Tex Sample

About a week ago, Santiago Foster let me look at a book he had checked out from the library, Blue Collar Ministry by Tex Sample. The book is mind-blowing. It’s like he stole my book. On the one hand, it affirms what I have been doing, and on the other challenges and pushes in new directions, giving me a vocabulary for what needs to be done.

The Rock La Roca is not in a typical neighborhood. That is, mainline denominations tend to want prosperous suburban folk (well, like me) to support the ministries and the denomination. So generally, they have abandoned downtown and the countryside. As I have been saying for 7 years now, there is little difference between ministry in the hills and downtown. The social conditions are the same: lack of opportunity and isolation. Doesn’t matter if they’re white farmers, white workers, or African refugees.

Tex Sample says the pastor has to be what he calls a “ward-heeler,” the fellow from the old political machines who knew everyone in a neighborhood, what their needs were, etc, and met those needs, along with asking for a vote for the candidate. It seems crass, but once again, the children of this world are so much wiser than those of us in the light. From the get-go in Winchester, and here, my attitude has been get to know people, build trust, meet their needs. This last is what people have trouble with; we think we can only do $50 here or there. All I can say is Jesus saved you all the way.

It’s a principle of reciprocity; I helped a guy I worked with at the Physical Plant pass his college English classes and he put a valve-cover gasket and c-v boots on my car. What kind of fool would I be if I did not counsel people, feed them, clothe them and then expect that they love my Lord? If they take my rent, they gotta take my love. (I have a working title for a book: Sugar Daddy: Confessions of a Reluctant Evangelist).

Somehow we think this is cheating. Like all we’re supposed to do is be nice, have church, tell them some nice things about how good life will be if they just join our church. We don’t scare them with Hell anymore, so we’ve got to do something. Wait! I know! How bout be like Jesus! You know, feeding people, healing them, hanging out with them when they’re at their worst… and preaching a hard-core message of grace and repentance.

The coolest thing is I called Tex Sample this morning, and we had a great talk. He’s from Brookhaven, Mississippi, so we had some good times talking about that wonderful state. There’s something about guys that are half-wild who leave Mississippi. We always want to get back and we always remember good times… and we laugh hard about how that crazy state prepared us to go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone. How many preachers do you talk to where you spend time talking about Willie Nelson before you get to the meat of theology, only to realize that the talk about Willie was theology? We even swapped funny stories about the Creed—I think I have found a friend.

But then there are some significant disagreements that will get passionate (like I said, I think I have found a friend!), but will be tempered by the passion to reach people for Christ. And in the end, if you like Merle Haggard, you’re ok by me.

He’s invited me up to a seminar in Dayton next year. It’s on ministry to what he calls “hard-living people.” He said he’d like me to share some of what we’re trying to do to break into the community. It’s starting to happen, and by then maybe I will have something to say. Here’s how he hooked me: one of the assignment will be that on the Friday night of the seminar, the students have to go to a honky-tonk! I never thought that my time at The Sea-Witch, The Boat-House, Nick’s Ice House or The Chicken Shack was ever going to bear fruit in ministry…

The books to read: Blue Collar Ministry, White Soul, and Ministry in an Oral Culture.