May 30, 2019
By: Dwayne Page
The Bright Hill and Smithville First United Methodist Churches will soon have a new minister.
Dr. John Carpenter, who has served both churches as pastor for 8 years, will be leaving in late June. He is the focus of this week’s WJLE “Preacher Feature”
“The Bishop and Cabinet for middle Tennessee have appointed me to the Waverly First United Methodist Church which is about three hours from here on the other side of Nashville. The last Tuesday of June will be moving day for me and my family,” said Dr. Carpenter.
IMG_6768 from dwayne page on Vimeo.
The 63 year old veteran minister who came to Smithville from the Nashville area in 2011 said he has enjoyed his time here and will miss the people of this community.
“It has been a good experience and I have learned a lot. I told the congregation when I arrived that my first task would be to listen so for the first couple of years I just listened to both church and community leaders,” he said.
Dr. Carpenter said he will especially miss swapping stories with friends around the morning breakfast table at Patty’s Restaurant.
“I call it the round table that meets at Patty’s at 4 o’clock in the morning. It’s a bunch of guys from various businesses who meet there. I call it the round table of wisdom. They laugh when I say that. We tell stories and I jokingly tell them that I get all my sermon ideas from that table. I will miss the friends I have made here,” he said.
Born and raised in the Nashville area, Dr. Carpenter recalled fondly his years as a youngster.
“I am from Bordeaux on the north side of Nashville and we lived on a hill there. I remember from my mother’s kitchen window we could see downtown Nashville which only had at that time one tall building called the L & C tower. Dad built the house we lived in but before I was born they lived in a two car garage that he built while completing the rest of the house,” said Dr. Carpenter.
“I went to Cumberland High School in Bordeaux until busing began and then I ended up at McGavock High School in Donelson. I did my first two years of college at Belmont which is now Belmont University and then went to Scarritt College of Christian workers, a small Methodist College in Nashville. After that I moved on to Emory University to get the Master Divinity Degree and then to Columbia Theological University and completed my doctoral work. I tell people I was raised a Nazarene., went to a Baptist College to be a Methodist preacher, did my doctoral work at a Presbyterian Seminary and my brother is a Roman Catholic so I am either confused or very well rounded,” he continued.
Dr. Carpenter said he felt the call to the ministry as a young man while listening to a sermon and that revelation astonished both his church pastor and future wife.
“One Sunday night after a youth group meeting at Bordeaux United Methodist Church I went outside. The doors were open to the church and I just leaned against the front wall. I wasn’t even looking in the sanctuary but I was listening to Brother Wayne Masters preach from 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter and as I was hearing that sermon I felt the call to be a preacher. I went in and told Brother Wayne after the worship was over and noticed that he had a shocked look in his eyes. I wish I could have taken a picture of that because my own preacher was shocked that I was getting that call. And when I told my wife Kathy, who I was dating at the time and we were close to getting engaged, her reply was I thought I was going to marry a civil engineer because that is what I was studying to become,” he said.
Looking back on his 43 years in the ministry, Dr. Carpenter said he has enjoyed the journey serving the Lord and his congregations.
“While I was in college I served four churches in Hickman County and then I went to a church of about 30 people in Atlanta while I was going to school . Afterwards I moved on to Ruth Ensor United Methodist Church in Old Hickory and it was amazing how that church grew with an average attendance of 72. I remember on occasions like Easter Sunday we would have to bring in chairs and still people would be standing. That was an exciting ministry and we had lots of volunteers in that church. From there I went to various places in the Nashville area including Forest Hills in Brentwood and then to Arlington United Methodist Church before coming here but my favorite of all appointments is this one in Smithville. I knew before I came that it would be new territory but I love it. I got to know many people and probably more people outside than inside the church. It has just been a super experience,” he said.
Dr. Carpenter said the churches he has served here have been supportive of him and done great things for the community and he has been fortunate to have been part of it.
“After listening to community and church leaders concerned about the youth in our community, I did some work on that and found out that percentage wise DeKalb County was among the highest in Tennessee with youth suicides, youth drug addiction, and youth pregnancies and I Imagine we are still there. So for three years we hired a youth director who came in and did excellent work and that youth program grew to become strong. I invite churches in the community to do what you think is impossible for the Lord and it will be in the end more possible than you think,” he continued.
“God’s Food Pantry also began here. Ms Pat Zornow who is over it has been exceptional in getting who knows how many churches, businesses, and individuals involved so that no longer is it a one church program. It is now a whole community program and it amazes me that 25,000 plus people are helped through that organization a year. I am glad I played a small part in getting that started,” said Dr. Carpenter.
Although he could, Dr. Carpenter isn’t ready to retire just yet.
“ I could retire right now because after 40 years you can retire from the United Methodist Church. Interestingly enough the United Methodist Church has a required retirement age at 72. I don’t know how close I will get to that age. I will just look for the way the Lord leads,” he said.
The Bright Hill United Methodist Church meets for Sunday morning worship at 9 a.m. while the Smithville First United Methodist Church service is at 11 a.m.
For more information about the church visit http://www.smithvillefumc.org/