The Limp Is Mightier Than the Strut

For most of my childhood and adolescence I sat under the preaching of Preacher Bill Coleman, the long-time Pastor to the saints of the Midway Baptist Church, located several miles outside of Barnesville, Georgia on City Pond Road. It is to his memory that this collection of sermons is dedicated. Preacher Bill, a loving pastor and a fervent proclaimer of the Good News of Jesus Christ, was a blue-collar preacher, which worked out well since his congregation was comprised mainly of mill workers, including my parents. He had none of the educational advantages with which life has afforded me but in him as in the prophet Jeremiah a message stirred that was like fire in his bones; one got the impression that if he didn't let it out it would burn him up. I have always carried with me the sense I got from Preacher Bill that the words of the preacher are a matter of life and death.
I am under no illusion that the sermons in this book are in their content in any way like the sermons preached by Preacher Bill-except that the same Good News about the same Lord lies at the heart of them. He did not get to follow my ministry since he was killed in an automobile accident as I was just getting established in my first post-seminary church so I have no way of knowing what he would have thought of my preaching career. He's been gone for almost thirty years now.
I do hope, though, that the words of these sermons somehow reflect my conviction that the Good News proclaimed by Preacher Bill in his way and by me in my way is vitally important. I hope that in my own way I have in my preaching and in my ministry been heir to the legacy of Preacher Bill.