No Money, No Motivation, and No Morale

It is funny how things pop back into your mind.  Sometimes it is something you may smell, it is a word, or name spoken, or it is an event unleashing a flood of memories.

The other day a load of pine timber passed.  Suddenly, I was transported back to the pulpwood days of growing up in Chilton County.  Stumbling through the woods, tripping over vines, and falling over stumps with a ten-inch stick of pulpwood on your shoulder is comical now, but frustrating back then.  I did learn to fall gracefully without injury.  It was great off-season training for football.

When a truckload of pine lumber passed me the other day, I thought about all the houses that I helped Brother Bill Langston build.  Building houses was much more fun than loading pulpwood and carpentry paid more too.  Lumber is much cleaner than pulpwood.  Shoulder loading pine timber from woods burned annually results in smutty necks and arms that are very hard to clean, especially when you wash yourself in a washtub or pan.  Pine rosin from pulpwood and fresh sawed lumber is hard to remove.  Usually, you wear it off.

I received a call the other day informing me that a member from the first church I pastored passed away.  The family of AC Oaks wanted me to have a part in the funeral service.  It is important when a member of a church that you pastored thirty years ago wants you to say a few words.  I feel fortunate in that every church I pastored, I left it on good terms and could return.  I know that there are churches that do not want former pastors back and there are pastors that do not want an invitation to return for any reason.  Thirty years in the ministry seems like yesterday.  When I first started, it seemed unattainable.

AC was a true friend and mentor at the beginning of my tenure.  As I met with his wife Peggy and their children I immediately thought of all the good times I shared with them.  I had the privilege to commune with them more time than I could count.  Fellowship, the church we all ministered, was a small church of about fifteen in attendance. 

I remember the first Sunday I met the Oaks family.  I attended school with AC’s children and was attending the University of Montevallo with his daughter-in-law.  I had seen AC on many occasions, but I never had met him personally until that first Sunday I was at Fellowship to supply. 

After supplying for three Sundays, Fellowship extended a call to me to be pastor.  It was a challenge and opportunity to live out my calling.  The church had been in existence for a short time.  Fellowship started the Baptist way, a church split.  Sixty-eight members left a neighboring church and started a new church in an old and outdated Methodist church.

Full of enthusiasm, members of Fellowship dug a basement beside the old church.  It did not take long for the excitement to turn to an exodus.  When the money ran out, it took the motivation and members with it.

I became their third pastor.  There was no money, no motivation, and no morale.  The church was three months behind on the church payment, the butane gas was empty and the gas company would not refill, and the electricity was in the process of disconnection.

AC and family were pioneers.  That is what a member of the Alabama State Board of Missions called the remaining members.  AC was dedicated to Fellowship and was an emotion man.  I think that his frequent bouts with sickness personified his emotions.  I thank God for his wisdom and leadership.  In less than three years, Fellowship Baptist Church paid all delinquent bills, purchased a new piano, waterproofed the abandoned basement, and had two thousand dollars n a building fund.

I remember one Sunday that the old church was so cold that there was frost on the piano.  We had a modified Sunday School and Worship and everyone went to AC and Peggy’s to thaw.  Another time there was a blizzard during an associational brotherhood breakfast and before the men could attend morning worship, we cancelled church.  AC and I went to the church to be there incase someone came that morning.  The church was near Interstate 65 and we thought someone might be stranded and need a place to weather the snow and ice.

There are plenty of stories.  One we celebrated at the wake was the cantata we did.  We had more in the cantata choir than were in the audience.  We laughed about cantata, but we performed it for the Lord and five church members.  AC thought the cantata was great.

One morning a young girl rode a small motor scooter round and round the church.  We played that the scooter stop annoying us.  God honored the prayer and the scooter quit.

AC supported me when I was a novice pastor.  He encouraged me in the ministry and we talked many time through the years.  I thank God for AC and our relationship.

When I think of Fellowship Baptist Church and AC, I remember Paul’s words to the Church at Philippi: I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6 KJV)