Tag: College

CHAPTER ELEVEN

November 23, 2025

PREPARING FOR SERVICE

1974 was a year of change in my life.  I was a sophomore at SMSU.  My application to Missouri University in Columbia was mailed in January.  In March I had the opportunity to serve as youth week pastor at my church, Immanuel Baptist.  I preached my first sermon with the help of Pastor Clyde Leonard.  Life was about to change.

I left the comfort of Dog ‘N Suds and began working at Denny’s.  They were open 24 hours a day.  My job was busboy and dishwasher.  I often worked on the graveyard shift on Saturday, showered at home and went to church.  I would catch a nap after lunch and return for the evening worship service.

That summer Mac Davis came to the Ozark Empire Fair.  I did not go to the show, but Vanessa had reserved seat tickets with some of her friends.  I worked the late shift that night.  Around 1:00 am Mac and his manager came in for breakfast after the show. 

The waitress who took his order was too nervous to ask for an autograph.  I took a bus tub out with a piece of paper for his signature.  After placing the tub on a nearby table I walked over and asked for the autograph.  I returned to the back after putting Mr. Davis’s eggs under the heat lamp for him and gave the paper to his waitress.

My sister was upset the next morning that I had not gotten her an autograph also.  She was mad when a few months later he released the song “Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble. (When you’re perfect in every way.)”.  It wasn’t the song that made her mad.  It was the fact I told her it was written about me.  I still maintain that today.

By the time my acceptance letter to the journalism school at MU came, I no longer wanted to be a newspaperman or broadcaster.  I knew God wanted me to do something else.  Education in journalism was not a priority.  Studying the scriptures was most important.

Clyde was a graduate of SWBC and Mark, our youth minister was a student there.  When I told my Mother I wanted to check it out she was not surprised.  She wasn’t at church the day I made my commitment to full time ministry but one of her friends told her before I got the courage to.  That was hard to do.  To tell my parents I was wrong about where my life would lead was extremely difficult.

An appointment was made, and we went to the campus, spoke to the enrollment office, and were shown one of the dorms and the cafeteria and campus union.  It was not nearly as large as SMSU.  We discussed how we would afford the added expense.  We had been told about scholarships that I might be eligible for.

Clyde helped obtain church approval for a matching scholarship.  If I drove rather than staying in the dorm I would get a commuter scholarship.  There was also a ministerial scholarship that we used.  It ended, costing about the same as SMSU.

I had to take Biology, New Testament and Old Testament which were general education classes that freshmen normally took.  I wanted to continue foreign language, and they offered Biblical Greek.  I scheduled Greek and New Testament for the first semester.  Dr. Cowen taught both.  Over the next two years I had him at least once every semester.  Richard W. Nixon was in my New Testament Class.  He was a freshman.

I enrolled as a transfer student with over 60 hours.  My original degree plan was for an English major.  I was considering getting a teaching certificate to have something to fall back on, if preaching did not work out.  As I got into the first semester, I decided to put everything in God’s hands.  I changed my major to religion.  That made me a preacher boy.  I felt that God wanted me there to study the Bible.  That’s what I did for two years.

Early in the semester I saw a posting for summer missionaries.  You would spend 10 weeks working through the Home Mission Board.  They paid the expenses and a small amount for the summer.  I thought this was a better Idea than the summer I worked at Zenith Television in Springfield.  I made good money and spent time studying my German while working on a final line, but I wanted something more than money now.

The time I spent on the road driving the 30 miles to and from Bolivar gave me the opportunity to develop my praying skills.  I still find commuting time to work a perfect time to get my day started right.  I did not know the changes that would come before the summer.  I could not foresee another calling from God.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

The summer of 1975

January 26, 2025

In 1975 I traveled farther than I had ever gone.  I rode a Continental Trail Ways Bus from Springfield, MO to Harrisburg, PA. I left Missouri on a bright morning and by the next afternoon had checked into a hotel with over a hundred college and high school students from all over the United States. We were there for orientation to the Student Summer Mission Program of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Leaving home wasn’t that hard. I spent the last semester of school in a dormitory on campus in Bolivar. That is about thirty miles north of my home. Ron, my roommate, and I got along well, and we both went home every weekend.  He went to Waynesville and I to Springfield.  He had transferred to Southwest Baptist College that year as a junior from the University of Missouri, Rolla campus. I did the same thing from Southwest Missouri State University. He was a mechanical engineering student, and my major was creative writing. I was going to go to the University of Missouri at Columbia before God called me to the ministry.  Ron’s plans were changed by God, also, before we met.

During the first week of my first semester, I saw signs around campus promoting the Summer Missionary Program. I filled out the paperwork and applied. We would find out if we had been accepted after the new year.

That year, I met many new people, not all of them at college. I went to church one Wednesday evening for dinner and joined a youth excursion to a haunted house. At church, I met a cute little high school girl. As we waited in line at the haunted house, we began holding hands, and I made myself available to comfort her when she was frightened.

I failed to ask for her phone number that night. I later asked the girl she had attended with for her number, and we began dating. When I received my acceptance for the summer and learned I would be going to PA I wondered about leaving her for ten weeks.

When I left in June 1975, we were engaged. We wrote letters—yes, I know that is old-fashioned—and spoke on the phone. I missed her terribly. I returned in August; I had decided that by next summer, we would be married. I was graduating in the spring and did not know if I would be going to seminary or where God would take me.

I took a part-time job in February of 1976 and was offered a full-time management trainee position two weeks before graduation. Two weeks after our wedding I was told they needed me to move to Joplin, Missouri. Cindy was still in high school. I left for Joplin on a Sunday evening and stayed in a hotel. She joined me on Friday after she quit her summer job.

I was so glad to have her in my arms again. She graduated in December, and we returned to Springfield in August of 1977. Over the years I have been asked why we did not wait until she finished school to be married. My answer is simple. I did not want to be away from her like I had been the previous summer.

I did not know that God intended me to move so close to home. I thought I might be going hundreds of miles away again. I had considered Dallas, TX, Kansas City, or even California for Seminary. That was not God’s plan. I did not need a master’s or doctorate. I needed to learn to be a workplace minister.

The question is sometimes asked by teenagers, “How do you know when you are in love?” For me, I knew that summer. I never wanted to be away from her again. I’ve gone on short mission trips of about a week. I’ve traveled for training and my job. Ten days was the longest we have been apart in fifty years.

Shortly after I accepted the call to full-time Christian service, my pastor told me to carefully select the woman I would marry. When I transferred to SWBC (Southwest Bridal College), I dated several girls. I prayed for each one. Was she the one I should marry? I do not believe I ever asked God about Cindy. I knew I had to spend my life with her.

If you are looking at major changes in your life this year, graduating, moving, or changing jobs, be sure that you are seeking the Lord’s will. Nineteen Seventy-Four was a pivotal year for me. God told me He wanted my life, and I gave it to Hum. Is this the year you should do the same?

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

Where to go

October 6, 2022

When I was in junior high school, I decided I wanted to be a reporter. My goal through high school was the journalism school at Missouri University in Columbia, MO. I did not qualify for a scholarship to MU. I did receive one from Southwest Missouri State University in my hometown of Springfield, MO. I would complete the general education requirements for the J school and transfer my junior year.

That never happened. My major at SMSU was creative writing. They had no journalism program at that time. During my sophomore year, I completed the Missouri University’s Journalism School application. In March of 1974, I received notification of my acceptance.

I was deciding whether I would acknowledge that God was calling me to ministry when I received that letter. I agreed that my call was genuine and that MU was not the place for me. Southwest Baptist College had what I needed and what I believed Jesus wanted me to study. My schedule there was two years of studying the Bible and Christian ministry.

Are you in high school and contemplating what you will do when you graduate? Do you have a course planned out? Many young people do not. Where are they to go to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives? I also worked during my last two years of high school and the first two years of college.

When I graduated from college, I had another decision to make. Do I go to seminary to be a pastor, or do I go to work to become a different kind of minister? A bi-vocational pastor was a possibility. I thought that was where I was destined.

I worked as a summer missionary in Northwest Pennsylvania during the summer between my junior and senior years in college. My assignments were determined by the pastor at the Bolivar Road Baptist Church in Bradford, PA. I stayed up on the mountain in Gifford. I preached and taught at Hillside Baptist Chapel there.

Others did not have the opportunities that came to me. You must make your own decisions about taking a job in high school, going to a college, university, or trade school. What is best for you? Good question.

I have three grandsons who have graduated from high school. They are all going to junior colleges and working jobs. They have made a choice of what they think they want to do with their lives. Just like me. Will they arrive at that goal? Or will they decide to make a change as I did?

If you have chosen a career path, or one chose you, and it is not the right fit, don’t be afraid to make a switch. I have worked in many different careers and tried numerous jobs. I retired as a purchasing manager. It was where I needed to be.

My oldest daughter began teaching high school full-time this year. Her plan was to go into communication after college. She worked at a newspaper, did product marketing on the internet, and made a decision to return to college and take a master’s degree in education. She had the courage to change her career. That may be what you need to do.

Life is a process of choices. When your previous decisions have led you to a place you do not want to be, make a change. It may not be easy. It can be enjoyable. I have now returned to my first love. You are reading the type of column I always wanted to write. I began this change over ten years ago. I do not know if I will still be doing this in another ten years. Follow my web page and let’s make that journey together.

©Copyright 2022 by Charles Kensinger