Baptist & Reflector

Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835

BILL EDMONDS CELEBRATES 61 YEARS OF MINISTRY

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

Bill Edmonds, left, and his wife Imogene stand with their pastor, Kenny Rains, prior to a June 27 service at First Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, commemorating Edmonds’ 61 years of ministry as a Tennessee Baptist pastor and evangelist.

OLIVER SPRINGS —  Tennessee Baptist pastor and evangelist Bill Edmonds preached his first sermon at the age of 24 at Meadowview Baptist Church in Wartburg.

Sixty-one years later, on the same day and time (June 27 at 6 p.m.), Edmonds preached again, this time at First Baptist Church, Oliver Springs, where he was ordained into the ministry. He considers Oliver Springs home and is a member of the local high school’s athletic hall of fame. [Read more…]

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SHOWING THE WAY TO FINISHING WELL

By Randy C. Davis
TBMB President & Executive Director

Don Cobb

One of the mixed blessings of being a pastor is presiding or participating in funerals, especially those of Christian friends. On the one hand there is sadness for the loss of family members and friends; on the other there is the celebration knowing those individuals “see in full” as the Apostle Paul writes. They have arrived safely into the arms of Jesus. They’re home.

Doug Sager

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the joy and high honor of participating in the funerals of two gentlemen leaders and choice servants of God — pastors Don Cobb and Doug Sager. Both these men exemplified what it means to love God and love people. They set the bar high for pastoral ministry while demonstrating the highest level of humility. Both had a passion to see people come to saving faith in Jesus. Both demonstrated what we can be when we walk with God and submit to His leadership every day, every week, every month, every year, year-after-year until Jesus calls us home. Both men left legacies whose ripple effects will reap a Kingdom harvest for years to come. They’ve shown us how to finish well. [Read more…]

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EVERYBODY NEEDS A PASTOR — EVEN THE PASTOR

By Johnnie Godwin
Contributing Columnist, B&R

Everybody needs a pastor! Even a pastor needs one. But just what is a pastor to be and do to meet our needs? Today we use so many words to describe the role of pastor that I feel the need to put a laser focus on why I say everybody needs a pastor. I’m talking just about the one “somebody” God gives a church to preach and shepherd our souls in and at all of life’s turns.

No one person can be and do all that a church of any size expects of its pastor. I know that because I was a pastor for 11 years in Texas. I served for a time on the staff of a mega-church. Also, over a dozen years during the last 50, I’ve been an interim pastor in Tennessee. Interim pastors are kind of like granddads: while they’re present, they’re going to love on the church and be loved. Then they’re gone. [Read more…]

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IN PURSUIT OF THE PERFECT PASTOR

By Randy C. Davis
TBMB President & Executive Director

Let me go ahead and say it: Pastors aren’t perfect.

Surely that isn’t new information for anyone, but I can almost hear you saying, “Well thanks for that news flash Captain Obvious.” But let me ask, if we already know that why do we expect different from our pastors?

Ironically, I’m not just talking to the dear brothers and sisters who gather each week in our pews. I’m also talking to the men who stand in the pulpit in front of those pews. Both groups know the truth yet too often live in the world of unmet expectations rather than reality. [Read more…]

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TENNESSEE PASTORS ‘PAID A BIG PRICE’

By David Roach
Baptist Press

Pastor Paul Turner of First Baptist Church in Clinton, Tenn., told the congregation Scripture “never compromises with sin” the week after he was beaten by segregationists.
– Screen capture from YouTube.

NASHVILLE — Striving for racial reconciliation was costly for some Southern Baptist pastors, (including two who served in Tennessee) in the 1950s through the 1970s. It cost Jack Kwok his property and Paul Turner a beating by angry segregationists.

But Kwok, who has served as executive director of the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio since 1996, says the price pastors and other ministers paid was worth the result. Today, though more progress is needed, nearly one in five Southern Baptist churches is non-Anglo, and about half of North American Mission Board church plants are predominantly non-Anglo. [Read more…]

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‘RENEGADE’ PASTOR FINDS PEACE IN JESUS

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Morgan Clough displays a copy of his new book, Renegade Preacher: From Rape to Recovery.

MADISONVILLE — Morgan Clough would be the first to admit he did not take the traditional path to becoming a Southern Baptist pastor.

In fact, he was well off the path for most of his first 35 or so years of life — having been raped 52 times as a child and later falling into a life of alcohol, addiction, and crime. [Read more…]

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AN INCREDIBLE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Last year the Baptist and Reflector told the story of Tiffany Bowen, a pastor’s wife in West Tennessee, who was a self-described “atheist, feminist bartender.” Tiffany candidly shared her story of her journey from someone who denied God to becoming the wife of Jason Bowen, who would later become pastor of First Baptist Church, Trenton.

At the conclusion of the story, Tiffany said she was willing to share her story anywhere, anytime. “If it brings God glory, then I’m an open book,” she stated. A year later, the book is still open.  [Read more…]

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HICKS CELEBRATES 35 YEARS IN MADISONVILLE

By David Dawson
Baptist and Reflector

Pastor Frank Hicks and his wife Barbara were recently honored for 35 years of ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Madisonville.

MADISONVILLE — Frank Hicks says it feels like yesterday that he began his pastorship at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Madisonville.

In actuality, it was more than 12,500 yesterdays ago.

Displaying loyalty and longevity, Hicks has served as the senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist for three and half decades.

Last month, the church held a celebration — which included a surprise video during the worship service and a potluck lunch — to mark his 35th anniversary.  [Read more…]

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MINISTRY COMES FULL CIRCLE FOR PASTORS

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Larry Fields, left, who served as interim pastor of Smithwood Baptist Church, Knoxville, for nearly a year, welcomes new pastor Jeff Lane to the church. Fields baptized Lane when he was 8 years old at Central Baptist Church, Bearden, in Knoxville.

KNOXVILLE — Larry Fields, pastor emeritus at the Central Baptist Church, Bearden, in Knoxville, has served as interim pastor at Smithwood Baptist Church in Knoxville since January.

When the pastor search committee at Smithwood recently recommended that Jeff Lane, associate pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., be called as their new pastor, both Fields and Lane realized they had had an earlier relationship.  [Read more…]

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‘UNLOCK THE DOOR’ AND SHARE THE GOSPEL

By Tim Ellsworth
Union University News Office

Officers for the Tennnessee Baptist Pastors Conference for the coming year are, from left, Scott Parkison, Stevens Street Baptist Church, Cookeville, president-elect; Tim McGehee, Grace Baptist Church, Tullahoma, president; and Daryl Crouch, Green Hill Church, Mount Juliet, secretary-treasurer.

HENDERSONVILLE — A sick church in today’s culture is likely the result of ineffective and ailing leaders and ministers, David Platt said Nov. 13 at the Tennessee Baptist Pastors Conference.

Platt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, was the final speaker for the conference at First Baptist Church in Hendersonville. He said the Old Testament prophets were addressing not just the sickness of the nation of Israel but their own shortcomings as well.

“It’s time for our hearts to be right before the Lord,” Platt said. [Read more…]

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