“Go home to your friends and tell them what the Lord has done for you, how He has had compassion on you.” (Mark 5:19).
Start with the children.
Frank Pollard used to enjoy telling about a friend named Claude Hedges of Ollie, Texas. Mr. Hedges taught a class of 10-year-old boys in the local Baptist church. Frank said, “He didn’t just teach the ones who showed up. He thought every 10-year-old boy in Ollie, Texas belonged to him.”
Frank said, “I knew he was coming. Because I was boy number seven in our house. Mr. Hedges had led all my brothers to Christ, and three of us became preachers.”
Now, Frank is the only one of the brothers I knew, but let me pause to tell you this about him. For over 25 years, he pastored the great First Baptist Church of Jackson, MS. At one time, he served the FBC of San Antonio and then was president of our Baptist seminary in the San Francisco area. Sometime around 1980, TIME magazine named Frank one of the 10 outstanding preachers in America. And, for a number of years, Dr. Frank Pollard was the featured preacher on the Baptist Hour, a television production that was literally beamed across the entire world.
Anyway…
Frank said, “I used to go back and visit with Claude Hedges. I would say, ‘Thank you for doing the best thing anyone ever did for me.'”