ACCIDENTAL PREACHER [9-13-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Man—ACCIDENTAL PREACHER [9-13-26]

 

[The vast majority of people alive today were not even born whenI started preaching, 70 years ago today, as a 19-year-old sophomore at Indiana University [IU]. Please indulge me as I reflect on those 70 years—how I got started, what I did in those 70 years, and what I think I learned. That is too much for one column, so today is the first of three—how it started…]

76 years ago, I made a deal with God, to save my sister’s life. If you save Mary V, I’ll be a preacher. It was all I could think of. I was a thirteen-year-old welfare farm boy. What did I know about what God might want? But God came through. Mary V lived.

But as I listened closely to preachers tell their stories, I realized that you had to be called, by God, to be a preacher. A deal wasn’t actually a call, was it?

I struggled with that alone for six years. Aunt Nora was a church organist, so I figured she would understand all about God. She told me I should talk with the District Superintendent [DS].

So, I went to Evansville to see Dallas Browning. In Methodism, congregations don’t hire pastors. Pastors are appointed to a church, by the bishop, through a DS. The DS is responsible for all the churches in their District, making sure each church has a preacher, every Sunday.

I didn’t tell Dallas Browning about my deal with God. I just said that I was thinking about being a preacher some day. I didn’t know how desperate he was. He said, “Good. You can start next Sunday.”

So, the next Sunday, I started preaching on the 3 church Chrisney Circuit, 100 miles south of IU.

Each Friday, after my last class, I went to the IGA and bought a loaf of Wonder bread and a jar of peanut butter and drove down to Chrisney, where I spent the weekend in the empty parsonage. Well, it wasn’t totally empty. In the back bedroom, there was a narrow metal frame camp bed with a two-inch mattress, and a metal folding chair. I stood at the kitchen counter and ate my meals of white bread and peanut butter sandwiches. For a desk, I turned my big hard-sided Samsonite suitcase on end, and set my portable Smith-Corona typewriter on top of it.

On Saturdays, I visited the shut-ins and widows. I liked that. They gave me cookies, which supplemented my sandwiches nicely. The rest of the day, I worked on my sermon, which meant that I sat at my Samsonite desk and outlined my sermon on my Smith-Corona portable typewriter.

I.

  A.

     1.

        a.

II…     

Perfect outline. The problem was that I didn’t have anything to write out beside all those letters and numbers.         

As it turned out, I didn’t really need an outline. I already had everything necessary to be a great preacher. I was tall and had a deep voice. I told all the good jokes I had heard that week. People laughed, so I told all the bad jokes I’d heard too. They laughed some more. I quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson and anybody else who had shown up in one of my classes that week. The people smiled and nodded. They were pleased that their preacher was so smart. I figured I’d be a bishop by the end of the month.

There were three churches on the Chrisney circuit. That first Sunday, 70 years ago today, I preached the same sermon at all 3, only to learn that it was not the same sermon at all. Each congregation responded differently, and that made it a different sermon each time.

I was on my way. I was no longer worried about whether a deal with God was the same as a call from God. Sunday mornings were easy. Then I found out that being a preacher took in Saturday nights, too… More on that next column.

John Robert McFarland