Part - 29.b. - Andy - School & Work

RAISIN'


29b. Andy - School and Work

After graduating from Mobile College, Andy spent about six months working with a church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Later, he worked with a contractor, in Mobile, doing house repairs that were damaged by Hurricane Frederick.

He was Youth Director and sometimes Music Director at Brewton, AL, Lumberton, MS, Prosper, TX, and First Baptist Jackson, AL. He pastored churches at Stave Creek Baptist, just out of Jackson; First Baptist, Abbeville, AL; Clearview Baptist in Pinson, AL and First Baptist in Fayette, AL.

In 1995, he left Fayette and went to work with Rapha, a Christian Counseling service in conjunction with Charter Hospitals in Atlanta.

In November, 1995, he had some personal problems and went into therapy for a while, some in-hospital and some out.

In August 1996, he began working for Trinity Church, a very large interdenominational church, in Lubbock, TX as Communications Director. Later, he was changed over to work as an Associate Pastor at Trinity, focused on Men’s Ministry. He has had occasion to lead the Choir, Orchestra and Congregational Music Worship and several occasions to Preach at Trinity. This was in addition to his monthly Men’s Ministries breakfast meetings.

He spent about a year as pastor of a small Baptist Church in Brownfield, TX.

During a five-year period, people from all around Lubbock, from several denominations encouraged Andy to start a new church in that area. So, in 2003 a group had met and had the first service of Turning Points Community Church in Lubbock. They met in several different locations for the first 3 years. During that time, they bought a 20 acre cotton field in the south west section of Lubbock. There were few houses in that area at that time. A year later, they built a new building housing a 458 person capacity sanctuary, offices, children and youth areas and some Sunday School rooms. Currently, they are into two services per week with an attendance between 550 and 625. The area is now getting heavily populated with more and more houses going up all the time. I would imagine that within the next few years they will probably at least double the capacity of the buildings.

While at the Seminary, Andy met an “MK” (Missionary’s Kid) by the name of Robin Leigh Willis from Brownfield, TX. About a year later, they were married in Brownfield.

Robin’s father had been a Medical Missionary to Thailand for about fifteen years. He had a medical clinic in Brownfield. He retired from there a couple of years ago and moved up to Lubbock. He is now working with a clinic in Lubbock.

Robin is “a Jill of all trades!” She loves ceramics, wall papering, and had a hobby of collecting “Coca Cola” stuff. She is very enthusiastic over most any new venture she undertakes, and tries to make the most of it. In many things, she is limited due to her having Lupus, but she goes on anyway, even though she may be in pain. She worked as an Account Executive with Cleanweb.net, an internet access provider that screens out all objectionable programs, in Lubbock. She has completed her Masters Degree in Family Counseling and is now working with a clinic at Texas Tech University doing children and family counseling.

Andy has written a number of songs that are VERY inspirational. He loves to sing, and does a good job at it. Sometimes, I want to “wring his neck” because he hasn’t ever copy written his songs and published them to get the messages to others.

Cottage Hill Baptist Church began a very powerful musical drama called “Golgotha” in about 1976. They continue to produce and present the program each year at Easter time. They present it at least 6 or 8 times each year.

Andy played the role of Peter in the first two and the fourth presentation, and “brought down the house” with his singing of “He’s Alive!”

He doesn’t have much time for his music at TPCC as being Pastor of a church that size is really a FULL TIME job. He does like to write. He has written two 40-day Christian study books and has “shadow written” one book for Fred Wolfe and one for Robin’s sister, Kay Miller. I think that he will eventually end up being a full time writer in his older years. He writes a frequent Blog called Life Vesting, a Christian post.