Reader Responses

I'm a former Methodist from Marshall - even served as a licensed lay speaker for a short time until the pastor preached his infamous sermon about the Methodist Church believing the Holy Spirit was "nothing but an IT - a mere influence."

I bring up my Methodist background because I have a few comments to make after reading the news report of "A Prophet Among Us" by the itinerant Pastor David Brown at Marvin Methodist Church last Wednesday evening.

I wish I had gone to hear the Rev. Brown, who serves as pastor of seven small churches n Louisiana and Mississippi. If you missed the excellent story written in the Tyler Paper Saturday by Religion Editor Patrick Butler go look it up. He covered the event very well and his quotes from many of those attending were very enlightening.

Pastor Brown was quoted as preaching about the story in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus talked to Zacchaeus who had climbed into a tree so he could see Jesus over the crowd (he was very short). Zacchaeus offered many excuses as to why he could not "give his all," to which Jesus replied: "I can see I am not getting through to you, Zacchaeus, I can see you don't understand."

The story by Pastor Brown was not the most remarkable part - the remarkable part was the comments reported by the departing congregation as many were heard saying: "I've never heard anything like this before."