D. M. Renick

The lady on the phone recommended to Carol that we seek to adopt in Bulgaria because we would have the ability to chose the child from the beginning. She added, "and we have four children available for immediate adoption". Carol threw up a prayer. She asked, "Lord if there is a child that we should adopt, let their birthday have some meaning in our family and the name has some significance to us." She knew after a child was presented whose birthday was our wedding anniversary and whose name was Dennis. Dennis Montgomery Renick had been her pastor throughout her childhood and baptized her at age 12. He had married us and preached my ordination. How could we not see this as God's hand?

Once Bro. Renick knew that I had a call from the Lord, he often spoke to me about what it meant to minister. One time is particularly vivid. I was passing the central office complex in the church and he came out. I'm convinced now that he had just finished with some group, committee or deacons. He put his arm around me and said, "Don, remember that the closer you get to God's church, the tougher your skin has to be." That has guarded me through these 45 years of ministry.

Once Bro. Renick knew that I had a call from the Lord, he often spoke to me about what it meant to minister. One time is particularly vivid. I was passing the central office complex in the church and he came out. I'm convinced now that he had just finished with some group, committee or deacons. He put his arm around me and said, "Don, remember that the closer you get to God's church, the tougher your skin has to be." That has guarded me through these 45 years of ministry.

My first staff experience came about in 1977 when at the ripe old age of 20 I became the youth minister at McLean Baptist Church. When you grew up around D. M. Renick, you instinctively became aware of proper decorum. So, one day early in my ministry, I was put on the horns of a dilemma. One Monday my new pastor saw me as I got home from classes at Memphis State and called out, "Come on. Go with me to pastor's conference." I'm in jeans and a Memphis State tee-shirt. Not pastor's conference attire! But he insisted. I arrived at Bellevue and every.single.pastor was wearing: suit and tie. Talk about conspicuous; take about embarrassed! I could see the comments around the room..you know: who is THAT and why are they here dressed like that. I wanted, desperately, to find a hole to crawl into. Suddenly, I feel an arm slip through one of my arms and another slip through the other. D. M. Renick, Mr. Shelby Baptist, had me by one arm: C. M. Pickler, legendary pastor of Boulevard Baptist has me by the other and they said, "Come on, Don. Sit with us." And just like that..any commentary about who I was and why I was dressed was swallowed up in the power of their influence.

Not too long after that, leaders at McLean began to talk to me about being ordained. I was barely 22. Still, they honored me by telling me that wanted McLean Baptist Church to be vitally linked with my ministry throughout my lifetime. (I honor that church, that has ceased to exist, by celebrating their decision of laying hands on me so early.) I was confused. I called Bro. Renick. I told him what was happening and asked him if I should accept. I was humbled, not only for him to affirm the direction of the McLean church, but to also insist that he get to participate in the ordination council. He ended up being invited to be the preacher. His signature, like all of the rest of them, has almost faded away off my certificate that has been dragged to Europe and Africa, and Florida. I still have the Bible with his signature clearly in place.

Sometime shortly afterward, he scared us all with a pretty significant heart attack. I did not hear immediately. In fact, I didn't hear until the call went out needing blood for his surgery. it was a great privilege to join lots of people who loved him at the hospital and contribute.

His recovery was not rapid. This brought great sorrow to a childhood friend, Rhonda Murray. Rhonda wanted her pastor to do her wedding, but he wasn't up to it on the date set for the wedding Talking to her about the situation, he asked her, "Did you know that I just helped to ordain Don Minshew?" So my first wedding was a pinch-hit and a privilege, filling in for D. M. Renick.

1980 rolled around. Carol and I had been dating or engaged for five years. It was a great weekend. Ladies from LaBelle Haven who had been involved in our lives in one way or another for years did the rehearsal dinner. In a move, I suspect that he had perfected by much practice, Bro. Renick used a moment of distraction to have me turn back towards him squarely into a dinner roll that he had strategically ready. (His curious sense of humor can also be found in the annual of his junior year at Mississippi College when he declared that his hobby was skeleton mounting.) The next day, with his customary dignity, he led us through vows and rings and pronouncement.

Three months after our marriage, another Dennis, another pastor of LaBelle, (Dennis Pledger) led the church to send me to be the mission pastor for a church that had almost closed in bankruptcy. Bro. Renick was always helpful, giving me words of encouragement and, at times, strong counsel. Once I had him preach at the church. He was greeted by a man who had become involved in our church, a retired pastor. Later, as he got in his car, he looked at me and said, "Don, don't let that man forget who is pastor." Curiously, within a short time, the retired pastor began to create some issues. I visited him in his tomato patch behind his home. We talked about tomatoes and other general topics. I then said, "My brother. Do I need to remind you who is the pastor of this church?" He paused for a second and said, "D. M. Renick was part of my ordination council. I understand what it means to be the pastor..and I'm sorry. I've been out of line." Score two points for Bro. Renick: to recognize the potential for a problem and to be the instrument of correction without having to do anything.

In June of 1990, Carol and I were appointed as career missionaries with the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Before we left for the field in November, he found us. Life long Southern Baptist; retired after more than four decades as a Southern Baptist pastor, he said, "I have numbers of men who have been called into the ministry that has come out of my pastorate. You are, to my knowledge, the only foreign missionaries. I could not be more proud."

He went home to the Lord before he would know that our son was named for him. It was a great joy to visit with Mrs. Renick and Monty at the family home and to bring our little Dennis. She cried a bit as she held him, knowing about the name. They had a remote control holder that hung on a chair shaped like an animal. Dennis played with it the whole time we were there. Mrs. Renick gave it to Dennis as we left and we still have it in storage.

We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. D. M. Renick, who only traveled up the road from Red Banks to do lifelong ministry in Memphis, has fruit in Portugal and Angola and Kenya and Botswana and South Africa, and Namibia. African pastors carry with them D. M. Renick counsel and as I work with pastors here in south Florida, not much time goes by without some advice given that originated with Bro. Renick,

I always thought that my life would look a lot like Bro. Renick's: decades-long ministry in the same church, retiring from that church. That's not how it worked out. Yet, I get to encourage men to longevity, to emulate a pastor they never knew.