Pastor, 96, spends lifetime ‘helping churches get on their feet again’

Nov 5, 2009
By CAROLYN NICHOLS
Newswriter

BAPTISM Pastor O.E. Boals baptized five new believers into the membership of Riverside Baptist Church Oct. 18. Courtesy photo

BRANFORD (FBW)—Oliver Everett “O.E.” Boals, pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Branford, has served Florida Baptist churches 78 years in cities and communities from Lake Placid to Jacksonville. He has preached in 13 states, in South Africa, and has “done more revival meetings than a full-time evangelist,” he said.

The 96-year-old will travel 400 miles to Pensacola to attend the Florida Baptist Convention Nov. 9-10, his first convention meeting in several years.

“At my age, I just don’t travel like I used to,” Boals told Florida Baptist Witness.

O.E. BOALS, 96, has served Florida Baptist churches 78 years. Courtesy photo

His trips out of Branford may be fewer, but in his local area he is on the roads visiting church members in the hospitals and at their homes, doing all the work of a pastor. Darel Mitchell, director of missions in Lafayette Baptist Association, said no one should assume Boals is a part-time pastor because of his age.

“He is full-time in every sense. I’ve never met a pastor at 96 who is as strong in mind, body and spirit as he is,” Mitchell said. “His life is like a marathon, and he is faithful to the finish.”

Boals began his marathon ministry mostly serving churches that were not able to pay a preacher. The veteran pastor said his purpose in serving the needy churches was to lead them to a point where they could support a man in a full-time position. As an 18-year-old in 1932, he noticed a Baptist church near his home that was “all closed up because they couldn’t pay $5/month for a preacher,” he said. Boals offered to preach there for love offerings received on Sundays, and the young preacher was given 75 cents to $1.50 weekly.

To make ends meet, he cut cordwood, worked at a sawmill, managed a grocery store and a meat market.

“I’ve done everything you would call hard work,” he said.

When he was called to serve Jonesville Baptist Church, his home church when he was “a farm boy,” he agreed to preach there two Sundays a month if the congregation would agree to meet every Sunday morning and night and every Wednesday night, with or without him. On the other two Sundays of the month, he preached at Island Grove Baptist Church. At the end of a year of the half-time arrangement with Jonesville Baptist Church, he baptized 37 new believers in one service.

Boals’ longest pastorate was 18 years at Jones Road Baptist Church in Jacksonville. His shortest was four days at Hawthorne Baptist Church in the Santa Fe Baptist Association.

He said the Hawthorne church had experienced “a split” in the mid-1930’s and the break-off group was meeting in the local Coca-Cola plant, giving it the name of “the Coca-Cola church.”

The Coca-cola church group called Boals as pastor in a unanimous vote and he accepted the call on Sunday. He spent the next three days ministering to the congregation and, on Wednesday, he led the group to reunite with Hawthorne Baptist Church.

“I think I hold the record for the shortest pastorate of any in the Convention,” he said with a chuckle.

Often during his 78 years of pastoral experience, Boals has felt—and followed—God’s call from a large church to a small, struggling congregation. The father of three said he once left a church of 700 to serve “a country church with 20 members.” Boals has little patience for pastors “who only hear God’s call when it moves them to more money, more prestige and a bigger house.”

“With God, sometimes a step down is a promotion,” he said.

Boals first sensed God’s call to preach when he was only four. He and his family heard a preacher cite Luke 5 to urge obedience to God.

“I can see him still in my mind’s eye. I have never forgotten the words ‘nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net.’”

Even though Boals said the call of God was unmistakable and he carried a New Testament in his pocket as a boy, he did not choose to become a Christian until he was 17.

“If I accepted Jesus, I would have to preach, and I did not want to preach,” he said. “But then I made up my mind to do what God called me to do.”

Along the way, he married “the only girl I ever dated,” Shirley Keen, and the two were married “73 years and 14 days,” until her death in October 2008. The couple had three children, three grandsons and six great grandchildren.

“She never sought the stage or the limelight, and she was a servant all the days of her life,” Boals said. “She was a model for all Baptist preachers’ wives.”

PASTOR AND WIFE O.E. and Velvehree Boals were married four months ago. Courtesy photo

Only four months ago, Boals married his late wife’s sister, Velvehree. Many years ago, Boals officiated at her wedding to Bill Griffis who died after 54 years of marriage to Velvehree.

“We needed each other, and she is a strong helper just like her sister,” he said.

The couple now serves together at Riverside Baptist Church, where most of the congregation calls their pastor “Pappy.” He has been pastor two years, and hopes “to spend my last days helping the church get on its feet again.” Boals said he will preach “one sermon after I turn 100, then I’ll consider retirement.”

Attendance at Riverside Baptist is about 35 on Sunday morning; however, church membership grew by five Oct. 18, when Boals baptized five new believers including his adult great grandson, J.D. Bryant.

Boals said his experience in churches has shown the truth of Apostle Paul’s description of the last days, when people forsake God’s Word and prefer “what itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3).

“When I started preaching churches wanted to hear hard, sound Gospel. Now they just want to feel good,” he said.
What advice would the veteran pastor offer young preachers facing such churches? Boals said pastors need “to make a commitment of their lives to God’s calling,” and when modern congregations don’t want to hear sound doctrine, “love your people and they will listen to you.”

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