Working for God: Local preachers share how they were called to their religious professions

Paul Kabo Jr.

Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Cape Girardeau

As I retire from the full-time ministry at First Presbyterian Church on Feb. 28, it is significant that I look back on my call and reflect upon a career as a Minister of Word and Sacrament. Although some receive their call like Apostle Paul -- with a bolt of light -- others require to be persuaded much like Jonah, who did not want to go to Nineveh. The call I got is somewhere in between these two extremes.

Paul Kabo Jr.

My first recollection of thinking about the ministry was in the eighth grade when my public school teacher asked the students what they thought they wanted to be when they grew up. We were to write a paper about it. As I pondered on that question, the word 'minister' appeared into my mind. This was troubling and confusing to me because other than a couple of visits to St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church, I had never attended church, gone to Sunday school nor been to church camp. It is true that I had a copy of the Bible at home. I got it one Christmas when that was the only gift I got that year. It was a difficult financial year for Dad. Also true was that someone had given me a copy of the Baltimore Catechism and I had read it. Yet, I read both of these books for lack of other reading material at home. So, the choosing of a vocation as 'minister' seemed to be outrageously incorrect. I wrote that I wanted to be a biology teacher with a hope to make it into the medical profession.

After turning in that paper, the next decision was to aim for college and I did so for high school. Before I graduated, I was accepted into Waynesburg College, with a major in biology. It was the next spring when the question of vocation returned to me. While in high school, I was invited to join a small church and did because I could drive and no longer depended upon my parents for transportation. But in college, there were many churches close by and I enjoyed attending them all. I especially liked the Presbyterian

Church Sunday school because Dr. Paul R. Stewart (president of the college) taught the class and always had doughnuts for us to eat. That was my only breakfast on Sundays because the school cafeteria was closed.

Things had not gone so well in the biology major as I discovered that my high school did not prepare me for such a challenge. I was faced with dropping out of college and going to Vietnam or trying another major. Again, the word 'minister' entered my mind and this time it seemed to have more force. My reaction was to be hesitant. After checking with what was required to become a minister in the protestant church I was a member of (not Presbyterian), I shook off the word and changed my major to business administration.

Again, the academic pursuit was far from stellar and again the word 'minister' invaded my mind. With tremendous puzzlement, I even explored a couple of seminaries. One was outrageously beyond what I could do (not Presbyterian), but the Seminary at Pittsburgh declared that they would give me a theological education, but what I did with that education was up to me. The college had a pre-ministerial track and a teacher encouraged me to explore it. I switched majors again but now the puzzlement seemed to dissipate. Also dispersing were the poor grades. In their place came the honor roll. Many students wondered what happened and why was I so different this year than last year. I did not know what they meant, but something was different.

As my senior year of college approached, I filled out an application for Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was accepted. The pastor of my home church got a letter informing him of this acceptance. Soon, my pastor visited me and told me that I was in the wrong seminary and I should not attend. He gave me no encouragement to pursue the ministry. Hurt but not crushed, I sought a church and pastor who cared about people. My neighbors told me of a church in Hickory, Pa. When I attended that church, I discovered that it was Presbyterian. I also discovered my grade school principal there. He warmly greeted me. It felt good, and I joined that congregation. It was then that I knew that being a minister was going to be my vocation. I had received my call.

I graduated Avella Joint High School in 1962, Waynesburg College in 1966 and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1970. I was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in June of 1970. I have served churches in Oklahoma (three years), Illinois (12 years), Kentucky (15 years) and Missouri (almost 10 years). I retired from the active ministry on Feb. 28, 2010. What a call it has been.

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Maj. Ben Stillwell

Salvation Army of Cape Girardeau

I have been a Christian the last 33 years of my life. I led a life of shame before I received Christ as my savior. I thank God for Christ saving me and changing me. He is not done with me yet, I should add. Thank goodness!

I believe that I was called to the Salvation Army. My calling is certainly from scripture -- Matthew 25:34-45 and 2 Corinthians 5:17, personally. It is also from the influence of a godly grandmother, Joyce Carter-Bybee. She modeled Christ every day and in the best and worst of times, for one and all to see. Her church was the Salvation Army and she made us attend even if we were not interested!

Maj. Ben Stillwell of the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau. (Fred Lynch)

I am also sure that several Salvation Army officers influenced not just my calling to salvation personally, but also my calling to become a Salvation Army officer. These men are Major Richard Justvig and Major Everett Jordan. Both are retired at this time. I had the honor of being installed her at Cape by Major Justvig almost four years ago and I still thank him for seeing something in a lost and lonely loser that was me so long ago, and to keep after me.

I believe that God used Major Jordan in the Bloomington, Ill., corps office on a Saturday in February in 1971. I was NOT a typical teen and am not proud of this. But I did say a sinner's prayer about two weeks before this and in my humanness I tried to be a Christian until I felt that God was calling me to be a Salvation Army officer just like Captain Jordan. I shared this with then-Captain and he showed me scriptures where others were called and he shared his calling with me. Then I asked, "How much do you get paid?" He told me $90 a week! I was NOT going to do what I'd seen him do for that amount of money! I took control of my life and ran, and I mean ran, from God. I messed up my life in ways that I could not even think of.

In utter desperation years later, I went to the Salvation Army a blind and broken man looking for hope. I sat in a meeting trying to bargain with God. I was a lost sinner in need of saving. I told God that I'd do anything if he would help me. I thought this would be OK, because I'd even be a Salvation Army officer, if they would have me. I was thinking that this could never happen due to my past. I went to the altar and prayed and asked for my savior to save me and, if he would, to use me, even as an officer. I thought the chances of this were slim and none! Yet he did save me, change me and reinforce his calling to the Salvation Army as an officer. He led me to my wife Beth -- my partner in 30 years of marriage, the mother of my three children, and my coworker in the vineyard of Christ's kingdom for over 25 years together. He used my grandmother, my corps officers and his scripture to reach me, and I am thankful for him in my life. I owe him my all! I had no plan for this in my plan for life. But I am B.A.D. -- "blessed and delivered" -- and thankful for it. Oh, and I would do this for Christ even if I were only getting paid $90 a week, because the blessings are not even close to millions of dollars -- they are more than I can even imagine!

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Spencer Strickland

Gospel preacher, Cape Church of Christ, Cape Girardeau

Spencer Strickland

"If you can do anything but preach, don't preach..." Those were the words I often heard from my instructors while attending preaching school in Knoxville, Tenn., and preparing to be a gospel preacher. Like many men that I have known, preaching was not something that I had grown up intending to do with my life. As I would sit and listen to the preacher on Sundays as a teenager, I often wondered how he was able to preach every Sunday and never run out of material. In fact, someone has estimated that if a preacher preaches two sermons a Sunday for 52 Sundays in a year, he will have preached the equivalent of nine full-length novels. So, deciding to be a gospel preacher is not something to be entered lightly. Preaching, if it is done right, is hard work.

I was in my late teen years when I decided that I wanted to give my life to preaching the gospel. I grew up attending the Church of Christ in Denison, Texas, and Winchester, Ky. When I was about 17 years old, I went to work at a department store in Berea, Ky., and worked there for almost two years. I would sometimes have an opportunity in the break room of that store to talk with co-workers about the need to follow the Bible instead man-made traditions in religion. David, my best friend, and I would make the trip from Berea to Winchester every Sunday and Wednesday evening until the day that he decided he wanted to visit the East Tennessee School of Preaching and Missions in Knoxville, Tenn. Philip Johnson, who was the preacher in Winchester, had been very encouraging to both of us as we were striving to live the Christian life. As a teenager, that encouragement was very important. However, when David was looking in the direction of preaching, I was not exactly looking in that direction. Nevertheless, on the day that he, along with Philip Johnson, made the trip to Knoxville to visit the school of preaching, I decided to tag along. When we arrived at the school, I was overwhelmed by the commitment and sacrifice that the students at the school had made in order to preach the gospel for the rest of their lives. Some had left well-paying jobs in order to commit themselves to two years of intensive study of the Bible. What could make them do such a thing? No doubt it was love for their Lord and love for lost souls. It was then and there that I knew that was what I must do as well.

Following preaching school, I went on to further my education in Henderson, Tenn., at Freed-Hardeman University. Upon graduating with a master's degree in 2005, I moved to Dillon, S.C., where I preached for four years. My third year there, I met my wife Amy and we moved to Cape Girardeau in November of last year, where I now preach for the Church of Christ at the corner of West End Boulevard and Bloomfield.

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Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson

Senior pastor, Lynwood Baptist Church, Cape Girardeau

I grew up in a loving Christian home in Texas. When I was 12, I attended a retreat with boys from my church and from several other churches in the area. One evening a missionary spoke about serving God. He invited us to come forward and tell one of the counselors what was on our hearts. I told this particular counselor I felt God wanted me to become a pastor. I came home and told my parents. My father, who was the pastor of our church, encouraged me not to tell anyone and to keep praying about it. He had seen many kids make emotional decisions rather than have a true calling from God. I can now appreciate the wisdom of that statement. My parents never encouraged me to go into the ministry. It was solely my decision. To be honest, I never doubted what God told me that hot summer night. It became a growing conviction with each year. When I was in junior high school, I knew what I wanted to do and where I would go to college and seminary. That's exactly what happened. I know I am doing precisely what I was created to do. I love serving God and serving others. Although pastoring a church can be challenging at times, God has always been faithful.