“Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services” (Nehemiah 13:14).  “Remember me, O God, for good” (Nehemiah 13:30).

In the 18 months since I moved back to Mississippi, twice I have had men approach me, introduce themselves, and thank me for something I did over three decades ago.

After graduating from seminary in New Orleans in 1967, my young family and I moved to the Mississippi Delta region where I pastored a church for three years.  Then, we moved to the capital city of Jackson where for another three years, I served on staff of the great First Baptist Church.  Following that, we lived in Columbus, Mississippi for nearly thirteen years as I pastored the First Baptist Church.  Then, we moved away.

That was thirty-two years ago, 1986.

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This is a risky thing to write.  I’m well aware that what is a great salary for one person would be considered starvation wages for another.  But perhaps it’s a story worth telling. 

I’m in my ninth year of retirement now and can look back at some scary moments and see the hand of the Lord at work in dramatic fashion.

Take the time I went from a church paying me $80,000 a year to one offering a $48,000 salary.

“Do preachers ever go to a church that pays less?” people ask.  Sure.  They do it all the time.  In one sense that’s what I did.  In another sense, it’s not even close.

Here’s the story.

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I was in a congregation of ministers at FUMC in Birmingham once in the early 70s when Billy Graham entered.  A shock wave moved across the auditorium.  It was amazing, and I had no explanation for it.

He was God’s man.  No question about it.

During the last years of the 1980s, I pastored Charlotte’s First Baptist Church and visited with Billy and Ruth Graham on several occasions.  His sister Catherine was in my church, along with her family.  Mostly, we shared a hospital waiting room while their friend and my congregant Dr. Grady Wilson was in surgery.   Once I handed them a notepad and asked them to write their favorite scripture verse and sign it.  That this was a presumptuous thing to do never entered my mind.

Billy jotted down “Psalm 16:11” and signed that familiar name.  I said, “I’m glad you wrote that because I’ve quoted that verse for years as Billy Graham’s favorite.”  Ruth Bell Graham laughed and said, “My favorite keeps changing!” As I recall, she wrote Proverbs 3:8-13 and signed it. My secretary had those two notes framed and they hung in my office for years, until I donated them to a fundraiser for a New Orleans ministry.

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“A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.  Give her the fruit of her own hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:30-31).

You can’t pay tribute to a lifelong pastor’s wife without talking about her husband also.

Mrs. James “Cissa” Richardson went to Heaven over the weekend.  Her husband, Dr. James Richardson, longtime pastor and dear friend and mentor, had preceded her by 15 years or more.  I miss him every day.

Cissa was 90 years old.  I knew her wonderful mother.  Mrs. Alexander, of Cleveland, MS, was as lovely and charming as her daughters Cissa and Toni (Antoinette Myers).  In the late 1960s Mrs. Alexander would listen to my daily radio program from Greenville, MS, and was always gracious in her comments.

The Richardsons pastored the First Baptist Church of Leland, MS for some 25 years, followed by another 15 or so at FBC Madison MS.  Wherever they went, they were wonderfully used of the Lord.

Margaret and I came to know the Richardsons in the late 1960s when we went to pastor in Greenville, MS, a few miles west of Leland. We quickly came to see James was made of different stuff from all the other pastor friends we knew.  When we needed a marriage counselor–as we did several times in our 52 years of marital bliss (Margaret would roll her eyes at that)–James was willing to help us. That forever bonded us.

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For two years after college, I worked as the secretary to the production manager in a cast iron pipe plant in Tarrant City, a suburb of Birmingham. I took shorthand, wrote Mr. Hooper’s letters, typed up instructions for the foundry and orders for the shipping.  I worked the teletype and emptied Mr. Hooper’s spittoon.

It was unlike anything I had ever done before or did afterward.  I loved everything about those two years.  We were young marrieds, and soon with a baby son, and in addition to working at the plant, I was beginning to pastor a small church 25 miles north of the city. Everything was new and fresh, scary and untried, and the adrenalin was always pumping.

In college, I had majored in history planning to be a teacher, so to say my theological education was lacking is the understatement of the year.  I had no idea how to prepare a sermon or to deliver it once I came up with one.  So every week I re-invented the wheel.  The sermons were pitiful, but they were sincere efforts from this eager, naïve, kid preacher. Give Unity Baptist Church of Kimberly, Alabama credit; they were patient.  For the entire 14 months I remained with them.  Smiley-face here.

They paid me 10 dollars a week.  My tithe was twelve.  In one sense, I was paying them for the privilege of pastoring.  It was money well spent.  Another smiley-face.

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