c. 2008 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

TYLER, Texas _ Last summer, the Rev. John Robbins was working on his Sunday sermon and turned on the television for a quick break. He was flipping channels until he was stopped dead in his tracks by the story of Pastor David Brown.

Brown is a modern-day circuit preacher who pastors seven small, mostly black Baptist churches in Mississippi and Louisiana. Every Sunday he visits at least three of them, driving hundreds of miles in his old, battered Chevrolet.

His salary comes from whatever goes into the collection plate. Brown has high blood pressure and diabetes _ and no health insurance. Yet he remains dedicated to serving congregations that are too small to have a pastor of their own.

Three hundred miles away, Robbins is pastor of Marvin United Methodist Church in Tyler, a prosperous, mostly white congregation of 3,000 people.

Robbins was moved by the profile of Brown that aired on the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. He watched the segment over and over again.

“I have a nice church with a steady salary, with insurance, a pension plan, a great staff,” he told his congregation. “Pastor Brown doesn’t have those luxuries.”

And, he told his congregation, Brown said things in the piece “that absolutely changed me. I needed to get in touch with him. I needed to let him know that just watching him on television made a difference in my life.”

So Robbins tracked him down and after a series of phone conversations invited Brown to come and preach to his well-heeled flock of doctors, lawyers, and oil company executives.

Brown and his wife Gwendolyn finally made it to Marvin United Methodist _ in a borrowed car because the transmission on his old Chevrolet had finally given out.

Robbins took them on a tour of the sanctuary.

“Oh man,” Brown said as he was shown the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows. “I’ve only seen stuff like this on television, in books and stuff.”

Robbins had him try out the pulpit.

“Let me see how you look up there,” he said. “You look like a preacher.”

Brown said coming to Marvin was one of the highlights of his life, adding that he thought his brand of preaching would be a new experience for the congregation.

“It’s going to be different, yeah, it’s going to be different, because, like I say, I’m from a different era, so to speak, because I’m what they call, where I live, I’m what they call `old school,”’ he said.

Robbins, on the other hand, can be called “new school.” He has a doctorate in theology from Southern Methodist University but he found inspiration in Brown’s life and ministry.

“I have a lot of stability in my life when it comes to those worldly kinds of things, and this is a man who lives from hand to mouth,” Robbins said. “This is a man who tries to find a way to get from one church to the next in a broken down, worn out car, that may or may not make it to the next stop, and yet he continues to have such a great faith and a willingness to have such passion for what he believes in, and I want to be like that.”

Brown acknowledged that it was a little unusual for a black Baptist pastor to preach to a mostly white congregation. But “they all have one thing in common. They have souls that need the gospel, and I’m here to deliver it.”

It was a message that resonated with Robbins _ and his church.

“We have an obligation to interact with each other,” Robbins told his congregation. “We have an obligation to worship with each other because we all believe in the same God we know through Jesus Christ. We can feel comfortable in a restaurant with people who look different from us; we can go to school with kids who look different from us; we can even go to the mall and shop with people who are different from us. But on Sunday morning we still all believe, generally speaking, that we have to look alike.”

When Brown entered the pulpit in Tyler, he launched into a spirit-filled message full of energy and emotion. “I want to see Jesus, yes I do,” he said in expressive black-church style. “Yes, I want to see him tonight. If anybody here, if you want to see Jesus, you ought to stand on your feet!”

The Marvin congregation welcomed both the message and the messenger.

“Did you feel how he energized the place?” asked Pat Thomas. “I mean, he makes the Bible come alive. He makes it come alive. And he has no color.”

Added parishioner Mary Dale Thomas: “This man is _ we could call him a missionary to the Methodists.”

That morning, the Marvin congregation took up an offering for Brown. The total came to more than $14,000.

When he got back to Louisiana, Brown immediately got his transmission fixed, but then learned he needed a new engine. Brown was soon able to retire that old Chevrolet; the congregation back in Tyler dug deep once again, and raised enough money to buy him a brand new car.

KRE/RB END SEVERSON850 words

Editors: A version of this story originally appeared on the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Please use the Religion & Ethics Newsweekly credit line.

A photo of Brown and Robbins are available via https://religionnews.com.