The Genesis of Our Relationship with Southern Hills

For several years I attended the Sermon Seminar at the Austin Graduate School of Theology.  It was and is one of the finest intensive Bible study opportunities that I know anything about.   One year I rode to Austin with Eddie Randolph, who served as the preaching minister for the Southern Hills church in Shreveport at the time.   One night Eddie wanted to take me out dinner.  Over dinner he asked me to think about the possibility of coming to work with the Southern Hills church at some point in the future.  I didn’t think much of it at the time.  I had no plans to leave Minden, but Eddie had planted a seed.

Actually the germ of a seed had been planted even before that.  While still in Cedar Rapids, I was invited to present some of my holiness material at Pepperdine.  One lady, who came to my class, told me that she intended to buy my book and send it to her father.   He was very much interested in holiness.  She said he lived in Shreveport, Louisiana.   I thought that was nice, but I never dreamed it would have a later impact on my life.

Sometime after I moved to Minden, I got a call from Darline Cook, wife of Charles Cook, who was one of the Southern Hills elders at the time.  She told me that she was in a group that was studying, He Died To Make Men Holy.  She said the group wanted me to visit them some evening.  They wanted to ask me some questions about the book.  That’s always scary.  You wonder if it’s going to be a heresy trial.

The teacher of the class was Earnest Garrett, the father of the woman I met in California.   He was about a hundred years old, but he was incredibly sharp.  He was a brilliant man.  I was told that he helped develop the Poulan chain saw, many years earlier.  

When I got there, it was clear that the members of the group were thoroughly familiar with my book.   As I got to know these people later on, I came to understand they were dedicated Bible students.   Earnest had not only become familiar with my book, he had gone to the library and made an effort to read the original documents of every quotation I cited in the book.  He even pointed out the fact that I had inadvertently put down the wrong volume number on an encyclopedia citation.   They gave me the third degree, but I was fairly familiar with all of their questions, and I didn’t have a great deal of difficulty answering them.  Many of these people would later become my good friends.

In those years Southern Hills invited area preachers to speak to the congregation on Wednesday evenings.  I had several of those opportunities, and in the process I got acquainted with the people.  I remember one lady in particular who introduced her herself to me.  She said, “My name is Mary Berryman.”  I said, “I know who you are.  I grew up in Clyde and your father-in-law baptized me.”  Mary has been a good friend ever since.

Because of these experiences I developed a close relationship with some of the people at Southern Hills.  It was about to become an even closer relationship.

Entering the World of Cyberspace

            When we moved to Minden, we got acquainted with Vic Phares, former youth minister for the church there.  Vic had gone to work for a computer company, and he approached me about the possibility of beginning an online ministry.  At that time I owned an XT computer, and the church had upgraded to a 286.   These days you’d have to go to a museum somewhere to find either one of those dinosaurs.   I didn’t have an on-line connection, and didn’t know how to go about getting one.

            By 1995 that had changed, and in January of 1996 we launched a family themed newsletter, which we sent out to every e-mail address we could find.  We then posted the newsletter on a website.   In a way we were sort of on the ground floor with this website thing.   We started by sending our newsletter to about a hundred addresses, not realizing we were actually committing a cyberspace social error by sending out our newsletter to people who hadn’t requested it.   We learned a new term – spam.  We were spammers and didn’t know it.  We quickly corrected that faux pas and began sending our materials out on a subscription basis, although we’ve never charged anyone for a subscription.  At one point we had about three thousand addresses.  Sixteen years later, we’re still doing it, although the frequency of our posts has been substantially reduced.  Abilene Christian University was gracious enough to let us use their server in those early years.

            When we began, we called our newsletter “Family Matters.”  We tried to be long on family help and short on issues.  The newspaper had named my column that when I started writing for them.   Vic began urging us to come up with a different name, but I resisted it.  One day I got an e-mail message from a man who wanted to send me a script for the “Family Matters” television show.  I decided it was time to listen to Vic.   Ann is actually the person who came up with “All About Families” and the name has stuck through all this time.

            We’ve had an incredible international audience.  Our materials have been translated into several different languages.   At one time we had such an incredible readership in Australia that an Aussie reader asked me to quit using American illustrations.  He said they didn’t connect with people in Australia.   Our Australian connection came about because a man with a larger mailing list than ours asked if he could forward the newsletter to his list.

            About the same time we developed a workshop, which we titled, “Mending a Messed Up Marriage.”   A congregation in Pascagoula, Mississippi hosted our first workshop.  We’ve addressed this topic in several congregations and at Harding, Pepperdine, and Ohio Valley University.

            Little did we realize that this experience would lead us into a different ministry emphasis that would become our focus for more than ten years.

Becoming a Newspaper Columnist

            Shortly after I moved to Minden, I was interviewed by a reporter from the Minden Press-Herald.  For a small town Minden had a rather ambitious newspaper.  The best I can remember, it came out five days a week.  They didn’t publish on the weekends.  My arrival on the scene at Minden was deemed to be a news item, so a lady came to my office and interviewed me.

            During the course of the conversation, the subject of my writing experience came up, and that led to an invitation to write a regular column for the paper.  Two or three other area ministers also wrote columns.  Minden was a traditional Deep South community, and very much a part of the Bible Belt, so it seemed natural to them to have ministers contribute columns on spiritual topics.

            As I read over the other columns, I came away with the impression that they were often little more than a summary of the previous week’s sermons.  I thought I might have more readers if I tried something different.  I asked about writing a column on family issues.  It was sort of a natural extension of the radio spots, although I didn’t confine myself to family issues on the radio.   The columns appeared weekly, and were well received in the community.   The paper named my column Family Matters.   At the time that was the name of a popular television sitcom.

            Once I wrote a column about fishing.  It really wasn’t about fishing. It was designed to get the attention of the fisherman who might be neglecting his domestic responsibilities.   Minden was filled with fisherman, but few of them heard my sermons.  They were on the lake on Sundays.   I thought one or two of them might read my column, so I wrote something of a parable about fishing.

I went on for several paragraphs about how a successful bass fisherman might give his undivided attention to the business of catching fish, and then I suggested that he might have a better relationship with his wife, he would take that much interest in her.   As things turned out, there was a man in Minden, who was a Bassmaster.  He read my column, and his wife contacted me to tell me how much he liked it.   I had done quite a bit of research to make sure my references to fishing were authentic.  I think he was impressed with my accuracy.   I hope he took an equal amount of interest in his marriage.

            I wrote Family Matters throughout my tenure at Minden, and that ended up having an influence on a new direction in my ministry.  It started with the internet.  I’ll talk about that next.

Mary Kay Lady

Shortly before we left Iowa, Ann signed up as a Mary Kay consultant.  After we moved to Minden, she felt like she couldn’t work at nursing any longer, so she put an enormous amount of energy toward developing a Mary Kay business.  She continues to be a consultant today, but she doesn’t pursue it actively. She basically just provides products for those who want it.  She doesn’t beat the bushes trying to find new clients.

Several times we attended the Mary Kay Seminars in Dallas.  These were always occasions in which she received a great deal of encouragement.  We heard wonderful rags to riches stories, and we thoroughly enjoyed those experiences. One year, she left the seminar during the afternoon to rest up for the evening’s activities.  She went back to our hotel and soaked in the pool for a little while.  To her great surprise, Mary Kay Ashe, herself walked by the pool area and spoke to her.

I went along on some of these trips, and I especially enjoyed the special activities they had for the guys.   I remember the trip to a dude ranch, which really wasn’t much of a ranch at all.  It was more of a recreational center.  I tried trap shooting (didn’t come anywhere close to the clay pigeons).   A couple of guys from Michigan asked me to join them in a game of miniature golf.  I protested that I wasn’t any good, which was the honest truth.  They thought I was setting them up.   I actually played a fairly decent game and didn’t embarrass myself.  Maybe they were just about as unathletic as I am.

What I really wanted to do was ride a horse.  I practically grew up on the back of a horse, but I hadn’t been in the saddle for thirty years at that point.  I walked (No, I sauntered.  I have to use cowboy terms.) down to the corral and talked with the wrangler.   I noticed he wore a PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) belt.  He told me that he had served as a pick up at the national finals in Las Vegas.  In a little while, I was given a horse to ride.  The wrangler’s assistant was a young lady.  She warned me that the horse had a tendency toward independence.   The wrangler heard her and said, “You don’t have to tell that boy nothin’.   He grew up on a farm.”  That much was true, but when I climbed into the saddle, I realized it had been a long time since my last ride.  Fortunately it all came back to me, and I did fine.

Ann really enjoyed Mary Kay.  She especially enjoyed the positive people who surrounded her, but she eventually decided that you have to work too hard to become a director, and she decided she had other goals in life.  She was really good at conducting the beauty classes, and she’s grateful for the experience.

People Who Made a Difference

We spent five years in Minden.  We didn’t set new attendance records. We didn’t launch programs that reshaped the culture of the church, but we didn’t merely mark time either.   The most significant thing that happened to us in Minden was developing a love for the people.  I hesitate to mention names because I will necessarily leave out some people we hold dear, but I really can’t tell you about our time in Minden without names.  If you’re reading this and wondering why you were left out, it’s just because I don’t have enough space.  Some of those I will mention have gone to be with the Lord.  Others are still with us.

Al and Catherine Hays.  They were some of the first people we met when we visited Minden the first time.  They were Texans who moved there with Walter Frazier (Jim’s father) when he settled in that area.  Although we were in our late fifties when we arrived, we looked up to them as role models.  We didn’t visit them to encourage them. We visited them to be encouraged.  Both Al and Catherine have gone on.  I was in the room with Al when he died.

Adrian and Edith DeLukie.   Edith passed away when we lived in Minden, and Adrian recently ended his earthly sojourn.  He was still preaching up until the last months of his life.  I enjoyed a telephone conversation with him about a year ago.  He was one of the most respected church leaders in Webster Parish.  Adrian and I didn’t agree on everything, but he was my defender.  He would ardently defend my right to be wrong.   My admiration for him grew as the years passed.  In retrospect, I couldn’t ask for a greater cheerleader.

Dewey and Gwili King.   They shared lunch with us on our first visit to Minden. They often invited us into their home.   Dewey was a laid back fellow, you couldn’t help but enjoy being around.   To sit and talk with him was to talk with a man who had a lot of common sense. Dewey served as an elder in the church at one time, but that was before I came to Minden. Dewey is another good friend, whom I expect to see next in eternity. Gwili was and is a person with a servant heart.  She has a quite, gentle, and encouraging spirit.  She is a gracious hostess.  To my mind she defines Southern hospitality.

Harold and Jeanetta Robinson. God gifted Harold with a remarkable voice.  He once sang with a popular music group known as “The Drifters.”  I remember hearing Harold sing “Amazing Grace” at a graveside service.  It was on a hot, still day, and the echo of his voice reverberated off a nearby grove of woods.  It was over a hundred degrees and perfectly still.  Even so, I felt cold chills as I listened to him sing about “When we’ve been there ten thousand years.”  He did one of the best renditions of “Ole Man River” I’ve ever heard.  He had Jennetta raised three remarkable sons.  One Sunday morning, Harold was leading singing, and he started with “My God is Real,” which wasn’t in the song book.  I knew it but most of the people didn’t.  Harold motioned to me to join in with the singing.  I wouldn’t do it.  I just wanted to be encouraged by his remarkable voice.

I could go on, but what I want you to understand is how much people mean to me in the places we’ve served.   These are just a few of those who burned their memories into our hearts.