Methodical Clerical Change in Harleton

THIS IS TEXAS, in case you forgot

 

The Longview News Journal carried this story "Pastor, 90, retires from Church" by Glenn Evans.  It begins:

"HARLETON — Built in 1914, the sanctuary at Harleton United Methodist Church was a six-year-old structure when Curtis Jennings was born.

The Rev. Jennings retired from his second go-around as a Methodist minister on Sunday, 24 years after coming to the historic sanctuary tucked in the sharp S-curve where FM 450 enters the Harrison County town.

"I always had the desire to preach to a small-town church," Jennings, who turned 90 this past Wednesday, said before the service. "This has been a real privilege. I don't intend to quit (preaching). As long as I have left, I'm going to read my Bible and brag on my wonderful God."

Succumbing to a call to preach in 1949, Jennings retired a first time in 1984. Two years later the former welder and World War II veteran was moving to East Texas. On Sunday, he recalled receiving 84 new church members and lamented the deaths of 40 others during his tenure."  Read more about it at

http://www.news-journal.com/news/article_9f6fe9bc-2aee-11df-b4ea-001cc4c03286.html

(Full disclosure: The Main Parlor's father was from Harleton, and the Parlor himself once studied for the Methodist pulpit.)

Some librarian needs to make a "ready reference card" under the subject "Preachers - Long serving"  Some historian needs to visit the various Texas denominational historical depositories and find who were the 10 oldest preachers in Texas for a collected biography volume.