Tom D. Campbell - Walking With God, Walking With Others
Exploring faith journeys and inspiring ministries that embody the good news of God. This is the Cumberland Road. I'm your host, TJ Melanosky. With a ministry impacting many people, the Reverend Doctor. Tom Campbell is what we might call today an influencer in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. His colorful commentary in the ability to weave stories filled with humor and insight has added to his experiences over the years in leading new church developments and redevelopments in Arkansas, Texas, and Kentucky. His writings in these days daily devotionals and authoring the books One Family Under God and The Bible and the Calendar have been referenced and used in parish offices and classrooms alike. He assisted and encouraged many men and women preparing for ministry as the director of the program of alternate studies. A former moderator of the General Assembly, a graduate from Bethel University, Memphis Theological Seminary, and Bright Divinity School, I have the privilege to converse with Doctor. Campbell as he shares his faith journey.
T.J.:It really is an honor to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for doing this.
Tom:Doctor. Thank you.
T.J.:Well, I like starting our conversations with a beginning. Doctor. Campbell, can you recall an early experience, an early encounter with God?
Tom:That'd be very difficult to pinpoint because very fortunately, because of the family I grew up in and the church I grew up in, this was part of my DNA almost from the start, maybe exactly from the start. My mother told me that I was only a few weeks old when I first attended presbytery. And in fact, I may have been baptized at a meeting of Presbytery. Now, what does that say? Yeah, That this was out in in Texas, born in Decatur, Texas, lived in Brewery, Texas.
Tom:And so it's been a part of my life. So it'd be hard to pinpoint any one quote experience. There might have been many events over that period of time. Certainly, I was raised up in what you might call a Christian home, and it certainly was a Christian home. And both my mother and my father were devout Christians and lived it more than they talked about it.
Tom:It'd be hard to specify. So I don't remember my first encounter with God. God remembers, but I don't and I was there, but I don't remember.
T.J.:Now you didn't have a chance in terms of leaving the Cumberland Presbyterian Church if you were attending presbytery at such an early age. Boy, it was just foreshadowing your life and your ministry and your faith.
Tom:It was a unique experience in that sense. I do remember as a child, my first general assembly that I attended, that I remembered was 1949. I was 10 years old. And my mother and and the general assembly was in Muskogee, Oklahoma. We lived in McKenzie, but my mother had been asked by the, Women's Missionary Auxiliary to direct a play.
Tom:And in that play, I was to play a little boy in a wheelchair, who could not walk, some sort of disease or accident or something. And so I didn't want to, but she volunteered me. And so I didn't see any of the general assembly, but I was in the missionary convention there for a while. But my mother tells me that later in the week, the play was in the first part of the week, later in the week, I'm walking up and down the hall and people are saying, It's a miracle. He can walk now.
Tom:So, I must have been a tremendously good actor to convey my lameness. So I was a part of the church at age 10. In the McKenzie Church where I grew up, I remember my Sunday school teachers. I remember Ms. Mary Lou Grenade, who was the director of the children's work.
Tom:And she had a wooden cake. It was maybe marble cake. You could put a candle in it. And at the end of Sunday school, before church, if there was a birthday, we would gather in the hall behind the sanctuary in the McKenzie church and wish that person a happy birthday. This is the poem.
Tom:This is the prayer. Many happy returns from the day of thy birth. May sunshine and gladness be given. And may the dear father prepare thee, oh earths. For a beautiful birthday in heaven.
Tom:Why do I remember that? And by the time I got to be sixth or seventh grader, that cake had dirty fingerprints all over it and it was not white anymore. And but it was used until Ms. Grenade passed away. Ms.
Tom:Mary Lou. Yep.
T.J.:Doctor Campbell, can you share with me some other individuals that have had a great impact on you and and your faith in your growing up years, but even in your current years, folks that have influenced you?
Tom:Well, back in again in Sunday school time and Sunday evening youth meetings, the youth meetings led by Lena Hudson, Lena Esri Hudson. She had come down from Montrose, Missouri to attend Bethel College. And she married James Hudson, who was the business manager at the college. And I think they had two sons. Well, now she was the youth leader for the Sunday evening thing.
Tom:And outstanding, outstanding, very good. And of course, I know I had a son's school teacher named Mrs. Hidden. I forget her first name. Maybe Khalilah Mae Hidden.
Tom:And then other teachers along the way, the ministers, E. R. Raymer was the pastor when we moved to Mackenzie in 1944. He had come over from Milan and had also been at Dyersburg. So he was a pastor until about '53 when Glenn hit Glenn Finley came.
Tom:So, Glenn Finley was my pastor during my high school years and and he was there about ten years and then was followed by Robert Forrester but by that time, I was at doing some work in the church anyway. So, the McKenzie Church, historic church, historic building, built about 1875. General Assembly was held there two or three times in the twentieth century. And so, to me, McKinsey was the center of the universe. Everything focused on McKinsey.
Tom:I felt sorry for anybody who didn't live in McKinsey. And it was just a great place to be. And all twelve of my years of public school were there, and then four years at Bethel and three years at the seminary, all right there in McKinsey.
T.J.:Who else has helped influence and shape your faith, especially in your your growing up years? Your your father was a minister and and Correct. Writer. And, gosh, I can only imagine some of the theological discussions that came about perhaps in the household in your growing up years.
Tom:And as I enter the ministry and began to study for the ministry, he and I talked more and more and more about church things. He wrote a lot of history, but I remember when he was introduced one time in a church in Texas to speak on something, he said, I'd rather make history than write history. Well, he made history too. And of course, he wrote history of the church in Texas. Then he wrote history.
Tom:He co wrote history of church in Arkansas and co wrote people called Cumberland Presbyterians and other books as well. So, there was that influence. He never tried to he never he never, he never tried in any way to influence me in regard to the ministry, but I certainly grew up in the in that atmosphere and had positive feelings about it. Never had good consideration until after my freshman year of college.
T.J.:So what happened then your freshman year or after your freshman year?
Tom:In the summer of that year, which would be 1958, I, had signed up for, believe it or not, four camps in a row. We're talking four camps in a row, very little sleep in any of them. You get your clothes cleaned on Saturday or Sunday and then you head back again. So, I went to four camps to go, East Tennessee Synod, West Tennessee Senate, West Tennessee Senate Junior High Camp as a counselor, and then what was then YPGA, what's now CPYC. And during the East Tennessee camp, a couple of campers thought I was already a minister.
Tom:No, I'm not. But those conversations got me to think about it. Then the next week, the West Tennessee camp was at Natchez Trace, the worst possible place to have a church camp you ever saw. All the cabins were scattered. You have to drive to hear that.
Tom:Terrible. But it was a good experience to be together with people. And my pastor, Glenn Finley, was there. By that time, I was thinking about it seriously. And so he and I sat together in his car for a couple of hours one day one day to talk about it.
Tom:And I that weekend, I think, began to talk about it with my parents a little bit. And so I can tell you when it happened. I was mowing the yard. It was a push mower, the front yard of our house in McKenzie, and there was very little grass to begin with. But what there what was there needed to be mowed.
Tom:I could tear the spot. I was really thinking about everything. As I turned the lawnmower to go down another row, it really hit me. What hit me? I could see myself doing it.
Tom:That was it. I could see myself doing it, doing the work of a pastor or preaching. Well, the very next day was a Sunday, and I've been to two church camps already, and I'm at church on Sunday in the choir. And the closing hymn is Jesus is tenderly calling me home. Calling today, calling today.
Tom:Get to the third verse and the last line of the third verse, come and no longer delay. I had not looked ahead to that verse. I had not anticipated those words. I had not done any planning at all. But when those words hit me, I put the hymn book down, I put the bulletin down, I made my way out of the back row of the choir and went down to that altar.
Tom:Put my hand out, shook hands with Ben Finley, and I said, This is it? And he said, Is this it? I said, This is it. We knew. So then, everybody greeted me.
Tom:Everybody knew me. I knew them. Two of my friends, Anne Martin and Patricia Hall, were members of the First Baptist Church right across the street. People did this all the time. They'd go from church to church just to visit.
Tom:They were there. Patricia Hall married one of my best friends, Billy Webb. He and I played basketball together. So, Ann and Patricia had just graduated from high school because I had just finished my first year of college. They were there.
Tom:And so, they witnessed whatever it was they witnessed. And then the very next day I went to that junior high camp. Well, I was exhausted. And maybe the second or third day, you know, right after lunch, you have the rest time or the rest period. I went to sleep.
Tom:And these junior high boys got involved in a pillow fight in the cabin and outside. And the director of the camp, Reverend James Bridges, made them pick up every feather inside and out of that building. All the time I'm sleeping. I knew nothing about it. It was all over.
Tom:So, did that. Then the fourth week, I went to Evoca, PGA and then the later names, where it was held for a long time over around Tullahoma, Tennessee. And someone that I had been to college with said, I understand you've joined the Presbytery. Well, I didn't know what that meant, but, are you gonna join the Presbytery? And I said, yep, that that that's what you do.
Tom:You come under the care of the Presbytery, which I did a couple of months later when they met in September. So, that's how that happened. But that doesn't mean that it was a whim or a spontaneous spur of the moment thing, although I was thinking about it. But I remember my freshman year in college when Carl Ramsey, who was then executive of the Board of Missions, came. He may have preached the revival at the church in McKenzie, but he spoke at an assembly at Bethel College and he talked about the ministry.
Tom:And he said, Here's what I want you to do. If you're going to give in your choice of a career, if you're going to give medicine or teaching or sales or whatever else a chance? Why not give the ministry a chance? Give it equal time and equal thought. Well, that must have stayed with me because I remember it to this day.
Tom:I remember it. And I've used that quite a bit in talking with people. You say, Well, I can't go unless I'm called. Well, why not give yourself an opportunity to be called and and give god an opportunity to work in your life as you make your choice. It is a choice but it you're also chosen.
T.J.:Doctor Campbell, you have been I don't know if you know this or not, but an inspiration. An example to me, you have started new churches and and also a church redevelopment, and it takes a special person to be able to do that. I think it takes somebody who loves god very much but also loves people very much and your sharing of of the faith and sharing the good news. What is it that you share with others about Jesus that draws people in, that finds the transformative power of god so appealing and you have so many life experiences that have placed you in those places, in those positions. What is it that you share about Jesus, with others who have yet to to know him or to make a profession of faith?
Tom:I have no idea. I don't know what I do or say that influences people. If it does for good, I'm so glad. In regard to new churches, of course, I grew up, talking to my father a lot and by that time, I was, an ordained minister and and he, was a member of White River Presbytery over in Arkansas, had been for years. And he told about an effort in Batesville, Arkansas that the church presbytery was starting.
Tom:And so I became interested in that. Carl Ramsey and I went to Batesville, Arkansas, visited with a group at the high school auditorium, maybe with 30 people who were members of Cumberland Presbyterian churches in the rural area outside of Batesville, but they lived in Batesville now. So, he and I went and met with them. And then, I made a little talk and then we walked outside. Well, they concurred with each other.
Tom:And they concurred with each other. They kept concurring. And so, we're standing outside wondering, what are they gonna finish and what are they going to decide. When we walked back in finally at their invitation, they said they'd like for me to come in the summertime, after school, which I did. And I visited house to house, house to house in as much of the town as I could, meeting people and, telling about the new church we were going to start.
Tom:And, I would say my father's enthusiasm for new churches, he had actually started a few new churches. Shreveport, Louisiana was one. And so, was fully aware of the need for new churches. I felt in regard to the denomination, and it's been proven over the years that some of the best growth in the denomination has come from new church development. And Albuquerque was a new church.
Tom:In fact, every church we've ever had was at one time a new church.
T.J.:So,
Tom:after Batesville, Arkansas came St. Luke in Fort Worth, Texas. And then after a pastorate at Whitehaven in Memphis, went back to Texas to the St. Matthew fellowship that I had helped start before we left Texas years ago to be the pastor there. And even when I was a pastor in Whitehaven, helped start the Germantown Church, preached over there for them over, I think, two or three month period at an early service, to help them get started, met in a community center, I believe.
Tom:And so wherever I've been, I've tried to help and promote in whatever way possible. But what it is, I don't know. I do know this out of my experience in new churches, every Sunday counts. Every Sunday. I remember in Burleson, Texas, First Sunday Of The Year, And we didn't have church.
Tom:The next Sunday, because of the way the calendar was, put it almost at the middle of the month. Well, we needed the offering from the first Sunday to pay some bills, and we didn't have an offering. Or we we had to do something. Well, as you know, in Texas, the weather clears up and the weather gets bad quickly both ways. By Monday, after that terrible weather on Sunday, it was pretty well cleared up.
Tom:I guess late morning, early afternoon, we began to make phone calls. We had our Sunday morning service Monday night. We had to have that offering. And so we did, and that helped us get through. So every Sunday is important.
Tom:Every person was important. I was keenly aware if somebody left because of unhappiness or dissatisfaction, and that happened now and then. And it hurts to have crisis in a little church where every person counts. I remember some tears being shed over some conflict along the way, over little things like scouts using our building. I thought it was a great thing.
Tom:We were plus, t ball teams and and softball teams practicing in our in our churchyard, front yard, and backyard. And the the girl scouts and the Boy Scouts meeting at our church almost every day. And so there was a little problem because a couple of trash cans had been kicked over or something. And so there was a little trash thing around lying on the floor, and some of our members said the scouts must have done it. Scouts must have done it.
Tom:So, they wanted to come up with written rules on the use of the church. And, they also wanted to charge, these groups for using the church, And they almost resigned. That was bad. I called the meeting of the session, and I said, this policy that you're talking about and I cannot coexist. It's one or the other.
Tom:Well, of course, they gave in, but they were resentful of that. And, they gave into my thoughts on that. And it never was the same after that at Saint Matthew in Burleson. I probably stayed about part of another year and moved on to Lexington, Kentucky. But it's those kinds of things.
Tom:They seem to be little, but they're so important in a church where every person counts in a way that's more unique than every person counts in an established church. She always had what you might call a heart for the new church and would try to be encouraging to others who were starting in that area. And it does take, I suppose, determination. It takes stickability and stayability. When I was in Burleson, Texas, I was there seven years.
Tom:And New Methodist Church that had started there had five pastors in those seven years. Wow. Wow. You can't do anything with that many changes. In fact, when I was at Calico Rock, Arkansas, my final pastorate, it was not a new church, but part of a great community.
Tom:The Methodist church there had five pastors in my almost eight years. It is hard. So, one of the things about new church development is you stay with it. I was at St. Luke seven years.
Tom:I was at St. Matthew seven years. I was at Batesville Four Years. So, that helps. It's the predictability, the continuity, the those things enter in to help a church prosper.
Tom:Yes.
T.J.:Doctor Campbell, looking at your relationship with god throughout your life in tough times and in joys and and sorrows and and even hardships, how has your faith in Jesus Christ given you purpose, and how has it grounded you when in, you know, with another individual, it might might just be shaken beyond repair?
Tom:One of the great devotional guides in the Bible is in the Old Testament. Enoch walked with God. That's some of the best devotional guidance right there you ever saw. I would play with that sentence sometimes in a sermon or in a time for children or something. It didn't say Enoch ran with God.
Tom:It didn't say he flew or soared with God. It said he walked with God. And there's something about the walk. You hear people talk about their spiritual walk. Well, it is.
Tom:That's what it is. And even when you're walking, stumble now and then or you have depressing or disappointing moments now and then, but you walk with God. And and in my walk, it was never just Jesus and me. Jesus and me. No.
Tom:It was Jesus and me and others, always others. It was never a private relationship in the sense of me and Jesus and to hell with you or or don't worry about yourself or don't bother me with you. No. It was always others, the church, the relationship, the fellowship with each other. And so if I'm in a walk with God, it's because I'm walking with others who are walking with God.
Tom:I have no I have no special pedigree or ingredients or resume or experience to make me any more special than anybody else. I'm walking with god. And certainly in prayer and in devotions, you you become centered. I think one of the best one of the best illustrations of prayer happened down in Mississippi. I was when I was the pastor director at the seminary in Memphis, I went down to two little Presbyterian USA churches in North Mississippi between between Oxford and Pontotoc, and they were in a little town called Tocopola and Algoma.
Tom:These these two little churches were part of a four church parish, you might say, where they did things together. Every fifth Sunday, they had a Sunday evening singing service at one of the four churches. They got together at least once once a quarter. And so, there was also a little council meeting. Each church had two or three members on that council.
Tom:And so, we're meeting on the front porch at one church. There's a church building, then there's a fellowship hall that's actually a separate house. And on the front porch, we're meeting. And one of our members at the church in Algoma has taken her little granddaughter. Her granddaughter is probably four or five.
Tom:She took her granddaughter with her to the meeting and were sitting on the front porch and her granddaughter and she had laid out a blanket for her. And so she had some toys there. But in the course of the meeting, every so often, she would get up and walk over to her grandmother and hug her grandmother and be hugged by her grandmother and then go back and continue to play with the Torahs, whatever she was doing. I thought, what a great example of what prayer is. Prayer is certainly asking for things, but more than that, prayer is fellowship with God, reassurance with God, and reassurance of God's love.
Tom:She just went over there, not to ask for anything, but just to give her grandmother a hug. Everything's okay. You can go back now. Probably three or four times in the course of that hour and a half meeting, she did that. I thought to myself, what a blessed, wonderful example of what prayer is.
T.J.:Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Well, I have given you the title, the Mark Twain of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and I say that as a term of endearment. I've shared that with you before. I see you as a humorist, as a writer, and as a storyteller.
T.J.:What is one of your favorite stories to tell when you're preaching, just casually? You you almost use that as your you gather us in, whether you were teaching in a classroom or preaching or just casual conversation. It's how you connect and I think draw people in.
Tom:After I entered the ministry, of course, my main interest was preaching. It was it was after I entered the ministry that I realized some all these other responsibilities entered into. So, had to make time for preaching and getting ready to preach. Doctor. John Gardner was a great teacher.
Tom:I learned the basics. Doctor. Robert M. Shelton came along and I became a true fan of his. And then as I moved along in my reading, and I have more than 300 books on preaching, all except two have helped me in some way.
Tom:I can't tell you which two they are, but they're not that good. Anyway, but the best of all was Fred Craddock. And I've heard Fred Craddock in person several times. And I have read his books and his sermons and learned a lot about storytelling. And here's what I learned most of all about storytelling.
Tom:Let the story tell itself. Don't worry about it. Just tell the story. And, of course, all of his were good and I learned a great deal from that. And then Tom Long and then Eugene Lowry and then way, way back, Mr.
Tom:Broadus and then W. E. Sangster. Probably the first book I ever read on preaching was by W. E.
Tom:Sangster, The Craft of the Sermon. And when you had one of the best sermon outlines I ever saw had six words. It was about the prodigal son. The first part was three words, sick of home. The second had either two words or one depending on how you looked at it, homesick.
Tom:And the third had one word, home. That was a prodigal son. Sick of home, homesick, home. What a way to go. Wasn't that wonderful?
Tom:So, I learned a lot about sermon construction, but and and and George Butrick and David Butrick as well and so as the as the time went on, I realized from Ernest T. Campbell as well that you have to do something to interest the people and to bring the people into what you're talking about. I think Ernest Campbell said, One of our jobs as preachers is to read during the week and then tell people what we read on Sunday. Of course, that's stretching it a little bit, but we know the point. And he also said that I may, as the preacher, have been studying this particular passage all week, but my people have not.
Tom:When I read that scripture and begin to talk about it, that's the first they've heard of it all week with maybe rare exceptions. I need to do all I can to go out into their world and bring them into the world that I'm in now in this particular passage. And and, Tom Long was one of the best. One of the best. His introductions were always on on target.
Tom:And I love to hear him preach. And he's a great speaker. One of the great writers as well. And Fred Craddock and a minister named Vandergheist. I think I guess he was Swedish.
Tom:Maybe he was. I think he said that there's a difference in in the Swedish language between talking and writing. And writing is more stiff and more structured and more perfect. Whereas speaking is more personal. And he said, we need to be careful if we write sermons, but we write them the way we're gonna speak them.
Tom:And I noticed when I was trying to write manuscripts that my sermons were too long. I was using too many adjectives, too many adverbs. Put all the adjectives and adverbs away. Did you know that if we put all the adverbs and adjectives away, we would never have a split infinitive again? Did you know that?
Tom:Because we always say always split infinity that I used to say, if Shakespeare ever says to be or to not be, that is the question, I'll start splitting infinitives. But since so, anyway, the the these writers, these preachers helped me and I always studied what they read, what they wrote, and took notes. I've got notebooks galore on on the notes I've taken from all those books and still learning, still got some ideas now if I were to talk to preachers. So, all that is my spiritual development because as Jack Barker once told me, who was head of the board of missions at one time, one thing he gave up when he left the pastorate to go to an executive role was he did less Bible study. Because if you're preaching every Sunday, then you gotta study that passage and you study what went before and what goes after and you study the the context and you study all this.
Tom:And if you're not preaching every Sunday, you don't have that anymore. And I understand what he's talking about. It was a good exercise. It was if you have, let's say, the four lectionary readings, and you don't know yet which one to use, you're going to get to all of them. And so, but mostly, I would do this when we were dating and then after we married and got in the car, probably my main question was this, Was the sermon interesting and did it make sense?
Tom:And maybe 35%, forty %, forty five % should say yes. But really, that's what counted. If I can't be interesting, if I can't say interesting things, why should they listen? Why should they listen? There's no reason why they should listen to me unless I entice them to listen, And unless I invite them to listen.
Tom:Unless I say something that arouses a curiosity, so they will listen. And, I really worked hard at that. I worked hard at that.
T.J.:I use the baseball terminology in terms of sermon delivery and, you know, strike out, did I hit a single? Rare rarer is the occasion where you you actually, if you wanna use the analogy, hit a home run with a sermon delivery. So, I mean Absolutely. It'd be like a picture.
Tom:Remember reading some of that too. Basically the same thing. You don't need to hit a home run every time in your sermon. Just get on base. And also, member Craddock says, you remember when we were young, I've heard this advice, preach as if it's the last sermon you'll ever preach.
Tom:No, he said, preach as if you'll preach again to those same people Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday So that the gospel you preach will be the gospel, but it won't be the whole gospel. But the sermon will be complete. It will it will tell the gospel. But it's not all the story. Because you have some more to say next Sunday.
T.J.:Well, Doctor Campbell, somebody who has had great service and continues to have great service to the church. What message would you like to share with with us, with those who listen to this podcast about what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ? What does that mean to you?
Tom:Well, it's been going on all these years, Not that I've done it in a perfect way and I've never tried to analyze it, by the way. It's just part of my life. It's just part of my life. And the relationship with the Trinity enters in. I remember Ward Blakeman was with the board of missions, and he came to the seminary in McKenzie to preach to teach a quarter's worth to teach a course on evangelism, I believe.
Tom:And he emphasized the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Ghost. And so he provided that balance. Many, many times you hear people talk about Jesus only. And there is a passage there where I think it's the transfiguration, not the holy, not the trinity, but Moses and Elijah. And then they disappeared and it was Jesus only.
Tom:Well, you have some preachers and some churches, that's all they emphasize, Jesus only. They forget the Holy Spirit, they forget God the Father. And then along comes a book called The Shy Member of the Trinity. Wasn't that a great title? Yes.
Tom:A shy member. We don't urge people to be like the Holy Spirit. We urge them to be like Jesus. We don't urge them to ask, What would the Holy Spirit do? We ask, What would Jesus do?
Tom:The Holy Spirit never calls attention to itself. It always points us to Jesus or to the Father. And I thought, What a great concept. The Holy Spirit, the shy member of the Trinity. Great book.
Tom:Great book. And as indicated, these books over the years just influence your life. They help turn you in a certain direction or they help plant a seed in your mind. And so, the Holy Spirit, you could preach many sermons on the Holy Spirit, but it's usually been misinterpreted, misused, and people do bad things or sometimes they do good things because they said, Holy Spirit told me to do it. Or they may say, God told me to do it.
Tom:A man shoots his wife and his four children and says, God told me to do it. Or the man gives great gifts to his wife and to his children beyond the normal Christmas, and he showers them with gifts. God told me to do it. So, can do bad, you can do good. But how many people have we heard about who did terrible things?
Tom:Well, God told me to do, or the Holy Spirit told me to do. And now you hear the Holy Spirit saying such and such you're gonna be elected president. Oh, say, the Holy Spirit tells me this. This how'd that turn out? So I have greater respect for the Holy Spirit now from reading that book, The Shy Member of the Trinity.
Tom:How about that? I love that. So, it's a constant continuing thing. In my spare time, which is quite often now, I have such a busy social calendar when things were going here at Beaver Creek before the pandemic. My main social event of the year was to come to the Wednesday night supper.
Tom:Now, that's gone for a while. And so, I'm a member of an eight member choir here at the church that sings once a month. So, that's my and we practice the Wednesday prior to that. So, that's a busy schedule. If you ask me to do something, I've got to check my calendar.
Tom:So, let's see what's happening. So, the interest in preaching is there. And I wonder right now, I did get information from the press period about when it meets next. And they also said if you're retired or not active as a pastor and you want to be on the list of those who are available to preach, send your name to Mrs. Diggs, who's the assistant clerk, I believe.
Tom:Am I going to do that or not? I'm 82. Am I wanting to be available to anybody? I think I could do it. But then the choir might miss me.
Tom:I'm in the bass section of the choir. And one time when I was here just a few weeks back in 2018, I was going to be gone. Said to Faye, director, without telling her what was going to happen, said, Do you know does anybody here know five basses, five bass singers that could come and sing in the choir next Sunday? Why? Well, I'm going to be gone.
Tom:And so, since that time, when talking about the choir, they say, Come on in and bring those five bases with you too. So, I believe that I could do some preaching, but one thing that I've done is to wade into the book of Leviticus of all things. And if there was ever gonna be another sermon, it might be about this, the requirements and the the ritual and the steps you go through to worship in the book of Leviticus with the sacrifice of this animal or this thing or this thing, as opposed to Micah six:six-eight. What does the Lord require but to do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God? I would start out with Leviticus, talk about how hard that is and what all that requires.
Tom:And then Micah's answer to Leviticus. How about that? Another sermon could be this, something I've never done. Jesus, early in his ministry, they hand in the scroll and he performs his first miracle. He finds the place in the scroll.
Tom:He finds the Isaiah reading. How did he find it? Because the chapters aren't numbered. How did he know to turn to that? That's the first miracle.
Tom:And the second thing he did was this. After he read it, it says he closed the book. And so a lot of preaching is after you close the Bible, now what are you going to say? Now what are going to say? It's going to be based on that passage, but now you've got to say something.
Tom:So, I've learned a lot over the years and I think I would have a lot more to say if there was ever opportunity to preach along those lines.
T.J.:Well, speaking of the future and the present, I wanted to ask you, where do you see God working in your life today? We've talked a bit about the past. Let's talk about present.
Tom:That's a good question because when you're 82, officially retired, you wonder if you can be of use anywhere. But you also are grateful for the years that you've had and for the church that you've been a part of. I've seen the Cumberland Presbyterian Church more in greater context than I had in my younger days. We are a small denomination, but I love it when it is mentioned in some book or some movie or whatever, like in True Grit where Cumberland Presbyterians are mentioned. I read something on the youth and the upbringing of Abraham Lincoln and the girlfriend, the teenager girl that died, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister had that funeral.
Tom:I remember reading an autobiography of Peter Taylor Forsyth not Peter Taylor Forsyth, who was the Methodist Cartwright, Methodist who was who was, in early America. He was a strong Methodist and had a negative opinion about Cumberland Presbyterians. Here's what he said. Cumberland Presbyterians are the left foot of Calvinism. What in the world does that mean?
Tom:I don't know, but it sounds interesting. So, Cumberland Presbyterians. And then I love what, Matt Gore is doing in the Cumberland Presbyterian magazine of highlighting former or present Cumberland Presbyterians whose notoriety or infamy or publicity has gone beyond the church. He may or may not do Jimmy Dean sometime, but he did do Mac Davis, was a part of the Lubbock church for a while. But Jimmy Dean even more.
Tom:His brother was an elder in that church. His father was an ordained Cumberland Presbyterian minister. So, George Esses might be the one to talk to on for Matt to talk to on that. Then so and then once he did it, someone Fred Gladding, who was a member of this congregation, Beaver Creek Church. His wife was a member too.
Tom:And he was gone most of the time, but he did have a men's fellowship meeting with us one time. And I introduced him as somebody who is a pitcher who had more saves than Billy Graham. And so, so this he was a lot of fun and he had a lot of good experiences to talk about. And he was a Cumberland Presbyterian too.
T.J.:I have I have one of his baseball cards.
Tom:Really? Yes. Yeah. And then William Jennings Bryan was a Cumberland Presbyterian. I don't talk about Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Tom:He only became one after the war and all that, but that was when he was even meaner. So, I don't like to get into that. But I see it's like living. They as I hear it described or read see it described in the Bible, leaven, you just put a little bit in this and the and it causes the whole thing to to mushroom and grow. And that's what the church, Cumberland Presbyterian church is.
Tom:We're not in in it for publicity. We're not in it to, to make a name for ourselves. There are many more non Cumberland Presbyterians out in the world, maybe who even than there are of Cumberland Presbyterians because our people, when they move from one of our churches to Minnesota or to Utah or to New York or to Saint Paul where there are no Cumberland churches, they're gonna join the Methodist Church or another Presbyterian church or this or that. Just talk to got a correspondence from Mary Prosser, who's a sister of Bob and Forrest Prosser. She lives in South Texas.
Tom:She's a Presbyterian, grew up Cumberland. My good friend, Barry Baker in New York, Delaware, is in the first Presbyterian church in New York, Delaware, but he was coming to Presbyterian all of his life till he moved up there. So lots of people all over the world, all over the country. So our influence is greater than our numbers. And our medium theology is still there right in the center.
Tom:Right in the center. Now, did hear one of my members in church in Lexington once say, Who ever heard of a flaming moderate? But anyway, so here we are right in the center, and it's a great place to be. You know that in many small towns and in suburban areas and other places where you have a ministerial alliance, you can guarantee if there's a Cumberland church there, that ministers in the middle of that ministerial alliance and may have been the one that got it started. People aren't threatened if they visit a Cumberland Presbyterian building for a minister's meeting, or they might feel uneasy in some other place, but Cumberland Presbyterian ministers are ecumenical.
Tom:Craig Martindale was a good friend of mine and died of Nile Nile flu, greater Nile flu or whatever it was. But he was pastor at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And I was gonna have a a little weekend school for a woman who was a Methodist minister, but now serving a CP church, and she wanted to come into the denomination. And so, Craig was going to let us use that church, one of the rooms. So, when he said, when you get there, call me.
Tom:So, I called him and he came up on his motorcycle and got off and I introduced him and he said, well, if you're gonna be a couple of Christians here, need to do these do these things and you'll be just fine. Number one, remember, we're not the only church in the world. Number two, we cooperate with other churches. You do that, you'll be fine. And, that stayed with me too.
Tom:How about that?
T.J.:I like that.
Tom:Yes.
T.J.:Speaking of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Doctor. Campbell, what are your dreams? What are your aspirations for the church moving into the future?
Tom:When you look into the church directory, the CP yearbook in the back, see how many ministers' name is Kim, K I M. Almost as many as there are with the M, little c, big C, or whatever. That means they're from Scotland or Ireland or have that background. And then look at what you might call the Hispanic names in that directory. Thanks to the great work of Bob Watkins and David Brown in earlier years and now Lynn Thomas, we are in places you never thought we'd be.
Tom:Spain, for goodness, France, Philippines, Brazil, not to mention Japan, Colombia, Hong Kong, and Korea, and other places. So as either Bob Watkins or or maybe Lynn said, before long, there'll be more Cumberland Presbyterians overseas than there are in The United States Of America. Wouldn't that be something? It would not be because we're failing here, it's because we're succeeding over there. And the Japanese experience, I was there for ten or twelve days in the year 2000 to help them celebrate fifty years as a presbytery, have a great thing going.
Tom:And they're well organized. The Koreans what I saw in 02/2007, were critical of the Japanese for being so well organized. They have to consider everything. They have to give it some thought. No, Koreans, let's get with it.
Tom:Let's do it. And so, I smiled at that difference as they try to create an Asian Asian senate over there. That would be a great thing too. So but the Japanese, for example, I went to their council meeting on a Sunday afternoon. Did you know that the salary schedule for Japanese pastors is not based on years of experience, it's based on age?
Tom:A 50 year old minister who's been in the ministry thirty years will get the same salary as a 50 year old minister who was ordained one year ago. It's the age. It's not the experience. I thought that was great. Now, I don't know.
Tom:I haven't kept up with their progress in the next thing I'm going to mention. At the convention I went to, which celebrated fifty years, they had a poster. They carried it around. In English, it said, 20 churches in 2012. Here we are in February.
Tom:'20 churches in 2012. I think they had about 12 or 13 churches by that time. So, they wanted that was their goal. 20 churches by 2012. I'm pretty sure they made that goal.
Tom:So, progress progressing. They send missionaries to Brazil, for goodness sakes. And these are professionals in many ways. The couple that I stayed with in part of my visit in Japan, he is with the cash register company with sites all over America. He traveled to America many times.
Tom:So, they are well versed in the world and theology and in the work of the church. Buddy Stodd did a great job. Thomas Forrester and Tolly Deal, and they all did great jobs over there. Wonderful. And Korea is coming along too.
Tom:So, there could be a time when there are more Cumberland Presbyterians overseas than there are in The United States Of America. And I would look forward to that and would not be surprised at all.
T.J.:Doctor. Campbell, how can we continue to follow you on your faith journey?
Tom:Follow me? Yeah. Doctor. Follow me. You might get lost if you follow me.
Tom:Fred West was the associate pastor here and his main task was visitation. And Bruce Potter had already left here and was a pastor, I think, in Loudoun. And so, the Presbyterian Appalachian Broadcasting Council was going to meet on the campus of Maryville College, and Bruce was a member of that council. And he invited us, Fred and me, to the evening meeting of that Fred Ferry and Appalachian Broadcasting Council, which met on the campus of Maryville College. So, Fred and I went over there.
Tom:We came to this building and we said, Does anybody know where this Appalachian thing is? And they sent it to the Third Floor and it was an Appalachian ballet company. So, we had to go back downstairs. We searched two other buildings. Finally found the Presbyterian Appalachian Broadcasting Council.
Tom:They were in that other room. We'd all walked into this door, the door locked behind us. And then we realized we have no way to get out and not how will anybody know where we are. This was before cell phones. And then we saw Bruce Potter walking along the sidewalk outside.
Tom:We banged on the window. He came around and unlocked the door and opened it for us. We went to the evening meeting, what there was left of it. And then when Fred and I left, we talked all the time about different things. And so, I got lost and ended up in Townsend, Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains, almost into North Carolina.
Tom:And all we're doing is innocently trying to go home. So, we figured out how to get home, but we're almost after midnight getting home from a simple 30 mile trip to Maryville. So, be careful if you want to follow me because I can get you lost real quick. You know, one of the greatest pressures anybody ever had was to be the first car with other cars behind you at a stop sign. Think of the pressure.
Tom:Pressure. Here are these cars coming and going, coming and going. And you know the cars, you know, every car behind you is in a big hurry and they're getting more and more impatient and you're the leader. You're the one out there. That's a lot of pressure.
Tom:And you're inclined to do some rash, rare, risky things if you know somebody's behind you and want you to move on. So, be careful if you follow me. But if you do, you don't have to be an Orioles fan. I think it'd make your life better. You don't have to like the movie Jackie Brown, but I believe you would enjoy it.
Tom:But it would do well if you had charge of the remote at your house. I believe that every wedding ceremony ought to have two things. The first is to the groom. Do you, John, promise to have complete control of the remote at all times? And do you, Muffy, the bride, do you promise to know where everything in the house is at all times?
Tom:So that when he asks, Where is my purple shirt that I wore three years ago? You will know where it is. Those are just simple things to add to the marriage ceremony that I think would clear up some things.
T.J.:Doctor Campbell, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you sharing with me. And for the listeners of this podcast, It's it's been an honor. It's been a privilege.
Tom:Thank you. It's been an honor for me, and appreciate the opportunity.
T.J.:And thank you for listening to today's podcast. Grab a friend and travel with me on a next journey down Cumberland Road.
