I graduated from Central High School in Springfield, Missouri, at the age of 17 in June of 1954.   It was a huge school with over 3,000 students, the only high school, in fact, in the city.     That fall I enroled at Central Bible Institute on the north end of town.    To help pay the tuition costs (no board and room as I stayed at home with my folks just three blocks north of the campus) I got a job with a local radio station and also one at the Assemblies of God headquarters.     It paid a whopping buck an hour.    The radio job paid far better, but at headquarters I got to meet and know most of the “honchos” of the Assemblies of God, including Thomas F. Zimmerman, who later became the General Superintendent of the fellowship and hired me to speak on Revivaltime (the 600 station radio network program) in late 1978.    In ‘54, the headquarters were scattered all over the north end of town.     The main offices were in an old, old structure on Pacific St.   It still stands, although it’s shuttered down and condemned.     (That’s a shame, I think, because it could bought for a song, renovated (for a lot of money unfortunately and turned into the Assemblies of God museum – but I’m about the only person who’s ever been interested in that project.)     The printing plant, the Gospel Publishing House, stood several blocks away on North Boonville Avenue.     It’s one of the largest publishing outfits in the nation even now.     Then there were a number of other smaller buildings that housed various and sundry offices.   In the early 60’s, the main headquarters building was erected on Boonville Avenue connected directly to the Publishing House structure.    It stands four stories high, but the printing plant is six stories and is connected by an across-the-street overhead to a massive distribution center.   So the Assemblies of God headquarters covers two city blocks (plus some other buildings nearby) and employs about 1200 people.     

In 1977, Darlene, the kids and I moved back to Springfield from Sandusky, Ohio, where we had opened a new church, Calvary Temple.    I was hired as the radio/TV director for the Assemblies and a year or so later invited to be the speaker on Revivaltime, a post I had the privilege of filling for the next 17 years (although the last nine of them I was pastoring here in Ft. Myers and commuting).    Then 14 years ago, at one of our bi-annual General Councils, I was elected as an Executive Presbyter to represent Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and North and South Carolina.    There are 17 of us on that board, six of whom are permanent residents of Springfield and fill the offices of General Superintendent, Assistant General Superintendent, Executive Secretary, Executive Treasurer, Executive Director of World Missions and Executive Director of Home Missions.    We meet every other month for two or three day  meetings.     The committee really serves as the Board of Directors for the entire Assemblies of God.

Springfield is often called “the Gateway to the Ozarks.”    I love that country.    As a kid I used to play in those hills, roam the caves, and fish the streams.     Since being the pastor of First Assembly here in Ft. Myers, I have flown back to Springfield for business about 250 times.    I usually enjoy it, but last week was a different story.   The ice storm that blanketed much of the nation hit the Ozarks.   Snow isn’t all that difficult to navigate, but ice????    Forget it!     Some of the board members could not get in and had to listen on their phones by conference call for two days.   Now THAT is commitment!     I usually drive down to Branson to Jim Bakker’s Morningside Studios for a television program following our board meetings; however, Jim, along with much of southern MIssouri and Northern Arkansas were without electricity.   (Kentucky was also very hard-hit by the storm).     So I didn’t get the chance to see my friend Jim and all his crew.

So….late Thursday night I got back home.   I had left my car in Tampa at the airport so I had to fly there to retrieve it and then negotiate I-75 that night.    God was faithful and I got home without any difficulty.     I am grateful for all the men and women who faithfully serve the Assemblies of God at headquarters.   You may know that the Assemblies started in 1914 with a mere 300 people, but now number over 60 million around the world!      The Assemblies are now growing so fast that it’s exponential and we believe we will hit the 100 million mark worldwide in the next ten or fifteen years.   But then, that’s our job, isn’t it?   To take the whole Gospel to the whole world!

During the latter part of 1972, I was pastoring a church in Sandusky, Ohio.    Our ministerial association felt led of the Lord to have a city-wide evangelistic crusade.    We invited Dr. Ford Philpot to be our guest speaker.    We also wanted his musical team.     The meeting was a huge success.    During those days, Ford and I became fast friends.     I had felt the Lord stirring in my heart that a change was coming in our ministry, but I wasn’t sure what it was.    In January of 1973, Ford called me and invited me to drive to Lexington, Kentucky (his home town), to talk and pray about the future.     Shortly thereafter he asked me to join his team full-time as his associate evangelist.    My responsibilities would be to produce his color, syndicated Christian TV program (the first one in the United States), to edit his magazine, The Storyteller, to preach in crusades when he could not, and to assist him with his sermons.    So Darlene, the kids and I, moved to Kentucky.    A year or so later I also took on the responsibility of Philpot’s crusade director, going into cities a year in advance to prepare both laity and pastors alike for the coming evangelistic thrust.     On Ford’s team at that time were Winston Pike, his choir director and soloist, and Jimmy Smith, his organist and also a soloist.     I was not involved at all with the music then.     But during our travels, Winston, Jimmy and I would just sing in the car or plane (Ford has his own twin-engine plane) or at the hotel.     Ford asked us to sing in a service one night and the response was enthusiastic and thus THE FISHERMEN were born.    Ford’s logo was the fishhook and his emphasis was on being “fishers of men.”     For three years THE FISHERMEN sang around the world in crusades held in stadiums, arenas and auditoriums and on all of the television programs.     We also recorded a couple albums (a very limited supply has been produced for the reunion weekend coming up soon).   We sang our last song together in late 1973.      I have always wanted a reunion with the guys and I thought that this year’s Homecoming weekend would be the ideal time.    So on Saturday night and Sunday morning, January 17th and 18th, we’ll sing again.     Will we sound like we used to?   Are you kidding?   That was 36 years ago or so.     But we’ll have a good time.   And hopefully the listeners will be blessed.     Dr. Philpot passed away many years ago and recently his lovely wife Virginia did as well.     But I have such pleasant, sweet memories of my association with that dear man.   What a preacher!    And what a friend!     Join me and THE FISHERMEN January 17 and 18th, OK?   And that night we’ll have some incredible music in the DINO concert at 7 o’clock.    P.S.   You will find a picture of the original FISHERMEN on our website:  www.famfm.com.     You will think to yourself, “Why, those guys haven’t changed at all!”    Or maybe not.

Lord willing, in a few minutes I will leave my study at the church and head north on I-75.    Just north of Ocala I’ll turn east on a little side road for a couple miles to 301 and turn left (north) for another hour til I get to Starke.     I will spend the night there and early in the morning grab a quick breakfast at the hotel and then drive north about ten miles on route 16 to Raiford (about 275 miles from Fort Myers).     There, spread out in front of me, is the largest state maximum security prison in America.    (There are larger federal prisons, but not state prisons.)   I’ll park in a guest-designated area and head for the gate on foot.    I try to beat everyone else there because only five people are admitted at a time.    Entering the prison under any circumstances is somewhat of an ordeal but especially so if your designation is Death Row.     I show my pass, my palm print, my request for a specific prisoner, and then wait for the seven massive steel doors to creak open.     After the first door, I am searched.   I can take absolutely nothing in but a few dollars, my car key (one key, not a chain of them) and my driver’s license.  After the search another steel door opens and I go through a metal detector, leaving my driver’s license with an officer who gives me a visitor’s pass to clip on my shirt.    Three steel doors later I am walking outside through a rather lengthy corridor that separates the main prison from Death Row.    On either side of me are thick chain link fences, so electrified that to touch them means instant death.   Rows of razor wire are atop each fence.    At the end of that corridor I turn right few a few hundred more feet, through another steel door to the visitor’s center.    Another door opens and I’m in the place where I will meet the inmates.    I show my pass and prisoner-request to the officer in charge who begins making arrangement for the prisoner in question to be brought to me.     I get a cup of luke-warm instant (yecchhh) coffee from a prisoner in charge of the small food kiosk.    I am assigned to a steel table with seats attached – very uncomfortable.    I chat for a bit with other visitors waiting for the inmates to arrive – usually about 45 minutes.     One by one, prisoners emerge from the bowels of the prison.    After all these visits I know many of them.     Several have since been executed since my first time there.     One by one, they come through the door, wearing white pants and orange shirts.   They wear white tennis shoes.   Wives, children, relatives and friends who have gone through the long ordeal of getting visitors’ passes begin to come in.    There are a half dozen inmates from our southwest Florida area, some who have made news in recent years.      There are about 350 guys on the Row.    Some of them have been there for over 30 years.     Visiting these guys is not easy for me.    For one thing, I have a dislike of locked doors.   Not a phobia, just an uncomfortable feeling.     And, when I leave, I often sit in my car in the parking lot for awhile, silently weeping.     I think of the guys left inside who will never walk out the door in all probability until the week they’re taken across the street to the holding cell next to the execution chamber.   I have very mixed emotions about the death penalty.     One by one, I see these guys leave – forever.

Our church has a very strong prison ministry.     Why?   In response to Jesus’ admonition:    Matthew 25:43-45    I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. [44] Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? [45] Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.     May the Lord bless all of our church family who visit the prisons, who bring help and hope to those who have so little.    

So….I need to hit the road.   Pray for me as I visit Death Row once again.    Even more, pray for the guys inside, along with their chaplains and guards.      (The chief chaplain for all Florida prisons is Alex Taylor, one of our Assemblies of God ministers.    He has been a great blessing to me.)