When Emmett Roper finishes preaching, goes home and collapses in his favorite chair, his ministry doesn’t end.
In fact, that’s where much of it begins.
His chair faces a microphone connected to a 70-foot tower that enables Roper to switch roles from evangelist to amateur radio operator — handles that turn out to be not so different, after all.
“It’s a hobby I dedicated to use however I could,” said Roper, a full-time evangelist and member of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville. “I promised the good Lord if He’d let me pass (the licensing test) I’d use it to benefit His Kingdom.”
Roper, 66, said he first became interested in radio operation through courses he took in high school. He revived it as a hobby years later to use as a release from the strain of pastoring.
In doing so, he released the gospel into 340 different areas of the world by mailing cards bearing John 3:16 printed in red to those he made contact with through radio.
In 1975 he sent cards to contacts behind the Iron Curtain and in 1992 made contact with King Hussein of Jordan. Both later confirmed to Roper they had received the cards.
He has also made contact with missionaries in remote parts of the world.
“I’ve been blessed and had a lot of fun with it,” Roper said.
On the radio, everyone is on a first-name basis, and Evangelist Emmett Roper becomes simply Emmett. “I can do it casually, and it opens doors to drop a witness,” he said.
Waves of opportunity
This happened with Bill, the retired Goodyear worker whose radio antenna Roper spotted one day while driving past his house. “I began to know the man, led him to Jesus, then later on preached his funeral,” Roper said.
It happened too with Lester, the blind man Roper met through radio and to whom Roper began bringing taped versions of The Alabama Baptist every week. Lester became part of Gadsden Amateur Radio Club, which Roper later served as chaplain.
Another contact, Vicki, came to know Roper when her husband was killed in an automobile accident. “I was able to minister to her through radio,” Roper said. “We were a close-knit group.”
Earl McClain of Attalla shared Roper’s heart for radio, a bond that allowed him to talk to his son David, a sergeant in the Air Force Reserve, when the young man served overseas during Operation Desert Storm.
“I’ve helped Emmett, and he’s helped me — we’ve put up antennas together,” McClain said. “But when David radioed from Kuwait, Emmett was the only one who could hear him.”
David’s father and wife spent several evenings at Roper’s house talking with David “loud and clear in Webster’s Chapel all the way from Kuwait.”
It’s been a lifetime of ministry for Roper, not just isolated instances, McClain said. “He’s one of the finest guys I’ve known. He’s tops in my book.”
The evangelist has a unit in his car for use while traveling to meetings where he’s committed to preach. “It’s my mission,” Roper said, and evangelism of a different sort. Laws prohibit operators from preaching on the radio, but that doesn’t prevent off-the-air ministry to contacts.
“I have to be law-abiding, but I still try to use it to reach people for Jesus,” Roper said. For 29 years he has sent the cards out weekly, bearing only John 3:16.
“That’s all I say,” Roper said. It’s all he believes he needs to say.
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