Growing up as the daughter of the “Chaplain of Bourbon Street” wasn’t always easy, and Rhonda Harrington Kelley admits her father’s zeal often embarrassed her.
“My dad never met a stranger,” she said. “He’d take me shopping and talk to the other shoppers about the Lord. We waited in a long line at Graceland on a trip to Memphis and Dad was excited. He had a lot of time to talk to a lot of people about Christ.”
Bob Harrington became a Christian in 1958 in his native Alabama town of Sweet Water and attended church at the First Baptist Church. He immediately sensed a call to ministry and became a popular and effective pulpiteer. Long wavy hair, red neckties and folksy humor became his trademark as a traveling evangelist.
Harrington later moved his family to New Orleans so he could attend New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Kelley recalled a turning point in her father’s ministry. “A seminary president challenged the students one day in chapel that the nearest pocket of sin was a missions field, and the nearest Christian a missionary. My dad took that to heart and opened a chapel on Bourbon Street.”
Harrington won national acclaim for his work in the French Quarter. When the mayor of New Orleans proclaimed him the “Chaplain of Bourbon Street,” his national profile skyrocketed.
“Rex Humbard and Jerry Falwell used Dad a lot,” Kelley recalled, “and he was on their television programs seen around the county. He brought hundreds of people to Christ.”
Kelley herself felt a call to ministry as a high school student. She remembers the career project a teacher assigned in 10th grade.
Kelley decided to interview a church friend who was a speech pathologist in the local school system. “I loved what she did, and I saw it as a way to help people. Communication is so vital to every part of our lives. I think God led me into this field as a ministry, and I promised to serve Him as a speech pathologist.”
Kelley met her future husband, Chuck, at Baylor University in Texas. After graduation they moved to New Orleans where they both studied for their doctorates, he at the seminary and she at the University of New Orleans.
Chuck Kelley was invited to teach evangelism at the seminary, and Rhonda Kelley took a position at the Oschner Medical Institute. Chuck became president of New Orleans Seminary in 1996.
Meanwhile, Harrington’s career changed dramatically. “Dad’s ministry grew so rapidly that I believe he thought he was infallible,” Kelley said.
“He wasn’t. He fell into immorality. He left his ministry and his family in 1978, and we didn’t have much contact at all for five years.”
Harrington became a motivational speaker and used his gifts of communication and humor at business conferences and conventions throughout the nation. He drove expensive automobiles and wore diamond rings as a symbol of success.
Kelley and her family continued to reach out to her dad and to pray for him.
“It took a long time,” she noted, “but dad came back to the Lord. The lavish lifestyle he was living wasn’t satisfying, and he knew the truth — he’d preached the truth for years. And another factor was that horrible night when Dad was mugged after a speaking engagement. He was in the hospital and thought he was going to die. He didn’t want to die in the condition he was in.”
A broken Harrington moved back home to New Orleans in 1995 and checked into a rescue mission where he’d often preached as the “Chaplain of Bourbon Street.”
An employee called Kelley, and she and her husband convinced Harrington to come home with them. Thus began a long process of restoration.
“Dad had some friends who stuck with him and loved him,” Kelley said. “Paige Patterson (president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.) and Jerry Falwell worked with him in a program of repentance and renewal.
“They had some hard words for him at times. Dad is publicly repentant and has called or written everyone he can think of to ask forgiveness,” she continued.
But Harrington gives most of the credit for his restoration to his daughter, who never gave up on him.
“Dad is now 75 years old,” Kelley noted. “He believes he’s in the fourth quarter of his life, and he’s excited again about ministry. He’s grateful God gave him another chance.”
Kelley smiled when she recalled one of her dad’s current sermon titles:
“Loving the Left Back Right.”
“That’s what Dad wants to do,” she said. “He sees the focus of his ministry now as encouraging and challenging Christians who have left the Lord. And he tries to challenge apathetic Christians to get busy for God.”
Falwell is the most high-profile Christian leader who remains one of Harrington’s spiritual advisers. He continues to invite Harrington to preach from his pulpit and recommends him to other churches and ministers.
Kelley, too, finds herself in pulpits around the nation.
“I’m not a pastor or a preacher,” she said, “and there’s no mantle my father has passed down to me. I’m a speaker and a writer. I left my career several years ago as more and more opportunities came for me to speak in churches.”
Kelley most often speaks in women’s meetings. “There’s a relatively new ministry in our churches now which focuses on the unique needs of women. … God has allowed me to speak as a woman to women and to encourage them in their home life and in their walk with the Lord.”
She travels to women’s meetings almost every weekend of the year.
During the week she teaches at the seminary in New Orleans where her dad was a student many years ago, and at First Baptist Church where she grew up.
Kelley’s own struggles have compelled her to include a theme in much of her speaking. “I tell the church to never give up on people who’ve failed. Be persistent. God is in the business of restoring and rebuilding, and He can use us in this vital ministry.”
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