A small-town Georgia preacher fills pews by leaving no one out

[Joinfortmill]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/07/09/georgia-pastor-myerholtz-mount-hebron/?utm_campaign=wp_must_reads&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc


God bless this fellow and keep him safe (my words).

'HARTWELL, Ga. — At night, the worn sign looks like a beacon in the darkness out front of the modest, red-brick Mt. Hebron Baptist Church. The tired, it reads. The poor. And huddled masses. Welcome home....Pastor Grant Myerholtz, whose usual preaching attire is T-shirt and jeans... stood in the pulpit and proclaimed: All are welcome...Myerholtz seems to be pulling off a miracle of sorts: Tiny Mt. Hebron is flourishing. Barely a dozen people showed up for his first sermons in fall 2020; these days, sometimes 100 faces are looking up at him.

The 47-year-old Myerholtz is a native son, with a family history several generations deep. His path to the pulpit started in a different local Baptist church, where he briefly served as associate pastor before heading to Fruitland Baptist Bible College in North Carolina for studies in Christian ministries. Then came stops at small churches in South Carolina and Georgia, but he said he became weary of denominational doctrines, which he felt got in the way of Jesus’s teachings. He stepped away.

By 2011, he was in the National Guard. A fall during a training exercise left him with brain and spine injuries, and while recovering, he picked up a book called “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by a former Franciscan priest named Brennan Manning. Myerholtz decided to build the rest of his life around its simple premise for the Gospel: unconditional grace...“In God’s kingdom, it doesn’t matter what color we are. It doesn’t matter what party we are,” he said. “What does matter in God’s economy is how we treat one another. How we roar for one another.”

[Ocelot II]

1. Link, please?

[zuul]

2. Wow. A real life, honest to Dog Christian.

I thought they were an urban myth.

[Conjuay]

3. Can I hear an AMEN!

[Bayard]

4. He doesn't sound very Baptist-y

I had many years being pounded with hellfire and brimstone as a kid in the Baptist church.

You go, buddy.