How quickly we forget those who came before us. We may mourn them for a short time, but their shadows quickly fade from our memories. The Bible said of Abel, “he being dead still speaks” (Heb 11:4b). So, there are those who still speak after they have left this world. Who speaks for them? Some might say those of the same profession. Doctors quote and use techniques learned from the physicians of long ago. The same with lawyers; they quote and use in their daily work precedents formed by legal minds long past. The idiom, we stand on the shoulders of giants, comes to mind. Our discoveries, insights, and ideas are usually due to the work of great minds of the past. But again, who still speaks for them? The answer is simple: historians. Historians bring the dead back to life through their remembrance of great minds, their recall of historic events, and their rejuvenation of times past. History and historians learn from the past, with a hope to build or rebuild a better future.
For preachers and religious teachers of the past, there is one person who excels in remembering their lives and sermons. That person would be Wayne Kilpatrick. His recall of preachers and sermons is remarkable. So much so, as you travel with him down any road or highway, he can tell you the history of the churches found along the way—and usually recite the list of preachers who preached there or even those who held meetings at that building.
I know this because I have traveled those roads and highways with him for quite a few years and have had the privilege of “time travel” with Wayne, taking me back to the days of old tent meetings and “brush arbors.” Through his memory, I have heard Barton Stone at the Cane Ridge Meeting House. I have sat in the little house with no windows where Alexander Campbell prepared his sermons. I have heard Raccoon John Smith, Walter Scott, and Marshall Keeble preach God’s Word. I have actually stood before the graves of many historic preachers and heard of their triumphs and failures. I have followed him on mission trips to foreign lands to preach and teach the word of God. It will be my honor and privilege to share with you the stories and experiences of my friend, teacher, and brother in Christ, Wayne Kilpatrick.
If my memory serves me right, I first met Wayne at my job. I worked at Southern Sash of Florence, Alabama as a building materials salesman. Wayne, like our Savior, was a carpenter. When he came into the store for materials, we would talk. It was not long until we realized that we were both members of the church of Christ. We talked about meetings going on in our area and comings and goings of local preachers. It was not until later that I discovered that Wayne was a professor at what was then International Bible College. This was unexpected because I had only known him as a carpenter.
Our lives crossed many times from then on. One time comes to mind; a friend had asked my wife and me to attend a “get together” consisting of a meal and a bluegrass band. Much to my surprise, Wayne was one of the members of the band. This brought about another subject we shared. As our lives changed, we did not have a lot of contact until I decided, in 2007, to become a preacher. I became the preacher for the congregation in Cherokee, Alabama. When discussing with the elders them men who had preached before I came, I was not surprised to find out that I would be following in the footsteps of Wayne Kilpatrick. He had preached some fill-in work there when they had no preacher.
In August of 2010, I decided to strengthen my preaching by receiving an education at what was once International Bible College, now Heritage Christian University. One of my first courses was with Wayne Kilpatrick. Restoration Movement was just a grade to me at first, but Wayne taught us about how the church of Christ moved from England to America. When he presented the lives of all those pioneer preachers who had come before, my interest grew, and my admiration grew—for the movement but also for the teacher. He was no longer the guy who used to come into the lumber company, but he was now a portal of knowledge about those who came before me. Wayne’s love for church history—and his love for sharing his vast knowledge—contributed to his legacy as a minister.
This made me think about my own legacy, how I would be remembered. I also wanted those preachers who had so diligently taught me about God’s word to live on; people like Fred Dillion, Bobby Pinckley, Randy Baker, Jack Wilhelm, Bill Bagents, yes and even Wayne Kilpatrick. Those men, who chose to spread the gospel when they could have sought earthly riches, chose a spiritual reward. Thank God for those preachers who came before.
In Wayne’s course I was learning about those who were instrumental in the establishment of the church in America. These people chose to study God’s word and decided to follow His word as closely as possible, to return to the first-century church established by Christ and started by the apostles. They valued the church before man’s influence. They chose to follow God’s word as closely as possible and to reason together toward that goal.
It encouraged me and devastated me at the same time. The encouragement was that the church was still alive today, but the devastation was in the knowledge of how far most have strayed from that original worship. It brought to my mind that it might be time for another restoration movement: a modern return to the beginning, and a revival of teaching the gospel and preaching Christ, like the apostles of their time. We need to return to the reasoning from the scripture that the earlier restoration movement was founded on.
It seems preachers today are not sharing the story of Christ. We are not explaining the scriptures in a clear way so that the common man can experience the word of God in the way the original writers intended. It seems we believe that, if we are not preaching feel-good sermons or expounding from our doctorates, we are not the educated professionals that some of us believe themselves to be. Like Campbell and Stone realized earlier, we need to return to the basics. Like those who came before us, we need to adhere to God’s word and live in accordance with His word. Those preachers did not worry about attendance or what everyone else was doing but tried to follow the first-century church found in the word of God.
Later I had another of Wayne’s courses, World History. I love history, and it is my favorite subject. I was a little upset when the Restoration Movement and church history started to take over the history class. It seemed every period we studied something related to the Restoration Movement or church history. While it bothered me then, with hindsight, I can see that Wayne was teaching us not only to be historians but training us to be preachers. While world history is a great subject, it would not help us as preachers as much as Restoration Movement and church history. To know what those earlier preachers went through could help us as we went through much the same things.
It is said that if we do not learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them. In this sense we need to understand not only the triumphs but also the mistakes made by our predecessors. World history taught us that most of the wars and mistakes made throughout history were made under the guise of religion. Whether crusades, revolutions, or the death of our Savior, all of these were implemented by those who presented themselves as religious. If we choose to ignore history, we are doomed to live it again. Wayne Kilpatrick could explain any time or period in such a way that you would imagine you were there. I travelled many miles and throughout time in that classroom.
In my final course with Wayne, Church History, I learned the most because this subject combined Restoration Movement with world history. This class not only taught us the history of distant churches but the history of the congregation we attended, now or in the past. Wayne asked each one of us to write a history of our local congregation. At that time, I was the preacher in Cherokee, Alabama. While researching the history of the church at Cherokee, I came across historical notes taken by a William Sprague. Mr. Sprague had been to the courthouse and had completed a title search for the church at Cherokee. I talked to Mr. Sprague and through him learned a lot about the early years of the church. The item that intrigued me the most was that in 1933, the funding for the church building was raised by two women, unheard of at the time. When confronted by men of the community who believed this work was not women’s work, the ladies told the men “they had been waiting for some men to do the work.” So not all of the shoulders that we as current preachers of God’s word stand on are men’s.
The lesson I learned from my time at Heritage Christian University, and with Wayne Kilpatrick, is that we owe a debt of gratitude to those early Christians, who came before us and established congregations and taught the word of God. Our lives are better because of their sacrifices. Our sermons are better because of their studies. Our world is just a little better because of those who came before us. Without those preachers and teachers of the gospel, my mother would not have been a member of the church of Christ, and her parents, and so on. That knowledge led me to write the following sermon.
“Those Who Came Before”
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Heb 11:1–3 NKJV).
Do you ever catch yourself doing things that remind you of your parents?
I am thankful that at least one of my parents was a Christian and took me to Bible class and to church.
Faith may be learned from the scripture, but it is much easier when it is passed down from generation to generation.
Those who came before …
Listen to what the Bible says about ancestors and generational faith:
I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is ...