This Week in Texas Methodist History July 15
Preachers who received new appointments at 2007 Annual Conference have now been in their new churches for a little more than a month. Some preachers have enthusiastically embraced their new congregations and others are wondering, "What did I do to deserve this appointment?" That attitude is not new. The following excerpt is from District Superintendent J. H. Anthony's report to the Texas Annual Conference of the MEC in 1920. Medill is northeast of Paris in Lamar County.
Medill was the next point to visit. Because of its rural situation; being sixteen miles from any place in the world, I found Brother James Clark, the newly appointed pastor, disparing. He wanted to know of me, what sin he had committed that the conference wanted to put him in the dungeon of the penitentiary. Brother Clark gave me to know that he had pastored some the best churches of our Methodism and to think, that he had come from a highly civilized center, and a city of respectibility, to a place so remote; where there were only one store in a town of six inhabitants; whose only amusements, of the men was to sit around the store on boxes, whittle on pine sticks, chew brown mule tobacco, and wonder why the people in New York were content to live so far away from Medill; while the boys under twenty would crawl around among the men on their all fours shooting flies with rubber bands. But in just a short while Brother Clark had every thing going to his liking; and this has been indeed, (one) of the best years of his Ministry. He was the first pastor on his district (or in the conference) to raise his entire quota for World Service. Brother Clark comes to this conference with every claim satisfied, and a desire to return unless something mighty good opens up for him.
Medill was the next point to visit. Because of its rural situation; being sixteen miles from any place in the world, I found Brother James Clark, the newly appointed pastor, disparing. He wanted to know of me, what sin he had committed that the conference wanted to put him in the dungeon of the penitentiary. Brother Clark gave me to know that he had pastored some the best churches of our Methodism and to think, that he had come from a highly civilized center, and a city of respectibility, to a place so remote; where there were only one store in a town of six inhabitants; whose only amusements, of the men was to sit around the store on boxes, whittle on pine sticks, chew brown mule tobacco, and wonder why the people in New York were content to live so far away from Medill; while the boys under twenty would crawl around among the men on their all fours shooting flies with rubber bands. But in just a short while Brother Clark had every thing going to his liking; and this has been indeed, (one) of the best years of his Ministry. He was the first pastor on his district (or in the conference) to raise his entire quota for World Service. Brother Clark comes to this conference with every claim satisfied, and a desire to return unless something mighty good opens up for him.
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