Sunday, August 10, 1980. The sun was shining like a wedding day groom the morning I entered the ministry. I had accepted a job as the Youth Director of the Algood First Baptist Church for $50.00 per week. I would begin my duties at Algood on Sunday night. But, first, I had one last preaching engagement at Verble Baptist Church.

I was well on my way to my 100^th preaching opportunity before my 18^th birthday. Daddy’s reputation preceded me in the Stone Association of Baptist. When people heard Sam’s boy was becoming a preacher, invitations came from all over the Upper Cumberland.

I drove mama’s 1976 Olds Cutlass away from our home on Sullivan Street while mama gave directions. Through the long and winding uphill battle on Highway 70, the road before us cut a path through pines and cedars of the Monterey Mountain. The shade of the trees cast shadows across the road as the sun rejoiced across the Cumberland Plateau in middle Tennessee.

I was the week’s Sunday morning supply preacher at Verble Church. Their by-vocational pastor had gone to Lebanon to play in a softball tournament with a church team playing in an industrial league. This was my first preaching opportunity at Verble.

The hardwood floor down the center aisle sounded every step as we walked into the back of the church. Verble was a church of about 30 and their building gave them plenty of room to grow, seating capacity about 80. The pulpit, gallowed high atop the tall stage stood about chest high. I wore my light blue three piece suit, yellow shirt, and daddy’s dark blue and white tie, black wingtip shoes, and daddy’ black socks. The sermon was one of daddy’s, too.

"Stephen’s Death" was the title marked in dark blue felt tip marker on white notebook paper. I had cut off the margins and taped the pages together so they would be hidden in my large black Bible. The notes lay like a small book on top of the light brown hardwood pulpit. I held the sides of the podium as I started the sermon, looking out at the crowd. Occasionally, I glanced down at my notes, turning the pages slowly, hopefully, unnoticed by the congregation.

Daddy had a reputation among the Stone Association of Baptists as preaching the Bible from pure memory. He always read his text, closed the Bible, prayed a brief prayer beginning "Heavenly Father, we thank thee…" and ending a paragraph later- "In Jesus’ name, Amen."

And then, he was off to the races. He never looked down at a note because there were none on his pulpit. He always talked loud enough "so that a little deaf lady sitting in the back of the church could hear."

I witnessed him enter the pulpit once with any sort of notes in his Bible. Just once.

I was 16 at the time. At that age, I already knew about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Nero offered a pig on the Jewish altar, thus defiling the holy place of Israel. The presence of notes on daddy’s pulpit was about as holy as a pig on Jerusalem’s altar.

But, in daddy’s defense, the week he took notes into his pulpit, he did have the flu. Hadn’t got out of the bed for three days. His temperature was 102 degrees. I heard him coughing a lot that week through the closed bedroom door. He moved out of the bed only when movement was necessary. The day daddy carried notes into his pulpit; he never glanced at them- not even once. And I never glanced away from daddy for the whole twenty-five minute ride. Come to think of it, that was a mighty miracle for the both of us.

I began my sermon at Verble and ended nearly 18 minutes later, according to mama’s silver wedding anniversary watch. I preached the sermon daddy style, gave the invitation Billy Graham style, and shook hands with the people pastoral style. Some of the members of Verble expressed their distress over their young pastor’s going to a softball tournament in Lebanon on the Lord’s Day.

When they said they hoped he didn’t get hurt… what with playing softball on the Sabbath and all, I knew they hoped he’d get hurt, at least just a little. The good Lord would teach their young pastor a lesson after all. As far as I know, the only lesson he learned was that his team lost and the other church team won. Thus, the young pastor of Verble escaped divine judgment with a simple warning. But, I wonder what judgment the other church received?

We slid back down the Monterey Mountain, had lunch with Kathy and Daddy at home. Mama fixed ham that day, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and okra. Her tea was cold enough, but I sure wished she’d use a little more sugar.

Sunday afternoon slid by like a long note on a violin. Then, around 5:30 P.M., I got back in mama’s car and flew solo- destination: Algood First Baptist Church.

On that Sunday night, I listened to Brother Eddie preach to a packed out church. Brother Eddie, a venerable 29 years of age, had been a pastor for five years. He and his wife Becky, along with their two boys, Nathan and Jonathan had lived in Algood for just a few months when I was brought in as Youth Director.

In his earliest months as pastor, the deacons carried in folding chairs, opened the accordion doors in the back of the sanctuary for six more pews full of people to sit. The church overflowed like a river in rainy season over their new pastor.

Brother Eddie went from zero to full sermon in five minutes. He paced around the massive wooden pulpit like a prizefighter. His index finger occasionally pointed his steel rimmed glasses back into place as beads of sweat ran down his forehead. His open black Bible opened to his text.

And lying beside his Bible, were a set of notes.

A single sheet of typing paper lay folded in half with typed, single spaced notes. Black type often ran into red type for points of emphasis along the homeletical path.

The sermon required forty-five minutes. The message required ten.

When Brother Eddie gave the invitation, people streamed down the aisle like two rivers flowing into the ocean. Some came for salvation, some came for recommitment, and some prayed for friends and relatives.

After the service, I said good night for the first time to my new church family. I talked briefly to Brother Eddie, and made the trip back home to 135 Sullivan Street in DeBerry Heights.

Safe at home, these were moments requiring thought and prayer. After going through my first day in the ministry, I needed a setting suitable for mature contemplation and meditation. With none available, I chose the family camper parked beside the house.

With the window fan blowing, it made the humidity of an early Tennessee in August comfortable. I folded the middle table down, made the two couches into a king sized bed and listened to the radio. Late into the night, I picked up stations from New Orleans to Knoxville.

Preachers preached on one station, jazz music jazzed on another. Screeching doors opened horror stories one station as other stations were closing their broadcast day.

Inside the camper, with the lights from Sullivan Street peering in, I thought of my future. I wondered if I would ever be as good of a preacher as daddy. I wondered if I would have a wife before the rapture occurred. I wondered if I would have kids before I turned thirty. I wondered if I could somehow find my own style of delivery for preaching the good news one day.

As the notes of a crescent city clarinet played "Just A Closer Walk With Thee," I made some calculations. The way I figured it, if the Lord could bring a prodigal preacher all the way back from Lebanon, some 60 miles away, if he could use Brother Eddie’s sermon, if He could find a church for me to serve, then He’d surely help me.

I lay back on the king sized bed, pulled mama’s 13-year-old quilt over me, and faded off into a deep and peaceful sleep.

I awoke before dawn this morning, Friday, August 10, 2001. I sat waiting for morning on my back porch facing the western sky. While I sipped coffee, strummed Bible verses about God’s faithfulness, the morning newspaper begged for attention in the breeze.

As the morning sun shyly glanced over the corners of my roof, the newspaper revealed August 10, 2001. I raised my cup in honor of the one who raised his Son for me. Our 21^st anniversary in the ministry. As my wife and two boys lay sleeping inside the house in a deep and peaceful sleep, rapture could be just moments away.