A LIttle More About Paducah

This week I will tell a little more about my work with the Clements Street church in Paducah,Kentucky during the summer of 1957.

The four elders of the church were brother Penn (I cannot remember his first name or his initials, but he went by the name of Tam), brother Lee Tucker, brother Vick (I do not remember his first name or initials, but he was the father of O. K. Vick who preached for many years in Memphis), and brother Robert Waller, Sr.  I thought of them as some of the best and wisest men I had ever known, and, in reality, they were.  They and their wives took me "under their wings," treated me as if I were their own son, and gave me much encouragement as a young minister.

As I reported last week, I lived in the men's dressing room next to the baptistery of the building.  I did not have a TV set, but I did have a radio.  Many of my evenings were spent listening to Cardinals' baseball games.  Though I was aMilwaukee Braves' fan, folks in Western Kentuckywere big Cardinals' fans and it was fun listening to their games.  Stan Musial was the Cardinals' star, and Lindy McDaniel, a member of the church of Christ, was on the pitching staff.  His younger brother, Von McDaniel, came to the Cardinals that summer straight from high school and was a single season pitching sensation.  About once a week I would drive to a city park and watch kids play baseball.

I also used my evenings to read, study, and to begin my first efforts at writing for publication.  I submitted my first article to Dillard Thurman, editor of Gospel Minutes in Fort Worth, Texas, and later that fall my article appeared in that publication.  While I do not now recall all the books I read that summer, I do remember reading S. H. Hall's Sixty Years in the Pulpit, Gus Nichols' newly-published volume of sermons Speaking the Truth in Love, and the Porter-Tingley Debate.  With two sermons and two adult Bible classes to prepare each week, as well as a Monday through Friday fifteen minute radio broadcast, it was necessary for me to keep my nose in the Bible and in good resources to enable me to meet my preaching and teaching responsibilities.  But while challenging, it was a time of great mental and spiritual growth.

One week I recorded two or three days of radio messages prior to their presentation so that I could be out of town for a few days.  Billy Penn, the son of one of the elders, and I drove to Carroll County, Tennessee to hear my friend Alan Highers engage in his first formal public debate.  Alan had barely turned twenty years old when he met L. H. Brown, a seasoned Baptist preacher and debater in his fifties from Jackson, Tennessee, in a debate under a large tent in the rural community of Poplar Springs in Carroll County.  Among other topics, they discussed the gospel plan of salvation (whether one is saved by faith only, or if baptism for the remission of sins is involved in being saved).  Alan affirmed: "The Scriptures teach that water baptism to a penitent believer is essential to salvation from alien sins." What a grand time we all had during this event!  Alan vindicated himself and the truth magnificently against the veteran, cagy Brown!  It was the first religious debate Billy had ever attended, and he was absolutely thrilled by it. 

Following my summer's work in Paducah, I made a quick trip to my folks' home in Northwest Florida, then returned to Loudon, Tennessee where Jan and I were united in marriage on September 7, 1957.  It was a great summer—a summer of personal growth, of gaining experience in what I earlier had committed to being and doing.  I shall forever be grateful to the Clements Street church and her elders for the tremendous privilege and opportunity they gave me, for the friendships that were formed, and for the pleasant associations in Western Kentucky that continue until today.

Hugh Fulford

April 3, 2012