When Walter Blackmon, pastor of East Highland Baptist Church, Hartselle, challenged those attending a worship service earlier this year to recommit their lives to the Lord, Leon Dawson responded.
Dawson’s renewal came when he was 79. Now he’s 80 and still embarking on new horizons. Dawson, with 50 years of ministry to his credit, prayed, “Lord, if there’s anything else You want me to do, I’ll do it.”
A few weeks later he was serving as interim pastor of a small, struggling church in Morgan Baptist Association. But this recent interim pastorate was not his entrée into serving the Lord. Along with his wife, Edna, he has been on 48 missions trips in 29 years. During that time, according to Edna, they visited every state except North Dakota.
Camping opportunities
Using their love of camping they found a good fit for ministry in Campers on Mission, a group that engages in numerous ministry efforts, including assisting with disaster cleanup. “We bought an RV and started going on trips building churches and cleaning up after storms. Our first trip was Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina,” he said.
By 1995 the Dawsons felt led to combine their love for travel with their love for ministry in a different way. They again took off in their camper into areas of unknowns, yet their journeys were purposeful to specific churches — the first one to help a struggling congregation of 11 people in Maine.
“We didn’t know anyone. The missionary said the church was dying. If they didn’t get a pastor, the church was going to go under. They couldn’t find anyone in that area,” Dawson said. The congregation now has a full-time pastor and more than 100 in Sunday School. Dawson moved on to Colorado. When Dawson explained to members of a church in Colorado that he was willing to serve as pastor of the church on a volunteer basis, the only man in the church remarked, “I always heard you get what you pay for.”
Dawson responded, “You aren’t going to pay anything, but I’ll guarantee you’ll get something.”
Dawson was no stranger to challenges earlier in life. After attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., he served as full-time pastor in three Alabama Baptist churches before going to a small church that could not afford to support him and his family.
Realizing he would have to find a way to supplement his pay from Bellview Baptist Church in Morgan Association, he started looking for a job. He stopped by the Morgan County Board of Education on a whim — or so he thought at the time — and was offered a position immediately.
“The Lord works with us today just like He did in the New Testament,” Dawson said. “Everything I’ve ever done, the Lord worked it out for me.”
After teaching for a few months, Dawson was offered a counseling position.
He remained in the education system for 22 years before retiring. He served small churches as a bivocational pastor during those years and continues his ministry today.
He is currently interim pastor of Chapel Baptist Church, Decatur. He is full of plans for the church, recruiting volunteers and assessing demographics of the community.
His children had a party for him in late October, complete with two cakes; one that celebrated his 80th birthday and another that commemorated 50 years in the ministry.
Dawson doesn’t plan to retire “until I’m disabled and can’t preach any more.”
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