the system and get out. Once in a while I would get to talk to someone who had been sentenced to prison for an extended period, but they had not been transported yet. That person would be scared and confused. They were receptive to what I said. One thing I did learn was that no two jail visits were going to be the same.

          I say I would talk to the men only because this particular county jail didn't allow men to go on the women's side and talk to them. There was a local evangelical group that provided women for the purpose of talking to the women prisoners. It worked out fine and I never had a problem with it. Then, one day when I came into the jail the senior corrections officer (we called them ‘guards’ back then) came to me and told me that there was a woman on the female side of the jail that really needed to see a minister. She didn't want to talk to one of the ladies, she wanted a 'real' preacher. Could I go over? I told him that this woman would just have to have one of the ladies talk to her. (It had not been a good day of visiting. A prisoner had thrown a cupful of the contents of his toilet at me.) He told me that she didn't trust 'women preachers' and she really did need to talk to someone. I told him I would go over.

          The women’s side was different from the men’s side. On the men’s side there were two solitary cells, one padded room and a huge cell block where each cell was separated only by bars. On the women’s side it was a series of cells that had solid walls between them and a solid front. The only way you could talk to a prisoner was to talk through the slot in the door where the food trays were passed. Two prisoners per cell.

          I went to the door I was told to go to and knelt by the food slot. I called for the woman who had been wanting to talk to a preacher and a scared young woman came to the slot. I say young woman because she had to have been at least eighteen to be in that jail, but she really looked to be twelve. She had been caught smoking a joint of marijuana. Her folks were going to let her ‘rot in jail’ for bringing such shame into the family. I would find out later that a boy she was trying to impress had talked this girl into smoking the joint. When the police broke up the late night bonfire she was the only one who heeded the command to stop. The other kids, including the boy in question, left her to take the heat. Now she was in jail with little or no chance of ever getting out until her trial. So, she was more than a little scared.

          She didn’t tell me her story, though. I got that later from another source. She was terrified that because she had smoked a joint she would go to hell. Her mother had told her as much, and they were good church going people. I explained to her that we are all sinners. There were no degrees of sin. Jesus offers the free gifts of forgiveness and salvation if we will just ask Him. Over a period of time I got this across to her, but it was what was going on while I talked to her that was really unusual.

          When she crouched down by the slot and began to talk to me her cellmate shouted, “Is that your preacher man, little honey?” I was looking through the slot so I could make eye contact with the girl. I could hardly avoid seeing her cell mate.

          The cell mate, in for prostitution, began to sing the tune to the music normally associated with a striptease. As she did this she started to take off her clothes. Meanwhile, the distraught girl in front of me was so intent on the questions she had she didn’t even notice the other woman. She probably had endured this and worse by that time. When I dropped my eyes she asked me not to look away. She needed to see my eyes to see if she could trust me. So, while a professional striptease was taking place in the background I was able to share the love of Christ with a scared young girl. And, before I was done, the prostitute had settled down and was listening, too.

          People have their perceptions and their preconceived notions. But remember; there are bad people in this world, true. But they need Jesus. Maybe you are not one of those people who can go behind bars to talk to them, but you can support those who do go behind the bars, and you can pray for the ones receiving the good news. God bless.                    

            When you go to a church as a pastoral candidate, you mind your manners. You are careful about what you say. You are not being hypocritical, you are just being on good behavior. When we came to this church as a pastoral candidate, my lovely wife sang a special. Before she sang, she shared with the congregation the story of when her slip fell off during church several years earlier. This is not a story you tell in that situation, but with Marsha it is not unusual. She just thinks differently. The Scripture says we are to be one flesh. It never says we are to be one mind. Good thing, in our case, for I never know just which direction her mind is going to go. I am not sure she knows, either.

          This is not a husband talking who is simply exasperated with his wife. Nay, nay. Instead of being exasperated I am highly entertained. My wife will mix up sayings. “You can lead a horse to water, but tomorrow is another day.” She will insert words into a sentence that make no sense. Sitting down to eat the evening meal she might say, “Oh, I forgot the biscuits in the coffee pot!” Of course, she would then get them from the oven. She will change topics from one sentence to the next, or even in the same sentence. “Goodness, its cold today, but Sarah said her mom is feeling a lot better.” It took me a good fifteen years to get a handle on it. That doesn’t mean I understand. It just means that I no longer let myself get a headache trying to understand.

          I am getting better at understanding, however, although I have no hope of ever catching up. One night at supper my wife spoke a sentence that had mixed metaphors, substituted words and a change in direction. I responded correctly, because I actually understood the flow. Our son, who was sitting across the table from me, looked at me with great respect. “How do you do that, Dad?” I just smiled, enjoying the moment. It is not every day you can impress your teenaged son.

          Once at supper I was joking with my son. He was getting a little perturbed with me, but I kept the conversation going. Finally, he said, “I don’t understand how you two have been married for so long! Dad’s annoying and Mom’s confusing!” Marsha looked up, oblivious, and said, “I’m not confused!” Adam didn’t know what to say.

          My wife once opened a bag of hamburger buns that had been knocked around a little in transit. The tops and the bottoms were separated. Talking all the while, she pulled two tops out of the bag. Looking down she said, “That’s odd.” She reached into the bag and pulled out the two bottoms. She looked at them and said, “Honey, this bag is defective. It’s all tops and bottoms!”

          Not long after we were married we were traveling down an interstate at night. I was exhausted and asked her to drive. She was a bit hesitant. Highway driving scared her and it was dark. “How do I stay in the middle of the lane?” I told her to keep the crease in the hood (cars don’t have creases in the hoods anymore, but they did then) lined up with the white line on the edge of the road and you would stay right dead center in the lane. With that I fell sound asleep in the passenger seat. In just a bit she woke me. “Now,” she asked me, “what do I do?” We were sitting in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. She had followed the white line up the exit, into the turn and then into the Holiday Inn lot.

          My wife was city born and bred, while I was a country boy. For the longest time, she called cows ‘moo-cows.’ She liked milk until we went to my uncle’s farm and she saw a cow being milked. (“The milk comes from those things?!?”) While in seminary I earned a little money on the side working on cars. One fellow with a Volkswagen would give me a dressed out rabbit every time I fixed his car. Marsha had some trouble for a while eating bunnies, at least the ones that weren’t chocolate. Eventually, though, she really got to liking rabbit. Deer was the same way. One church had several hunters and we always had some venison coming in. At first, we were eating Bambi, but it wasn’t long and Marsha was a regular deer gourmand. Her venison chili is the best! In fact, she has come a long way in everything. But, the first time she saw a horse in a field relieving itself she was disgusted. Surely that horse could at least go behind the barn. But it has been refreshing. It is like seeing everything for the first time.

          One of the really great moments in our marriage occurred one night when we decided we didn’t want to be disturbed. This was BA (before Adam, our son) and we were young and very much into being with each other. Phone calls or drop in visits are common in the ministry, so we were constantly with others. The night in question was the conclusion of a long day for both of us. We just didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone. We unplugged the phone, turned out the lights and took the TV into the bedroom. We pulled the curtains closed, got out some big boxes of chocolate covered raisins we had bought and settled down on the bed to watch a movie.

          In the dark, we opened our boxes and poured the candy into a big bowl that was between us. We began to munch as the movie came on.

          This was Miami, Florida, so mosquitoes were always a problem. When I felt something on my hand I just slapped at it in an absent-minded way. When it happened again, I slapped again. When I felt something on my face, I began to wonder. When I realized my wife was smacking away, too. I turned on the bedside lamp. There from the bowl between us were thousands of ants boiling up and out across the bed. I turned to my wife to say something, only to notice that the remains of a crushed ant lay on her lower lip. Ants were all over the bedclothes and us.

          We ran into the bathroom and both jumped in the shower. Nothing sensuous in this joint shower. We were both fully dressed and half retching. The bedroom received a thorough cleaning, but we still slept in the living room that night. For days later Marsha claimed she could still feel them crawling around in her stomach.

          Marsha has a different way of looking at things. She experiences things in a way most people never do. Sometimes it is confusing. Sometimes it is exasperating. But it is never, never boring. How many people can say that the last 42 years of their lives have not had boring moments?

          The good old days. Kids listened to their elders. People had respect for one another. You could leave your doors unlocked. Those were the days.

          Or not. 100 years ago, the mortality rate for infants up to one year old in this country was one death out of every ten babies. Now it is one death out of every one hundred sixty eight babies. 85% of all males over the age of 14 were in the work force. That means 85% of all males worked from the age of 14 to death, whether death occurred at age 40 or age 95. There was no retirement, no Social Security, no Medicare; virtually no government benefits at all. We think of costs 100 years ago as being low, but that is only in comparison to our current costs. We don’t think of income being low. Unless you lived on a farm, the typical family spent 1/3 of their income on food. Compare that to 1/6 today. And the food was different. On the average, each American ate eleven and a half pounds of lard each year. Not straight up, but it was used in cooking. Now, the average American eats only one and a half pounds of lard. A century ago, our diets were less varied. Now, the average American eats 57 pounds of chicken. A hundred years ago it was 14 pounds. Most of that was consumed on farms. In the towns and cities, chicken was a rarity, something to be savored. In the so-called Steel Belt cities-Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Gary, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Pittsburgh-butchers would take scraps of meat of all kinds and tightly compress it in special molds into the shape of chicken legs, then stick tooth pick type skewers in it to hold it together and then sell it as ‘city chicken.’ You can still buy city chicken in those areas, but now it is usually three small chunks of pork held together with a long skewer. Back in the day, a city dweller could go their whole life and not eat any chicken. Back in the good old days, the country had one third the population it has now. Of that population, one half was under the age of 25. Retirement wasn’t much of an issue because most people didn’t reach what we think of as retirement age. If they did, they didn’t retire. They just did different kinds of work. Medical treatment at the finest hospitals of the day wouldn’t even be acceptable today at a little country clinic in our age.
          One hundred years ago radio was in its infancy, TV was a gleam in a scientist’s eye and computers were unheard of. Most people didn’t have phones. As for entertainment, well, you made your own at home with whatever instruments you had or whatever games you could devise. Community dances and gatherings were popular. A community would usually have a Spring dance, a 4th of July celebration, a county fair, a harvest dance and maybe a community Christmas celebration. At these gatherings, the latest in music would be played. One such piece of music a hundred years ago was Irving Berlin’s song “Keep Away From The Fellow Who Owns An Automobile”
[1st verse:] There's a certain flirtin' man with money in the bank
The man I mean owns a machine, the kind you have to crank
His great delight is to invite a girlie for a whirl
In his machine and I just mean to kind o' warn each girl
[chorus:]
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
He'll take you far in his motor car
Too darn far from your Pa and Ma
If his forty horsepower goes sixty miles an hour say
Goodbye forever, goodbye forever
There's no chance to talk, squawk or balk
You must kiss him or get out and walk
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
[2nd verse:]
Mary White went out one night in Harry's new machine
They rode quite far when Harry's car ran out of gasoline
The hour was late and sad to state no gas could Harry get
The latest word I overheard is that they're walking yet
Imagine, 40 horsepower was considered a lot and 60 mph was really, really fast! Churches were full back in the good old days, but that was largely because there was very little else you could do if you wanted to gather with folks and get the news (gossip) of the community.
          So, maybe the good old days weren’t quite so good. Maybe that respect people had for one another could be taught today as well as way back then. Maybe we should take what we have today and use it for good and Godliness rather than complaining about how depraved it all is.
          Times have changed greatly in the last 100 years. Just the fact you are reading this is testament to that truth. This being typed up on a laptop computer. It is being sent out on the internet. I can track the areas this blog is read. I have readers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Taiwan. I find that amazing. It is even more amazing that this blog will be available at exactly the moment I push the PUBLISH button. It is even more amazing that some of you are reading this on your cell phones. One hundred years ago, if you had a phone, you had to crank it to make a connection, and then you went through a switchboard.
         The Bible covered a time of just over 4,000 years. The process of living life at the end of the writing of the Bible was pretty much the same as the process of living life was at the beginning of the writing of the Bible. It is a fast-paced world. But, the Lord hasn’t changed. He is still on His throne. He still offers salvation to all who believe. His Word is still true and unchangeable. The way we present the message may change, but the message is still the same. With the constant promise of change and ‘advancement’ in our daily lives, it is a blessing that we have one constant that will always rise above it all.

          I have been doing a lot of thinking about the past and the things I have, and have not, accomplished.  Considering the surgery I have coming up, I suppose that this is a normal thing. But, because my brain is wired the way it is wired, the funny things keep intruding on my retrospections. It’s not that I am not serious minded. It is just that I prefer to remember the chuckles. And there were more than a few.

When Marsha and I were married we went on an extravagant, two day honeymoon to that worldwide vacation destination, Erie, PA. Yes, I am a big spender. On day three we headed down to Chattanooga TN where I was a student in a Bible college. It was a tough time, actually. We were newlyweds and wanted to spend every moment of everyday together. But, I worked, full time, on midnights for a textile company and went to school full time. And I served a church. We tried, though. We would talk late into the afternoon when I should have been studying and sleeping. Marsha would wake me up at 8:00 PM for supper when I should have been sleeping until 10:00 PM. She would feed me a huge meal when I should have been eating light so I wouldn’t get tired at work. 

          Well, all this worked on me. Even though I was young and full of energy I finally got to where I could barely stay awake at any time. The worst of it all was at 9:00 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Theology of the Old Testament. Dr. Price. Auditorium 4. Just over three hundred students. Every class he called roll. The seating was graduated upward. That is, the podium was on the lower level. Each horizontal row was set higher than the row before it. Today it would be called ‘stadium seating.’ I don’t know what it was called then. I just know that it conspired against me. Because my name was near the end of the alphabet I was in the back row, which was the highest row. This is where the heat gathered. Once roll started I had to wait a long time till he got to me. So, there I sat listening to droning voices, exhausted, warm and waiting for three hundred students to say ‘here, sir’ before I could. I struggled, I sweated, I tried everything. But I could not stay awake. Theology of the Old Testament was hardly an exciting, gripping class. As I recall, the highlight was rollcall. It was a miserable class for me.

          Dr. Price would call my name, then have someone wake me, then he would tell me the importance of being alert. I didn’t fall asleep every day. In fact, it was only a few times that semester. But he always let me know that I had failed him, the school, the ministry and God Himself.

          Time passed. Eleven years later I was serving as an assistant pastor in a church hundreds of miles away from that school. My job was to lead the youth. Not just the teens, but all the way down to kindergarten. To that end my wife and I developed a Children’s Church for the little ones. It was excellent because they heard the Gospel and they heard it on their level.

          The church was going to have a series of revival services. The speaker was going to be Dr. Price. I thought this was great because I had never actually heard him speak. People said he was good, but for me, I was in a fog all of the time. I looked forward to the experience.

          But our pastor told me he wanted us to have the Children’s Church each night during the services so that the adults could listen to the good doctor without the burden of their children. Of course, I agreed, but I was disappointed.

          On the first night Dr. Price arrived just before the services were to start. (His plane was delayed.) As the pastor walked him into the church he stopped at the room where we held Children’s Church just to show Dr. Price what he had planned for the kids. As Dr. Price entered the room he looked up and saw me. His face split into a wide grin. Remember, eleven years had passed and I was just one of over three hundred in just one class. He saw over fifteen hundred students every day. But........

          “Ah, Mr. Wade! Are you getting enough sleep these days?”

          I was surprised, and so was the pastor. He asked if we knew each other. Dr. Price winked at me and said, “Oh yes. Mr. Wade was one of my more promising students.”

          With that he shook my hand, then accepted my introduction to my wife and left.

          Since I don’t think Dr. Price would have lied about it, I can only assume that he meant I was the student who showed the most promise of flunking his class. But that encounter impressed me. And it still makes me laugh.                                                  

          Ordination is a very serious business. I entered the ministry in October of 1975 when I was called as a youth pastor to a small church in Tennessee. The pastor wanted to ordain me, but I just couldn’t see that happening at the time. I was unprepared as far as education was concerned. I was unprepared as far as temperament was concerned. And I was unprepared as far as experience was concerned. For the next nine years I served as a youth and music pastor (I heard that snicker at ‘music pastor’), but Marsha and I always knew that at some point we would be in the pastorate. We served at a church in Ohio, our home church, and then a church in Miami, Florida, and both wanted to ordain me, but I wanted to wait until I was ready to be called as a pastor. I didn’t want to enter into it with the wrong attitude or lightly. And, more importantly, I didn't feel qualified Spiritually.

          In 1982 we went back to finish the education part of the journey. In 1983 I went as an interim Pastor to a small church far out in the boondocks of Florida. The interim was supposed to be for six months, but at the end of that time the church expressed a desire to call me as their pastor and I felt it was time that Sandy Creek Baptist Church of Pounce de Leon, Florida got to experience the good and bad of a new pastor. It all depended, though, on my ordination.

          I contacted the director of our association, a Rev. McClain. Mac was a genuinely good guy who cared about the pastors and the churches. Mac agreed to be the moderator of my ordination council and to set the whole thing up.

          Among most Baptist groups, ordination is bestowed by a local church. Other denominations can do it however they like, the denomination can ordain, the churches can ordain or there can be an independent group that ordain. Also, you can get ordained by mail or even e-mail. The mail or e-mail way is legal but it is also unethical. But among Baptist, it is mostly handled by the churches. This can be handled in any way the church decides is proper. Usually, a church leader in the area will be contacted to put together a council of other ordained ministers to question the candidate and then to report back to the church as to their feeling of whether or not the person is qualified. (In this, I was fortunate to know the associational director and to be able to ask him to head the council)  The church, then, would make its own determination. It is fairly rare for a church to go against a council, but since it is up to the church, it does happen occasionally. Sometimes, though, the local church would do something really odd. One of my seminary classmates was called to a church as pastor, pending ordination. At the first deacons’ meeting they voted to ordain him. No council, no questions, nothing. It worked out okay. More than half of my classmates have dropped out of the ministry, but he still pastors in Florida.

          The date was set for July 15, 1984. My mother and step-father came from Ohio and brought Marsha’s mother with them. That part of Florida was watermelon country, the big long ones that look like little torpedoes. Several people in the church brought over watermelons because they knew we were having out of town company. In the end we had fifteen huge, long melons stacked under a tree in our front yard. The night before the ordination the congregation had a fish fry in their pavilion on the grounds of the church. Fresh water and salt water fish either deep fried or grilled, huge steaks grilled to your liking, enough side dishes to make the picnic tables groan and homemade ice cream for dessert. My step-father made the comment that I wouldn’t have to wait to die to get to heaven if this was the way they intended to feed me. It was hard to disagree.

          But, I didn’t eat much. I was too nervous. The council would meet the next day at 2:00 PM. Mac had told me that he would send out twenty five invitations, but no more than a half a dozen would come. Having it on a Sunday afternoon would make it hard for a lot of preachers to come because they would also have evening services, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned. Out there in the country, at that time, a seminary trained preacher was viewed with some distrust. As one old timer on the council put it, "There’s two kinds of preachers. Them that’s called by the Holy Ghost and them that’s educated." Mac figured that by having it at 2:00 some of those old timers wouldn’t come. Besides, six was the normal number of council members. Still, I was nervous.

          And, as it turned out, I had good cause to be nervous. Twenty five invitations were sent out, but any ordained person could come. My ordination council had 29 members. No one had ever seen anything like it. Somehow, I didn’t feel very privileged to have the biggest council anyone could remember. For over two hours they threw question after question at me concerning the Scriptures and concerning my personal views on practically every subject you can imagine. Mac tried to keep the subjects strictly Scriptural, but Mac was one of those seminary educated preachers, too, so they did their best to ignore him.

          There was one older gent there who was a real character. Rev. Melvin Paul, pastor of the nearby Bridge Creek Baptist Church. He was born in 1900 and saw combat in World War One, which he still called the Great War. He rejoined the army and served on some of the same battlefields during World War Two. He was on the beaches on D-Day. Returning home (he was the pastor of Bridge Creek even then in the mid-1940s) he organized the first National Guard unit in the area. He served the unit as their sergeant. During Korea that unit was called up. He was told that, considering his age and the fact that he had served in two wars already, he didn’t have to go. He told them that if his boys were going, he was going. Although his unit was not slated for combat when they left, they wound up in combat. So, he had served in combat in three wars. He was one tough old dude, even in 1984. When we were introduced before the council I said, "It is nice to meet you, sir." He snarled back, "Don’t call me ‘sir,’ boy. I ain’t no officer. I work for a living! And I ain’t no educated preacher, neither. I am called by the Holy Ghost!" It didn’t look good for ole Larry.

          As the council time came to a close it was customary to allow the oldest minister there to ask the last question. Of course, no one was older than the 84 year old Melvin Paul. In asking the question, he started by telling me that in a council that size it was highly unlikely that I would get enough votes to confirm. (You needed some high percentage rather than a simple majority. I forget now what that percentage was) "If we don’t confirm you, what will you do then?" He was starting to irritate me. Every question he had asked had an edge to it. Had he asked the same question earlier I might have answered a little more diplomatically. Ah, well. "Brother, my call to preach doesn’t come from you or this council or this church. My call comes from God. If I am not confirmed I’ll just keep preaching somewhere." The council ended.

          I went into another room and sat with Marsha while they debated. We figured that the longer the debate went on, the better it would be. They came and got us in about five minutes. Not good, we thought. But, they did confirm. Unanimously. The church had their ordination service at 6:00. As the service ended I was called to the front of the church where I knelt before the congregation. Each minister who stayed came up individually and laid hands on me and prayed for my ministry. When Melvin Paul came up he laid those old warrior’s hands on my head and prayed the most moving prayer I had ever heard. He later told me that he had asked that same question at every council he had ever served on and I was the first to answer in just that way. “That’s the answer I always wanted. Ya’ll do well, boy.“

          All these years later it hardly seems possible that so much time has passed. The funny thing is that I remember the watermelons more than I remember anything else. Maybe it was because I had to get rid of them later. Even now, when I think of any ordination, and I have served on several councils, I can taste the watermelons.

          Over the years, I have gotten a lot of quizzical looks from people when I have said, “I would rather do a funeral than a wedding.” What do you mean??? Weddings are wonderful!!! How can you say you would rather do a funeral??? Actually, that is not a 100% true. Some weddings have been very special to me. But on the whole, weddings are tragedies waiting to happen. The expectations are so high, so much is invested, people have come from all over……it just threatens to come unraveled at any moment. There is always someone who thinks it would be funny if…...or what if we do this……or let’s make the dog the ring bearer! With a funeral you get to minister to people, with a wedding you have to keep everyone under control. For instance;

 "America's Funniest Home Videos" was one of the few television programs that I actually enjoyed. It did, however, give rise to a stunt atmosphere, particularly in those things that are to be serious. Honest mishaps in a wedding can be funny. Intentional mishaps, or stunts, in a wedding can be, well, just stupid. I have had my share of such things.

          Ralph and Jewell were a young couple planning a wedding. Jewell was the usual bride, wanting everything to be just so. Ralph was the usual groom, a little out of touch as far as the wedding was concerned, but determined that Jewell would have the best day of her life. The problem rarely lies with the bride or the groom. It is with the family. In this case, Jewell’s father, a police officer, thought it would be funny to wait till I had pronounced them husband and wife, and then he would step forward and slap handcuffs on his new son-in-law. No need to tell the preacher or the groom. A laugh a minute. The bride's sister, a biker girl who normally was clad in biker leather, cooked up her own mischief. Disaster in the making, made all the more tragic by the actions of a little boy.

          To start with, at the rehearsal the bride's sister, who was also the matron of honor, decided I was a good mark for her own brand of weird humor. Having pegged me as something of a square and as a hayseed to boot, she made me her personal target. I still retain a slight southern accent from our years in the south and that seemed to set her off.

          After giving me a hard time at the rehearsal the night before the wedding, this dear soul thought it would be funny to frustrate me with the rings during the wedding. Her four-year-old son was to be the ring bearer. Both rings would be on a satin pillow that he would carry down the aisle. At the appropriate time, he would step forward and hold out the pillow and I would pull the simple knot on the ribbon and thus remove the two rings. Usually this simple little task is made difficult by the unpredictability of a four-year-old boy. It is the part I dread. But this little guy was perfect.

          His mother, however, was a long way from perfect. She had gone to the trouble of tying the rings in a hard knot. It was supposed to be funny when I couldn’t untie the silly thing. When the pillow was presented to me during the wedding there was no way I could untie her knot. It did alter my wedding practice, though. I always carry a knife now. Anyway, the groom could hear the snickers of his soon to be sister-in-law and knew immediately what had happened and who was at fault. Angrily he reached down and gripped the ribbon to try and break it. He succeeded, sending one ring shooting east and one ring shooting west. For five minutes the wedding party was on their hands and knees looking for the rings. One had rolled to the edge of a heating vent grate. What fun.

          It is important to point out that the bride's sister took her son by the hand during all of this to lead him over to where he should stand, right behind her. He was very hesitant, even trying to pull away from her. We found out why in just a very few minutes. He didn't recognize this woman as his mother. He was used to a tattooed woman with wild hair and wearing leather jeans and a halter-top. This woman was lovely, with the tattoos covered and her hair up in curls and ringlets and in a beautiful dress. This is important for later.

          Anyway, the rings were located and the ceremony continued. Everything was fine until I pronounced the happy couple. (Actually, at this point they were not very happy.) Then, the bride's father leaped to his feet and slapped the cuffs on his son-in-law. Silence followed.

          Remember the little ring bearer? He had watched enough TV to know that this was not good. He jumped up into the front pew, which had just been behind him where he was standing. With hands on either side of his face he began to scream. This was not an imitation of the boy in the movie "Home Alone." This event was before that movie. This was just sheer terror. His mother, the matron of honor, turned to grab him and comfort him (even the uncouth have maternal instincts) but he beat her off screaming "I want my real mommy, I want my real mommy!!!"

          I am sure that they didn't watch the video of that one very often and I have never seen it on America’s Funniest.