Jackson Jambalaya

I had forgotten how well he preached. Sure miss him, but I know he is somewhere so much better than this earth.......

I don't go to church but my wife does. Last night we were discussing an event during which various people on stage were 'consumed by the Holy Ghost' and began dancing, shouting, red-faced, stomping, hollering amen and Praise The Lord and other stuff I could not understand.

Anyway, she told me that the Baptist church she attends, a real large one in the Metro, predominantly white, has changed from back when I grew up in a Baptist Church. Now nobody, not even the preacher, wears a tie and people raise their hand (or both) and shout AMEN in the middle of the sermon and stand up and roll their eyes and look upward.

I'll just go for a ride in my truck.

@3:35 Sounds like you've missed the point altogether......

On the issue of KF's post: Frank was as fine a man as I ever met.

Before I moved to the Jackson area in 1994, I read an article about Dr. Pollard in a mainstream news magazine, probably Time, discussing the top pastors in America.

He was the best I ever heard. Never before or sense have I experienced a minister who -- so soft-spoken -- could hold my rapt attention. He was a kind, but very shy man.

Frank was the son of a roughneck in East Texas, and escaped with a baseball scholarship to Texas A&M in the early/mid 1950s. Once -- I remember like it was yesterday -- he was preaching about the need for God's grace and forgiveness. His personal anecdote began with a tale of playing one-on-one basketball with John David Crowe, Bear Bryant's only Heisman Trophy winner.

"I asked him, why can't I ever beat you?" he said. Crowe replied, simply, "Because you're not good enough."

None of us is "good" enough to get to Heaven, was his point.

Oh, what a dear man Frank Pollard was.

Thank you, KF, for posting this. Just listened to the whole thing and realized again how alive with God's spirit Frank was. Everything he said made sense. He could explain everything with ease.

Is there someplace more of these can be found?

He embodies "Pastor."

Unlike a lot of 'so-called pastors' in the Metro area who become embroiled in sex scandals, money scandals, drug scandals....

Here is the example of someone who actually believed in what he spoke of on Sunday--integrity. I have no affiliation with FBCJ--and am not Baptist. But he was certainly a voice for good in our community.

True story, as told to me by one of his contemporaries: When told by his physician that he had Parkinson's (the disease that would ultimately take him home to the Lord), he said, "Well that gives me the shakes."

Johnny Dinas, still living I believe, Methodist Minister who hailed from Durant but lives in Grenada, ran parallel to Pollard in many ways. Perhaps he was Pollard's role model.

Is there a parallel between this wonderful sermon our current mayor ? Also impressed that KF came up with this. Got anymore?

Another story about Frank Pollard, from a Baptist blog a few years back:

"I remember a story one of my heroes, the late Frank Pollard, shared with me during my seminary days. He had gone to FBC of Jackson Mississippi as their senior pastor. It was the early 1970’s and forced integration was taking its toll on the community. Racial tensions were at an all time high. Against the wishes of several powerful men in his church, Dr. Pollard asserted that their church would have an open door membership policy. They would not vote on whether or not to admit people to membership in their church, a longstanding tradition in the Baptist church. Originally the practice meant to keep the church made up of true believers, but the practice was often used and abused to exclude people of different races. Dr. Pollard knew that the church at large would not vote African-Americans into membership. In a prophetic act, Dr. Pollard declared that as long as he was the pastor, whoever wanted to join FBC Jackson would be accepted regardless of their background or race."

"In the face of death threats and other more subtle forms of hostility, Dr. Pollard met with his deacons and explained, “I was the last of seven children to be born into my dirt-poor west Texas family. Our house only had two rooms. As a baby I made lots of noise and smelled bad. Had there been a vote, my six older brothers probably would have voted me right out of the house. But my family was not a democracy. The only vote that counted was my Father’s. It was his family and he said I stayed. The church is the same. The Father decides who becomes apart of the Family of God.”

We will not soon see his like again.

11:36 -- I asked the same question, re: more of Frank's messages. Turns out they're all over YouTube.