When I first met Rev. Bill Poole, I had no idea what an influence he would have on my life.
He had recently settled in as the new pastor of Yazoo City’s First United Methodist Church, and I was the managing editor of this newspaper at the time. I stopped by his office at the church for an interview introducing him to the community, and in addition to talking about his ministry and his plans for his new church, we spent some time talking about hunting and common friends.
At the time, Jamie and I lived on Washington Street just up the road from First Methodist, and we were going to church at Fletcher’s Chapel, the church where I grew up.
As I was leaving, Brother Bill told me that there would probably be days when we were running late for church, and we could always visit First Methodist if that happened.
Time passed on, and we had a second child. At the time there weren’t many children at Fletcher’s Chapel. That’s when we made the decision to transfer to First Methodist so that our children could have the same opportunities that we enjoyed as children in church.
It was a difficult decision for me because I loved the people at my church so much, and I had so much family history there, but we had to do what we thought was the best thing for our children.
It turned out to be very rewarding for all of us. After getting over the problem accidentally sitting in someone else’s seat for a couple of Sundays, we found ourselves right at home surrounded by a group of welcoming and encouraging people.
Our kids eagerly got involved in their Sunday school classes, and we did too. But the thing that made the biggest impression on us was what an excellent Bible teacher Brother Bill is. The man’s knowledge of scripture is incredible. His ability to quote related scriptures from all over the Bible is fascinating and enlightening.
Jamie participated in a couple of his Discipleship Bible studies, and she would always come home so excited about what she learned that she would share it with me. Both of us found ourselves more motivated to study God’s word and thinking more deeply about what we were reading because we had such a great teacher.
Brother Bill will preach his last sermon at First Methodist on Sunday. He is “retiring” or I’m sure he could have stayed as long as he desired. I put quotes around the word retired, because it’s not a retirement in the traditional sense. He’s still going to be preaching, it’s just going to be to a smaller church – or churches in this case.
We were surprised to hear that his next assignment will be preaching at Fletcher’s Chapel and Bethany. I think that’s God’s way of saying Yazoo County still needs him.
And now that I live closer to the community where I grew up, I can always take his advice from year’s ago and stop in for a visit if we’re running late on Sunday morning.
