Dr. James H. Thompson - 'The Young Pastor'

Pictured at my five- or six-year-old birthday lunch (after Sunday morning church service) are (from left) my Uncle Fred Crain, my Grandmother Lillian Crain, Pastor Jimmy Thompson, me (as a boy), Shirley (my young sister), Eva Crain (my mother), my Grandfather Carl Crain and Jesse B. Crain (my father). Place: our home on Groce Meadow Road in Taylors, S.C.

I wrote in 1998 the following poem for Dr. James H. "Jimmy" Thompson, former pastor of Faith Temple Church in Taylors, S.C., and founder of WGGS-TV16 in Greenville, S.C. Pastor Jimmy was my pastor during my childhood and teen years. I worked part-time for seven years (during my school and college years) for him at Faith Printing Company, which he also founded. I read this poem in June 1998 at the Faith Temple service honoring Pastor Thompson’s 50 years of ministry. I read it, again, at his funeral on June 2, 2011. He was 82 years old when he passed on.

The Young Pastor

I remember you,
Double Springs Community boy,
Son of a dairy farm man with big hands,
Son of a gentle, loving mother –
In Christ, a son of God.

Diligence, steadfastness, kind compassion –
Those are the traits that come to my mind
As I remember you,
The young pastor who stood before me when I was a boy.

You had a heart for the hurting,
A passion for the printed Word,
A simple eloquence in the spoken Word.
You were a scholar, but fellowshipped easily
with those less-learned.

My heart was touched by your preaching;
You made Bible stories live.
And with a catch in your voice,
You often read a favorite poem that contained these lines:
“…I complained I had no shoes,
until I met a man who had no feet….”
How often those words have come to my mind
When I have felt self-pity…
And those words are always spoken
from the echoing halls of my memory
by your voice.

There are images in my mind of you, the young pastor,
Bringing people to church in your car,
Taking time for the poor and aged…
Taking us boys, sons of mill workers,
to a camp where, usually, only rich people go.

In my mind there is an image
Of you, the young pastor, with your lovely bride,
Moving on through life…
Steady…faithful…someone to believe in…
Bringing Christ to Christianity.

You’ve reached many goals and played many parts
Since those days when you were a young man.

Double Springs Community boy,
Son of a dairy farm man with big hands,
Son of a gentle, loving mother –
In Christ, a son of God,
I will always remember you as the good and faithful servant
Who stood before me as my pastor
When I was a boy.

###

Rev. James H. Thompson’s wife of 56 years, Joanne U. Thompson, passed away on March 3, 2011. They worked together in ministry throughout their life together. Survivors include three sons and their wives, one grandson and his wife, two granddaughters and one great-granddaughter.

After expressing my sympathies to Pastor Jimmy Thompson’s family at his funeral service, I was honored to deliver a condensed version of the following tribute to Pastor Jimmy during his funeral, held at Faith Temple Church, Taylors, S.C., at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 2, 2011. I spoke briefly before the Rev. Coy Barker and the Rev. Raymond D. Burrows spoke.

By Steve Crain: A Tribute to Pastor "Jimmy"

Dr. James H. “Jimmy” Thompson has gone to be with the Lord. He was my childhood pastor. He left a Christ-mark on my life.

My wife Carol and I have lived in Southern Pines, N.C., since 1989. Our daughters, Janelle and Suzanne, are now grown. I, a Christian layman, still work in a carpet-making mill, and I still often think about things I learned from Pastor Jimmy.

Jimmy grew up on his father’s dairy farm, across from Double Springs Baptist Church. His father Lawrence and mother Esther Rosella Wood Thompson raised five children (listed in birth order): Jimmy, Nell, Betty, Tommy and Judy.

Ms. Nell was my beloved first-grade teacher. She says about Jimmy, “One of my earliest memories was sitting with him at Double Springs Church. I think we were five or six years old. He went up to put his birthday offering in, and I went with him. It was not my birthday, but wherever he went, I thought I was supposed to go, too.

She says, “We used to pick cotton and sing ‘Jesus Saves.’ Neither Jimmy nor I were blessed with a talent to sing; we just made a joyful sound, and it echoed in the valley.”

Jimmy once said he was 15 and sitting at his family’s Sunday-after-church, mid-day meal, that he was “called to be a preacher.” After that meal, he and his father sat on their front porch; his father told Jimmy, “I had rather you be a preacher of the Gospel than be president of the United States.”

Ms. Nell and Jimmy rode together when both were day students at Furman University.

“Before he married Joanne, I used to go with him through the countryside to pick up children for Sunday school when he pastored Gum Springs,” Nell says. “We filled his car full of children (no seatbelts then). This was Jimmy’s little bus.”

My Uncle Fred Crain, 85, attended Mountain View School with Jimmy.

“He was in the eighth grade; I was in the eleventh,” Fred says. “He was nice, clean-cut, polite, every hair in place. He was smart and studied. He later drove the Double Springs school bus part of the time and, I believe, managed the candy store at school.”

Fred says that, as far as he knows, Jimmy was one of the few Mountain View students who went on to college in the 1930s and ’40s.

“About the only place they could go was to Holmes Bible College,” Fred says. “They could go there ‘on faith’ (paying whatever they could).”

My parents, sister and many of our extended family attended Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church in the Blue Ridge area of Greenville, S.C., when Pastor Jimmy, a Holmes Bible College and Furman University graduate, accepted the pastorate of that church in the mid-1950s.

Jimmy became a pilot. I recall working outside at the church with my Grandfather Carl and some men, when Pastor Jimmy flew low over the building. The story goes that after he began dating Joanne Upton, Jimmy flew over her mother’s house (where Joanne was living) and yelled down to Joanne, who was watching, “I’ll see you tonight at 7:00!” They married on April 22, 1955.

Jimmy envisioned the Full-Gospel message reaching beyond denominational lines. He left the Gum Springs church, and on Sunday, December 16, 1956, he preached to over 200 people gathered in an old building on the Ben Paris farm in the Blue Ridge area. I was there. That day, the group donated $7,000 in gifts and pledges to create an interdenominational church, which became Faith Temple Church of Taylors. Mary Beardon donated land, and Pastor Jimmy and his leaders broke ground on Sunday, December 30, 1956.

During Faith Temple’s early days, Jimmy often took the church’s young people to a park in Greer to play softball, and he organized yearly 2-day trips to Camp Arrowhead (for boys) near Tuxedo, N.C. Most of us who attended that camp were mill-worker’s kids who’d never seen a real camp. Jimmy played ball and swam and ate with us.

My old friend, Dr. Jerry R. Robertson, now living in Myrtle Beach, is a Southern Baptist minister and also worked as a college administrator. He recently retired from college duties and fills pulpits as an interim pastor.

As a teenager, Jerry held weekly summer afternoon meetings at his Grandmother Pauline’s house near Mountain View. I sometimes lead the singing at those meetings. The audience was usually made up of Jerry’s grandma, my grandma and maybe Mrs. Rob Butler. Pastor Jimmy often took time from his busy schedule to attend those meetings. He also gave Jerry opportunities to preach at Faith Temple.

After learning of Jimmy’s death, Jerry e-mailed me this message:

“Jimmy was my mentor in ministry. I have always been indebted to him for his love and support as I began preaching at 16 years old. I remember the days at Faith Temple with great love and appreciation for how those experiences molded my life. He will be missed but not absence from my memory."

I learned much from Pastor Jimmy’s preaching and from how he interacted with people.

Some folk I knew years ago may have thought Jimmy was too nice to people, that he too often gave folk the “benefit of the doubt,” that if he made a mistake in dealing with people, he tended to err on the “kindness side.” I liked that trait in him.

My late mother, commenting on some squabbling going on behind the scenes at Faith Temple during the 1960s, said at that time, “Jimmy is so good, he doesn’t believe people can be mean.”

Years ago, I thought of Pastor Jimmy when I found this poem written by an unknown author: “I have wept in the night / For the shortness of sight / That to somebody’s need / Made me blind; / But I never have yet / Felt a tinge of regret / For being a little too kind.”

A while back, I quoted that poem to Pastor Jimmy and told him it made me think of him. He said, “I’d like to have a copy of that.”

I worked part-time at Faith Printing Company, during my high school and college years. While working at Faith Printing, I never saw Pastor Jimmy lose his composure. I consider him one of the most consistent and disciplined men I’ve known. He influenced (and employed at times) many salt-of-the-earth folk, but he moved easily among people of various backgrounds and abilities.

Pastor Jimmy was “there” to offer a prayer and an embrace when I said “so long” to my wife and boarded a plane for one year of U.S. Army service in Vietnam.

One night, years later, when I was a patient at the Greenville hospital, all visitors had departed. At 9:30 p.m. I heard footsteps approaching my bed. Pastor Jimmy was making his rounds.

I feel that most people would have collapsed under the heavy slate of endeavors and duties Pastor Jimmy shouldered. He always seemed to exude a kind of quiet patience that, to me, evidenced deep faith.

Jimmy’s brother Tommy recently wrote to me, saying about Jimmy, “He is the greatest brother.”

Ms. Nell’s and Ms. Judy’s tears evidence their love for their brother who has gone to be with Jesus.

My Uncle Fred Crain stayed close to Jimmy over the years. They often dined together before Jimmy’s health declined. Fred says Jimmy, in recent times, told him, “Fred, you’re my best friend.” Jimmy sometimes asked Fred, “You’re still my buddy, aren’t you?"One night, after a meal together, they were riding, and Fred, who plays several stringed instruments, was playing a CD he’d made in his garage room. As Jimmy listened, he said to Fred, “If I could play like that, I’d shout all the way home.”

I believe Pastor Jimmy is home, now, and I imagine he is doing some shouting.