A STORY WORTH TELLING
“When your church is small, you know everyone’s prayer requests before they even ask.”
— Author unknown
Small churches and country preachers are the best at delivering sermons that combine spiritual appeal from the word of God with a touch of practical wisdom rooted in their own personal experiences.
I was raised in a small town by loving parents. My mom attended church every Sunday, and it was an unspoken expectation that we would go with her. No excuse was good enough for her to warrant missing the assembling of the saints.
Throughout my lifetime hearing country preachers, I have acquired a deep appreciation for their dedication and sacrifice, many of them requiring what one preacher friend called “a day job” to make ends meet.
One East Texas preacher I knew some years ago comes to mind. He was an elderly gentleman with an ever-present smile and a kind word. Possessed of a stoic stature, he had white hair and an unfaltering recall of Scripture without so much as looking at a Bible.
He had been delivering Sunday sermons for decades of presidential administrations.
He not only preached the word of God and the promise of eternal reward, but also included tidbits of practical advice for this side of heaven; suggestions no doubt learned from years in the pulpit and tending to people’s spiritual needs.
“Your body is a temple unto the Lord,” he often delivered, leaning over the pulpit for extra emphasis. “Keep it healthy and ready for service by engaging in some form of exercise every day.”
Being a minister who practiced what he preached, he always added he personally walked several miles a day. What he didn’t mention while proclaiming that walking was good for one’s health was that his “exercise” was usually executed with a cane pole over his shoulder, walking in the general direction of a nearby fishing hole.
Another of his suggestions was to do God’s will through action. “Squeeze in random acts of kindness at every opportunity,” he preached. “Do a good deed every day.”
On this advice, he once admitted in a sermon that if he had to choose between doing a good deed for his neighbor or saying a prayer to God, the creator might have to hold off for a few minutes for the prayer until he was done helping someone.
Another tidbit of advice was to “make two or three good friends among the old folks while you’re still young.”
Like everything he said, I wholeheartedly agreed with him on this one. I had just one problem. By the time I understood what he meant, I was well past the point in life considered young by common standards. Stories of down-toearth wisdom from heaven-oriented country preachers came to mind last week.
Carrying out my “oncea- year, whether it needs it or not” desk cleaning, I happened upon a message from my daughter, Robin. It was from almost 30 years ago and included some suggestions from the pulpit she had collected. One was credited to a Tennessee preacher who advocated, “Most people are kind, polite and sweet-spirited … until you try to sit in their pew.”
Another who answered complaints about a preacher with, “If a church wants a better preacher, it can usually get one by praying for the one it already has.”
This one I’ve heard many times: “A lot of church members who are singing ‘Standing on The Promises’ are merely sitting on the premises.”
There was also food for thought from Oklahoma: “We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers.”
And from Ohio, stating, “Every evening, I turn my troubles over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway.”
Robin included with her communique a message preached somewhere by a country preacher in a small town every Sunday.
She didn’t say where she found it, but it’s called “The Bible in 50 Words.”
“God made; Adam bit; Noah arked; Abraham split; Joseph ruled; Jacob fooled; Bush talked; Moses balked; Pharaoh plagued; people walked; sea divided; tablets guided; promise landed; Saul freaked; David peeked; prophets warned; Jesus was born; God walked; love talked; anger crucified; hope died; love rose; spirit flamed; word spread; God remained.”
Somewhere every Sunday, a country preacher delivers a spiritual message with a deep understanding of human nature, focusing on faith connected with a sense of rural life.
They know who needs a prayer before it is ever asked for.
Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com
