Little Escambia Baptist Church, Flomaton
Escambia Baptist Association
Favorite Verse: Acts 1:8
Favorite Hymn: “Without Him”
Hobbies: Woodworking and vegetable gardening
Family Status: Married for 59 years to wife, Dot; son, Mike; daughters, Sheri, McKenzie and DeeDee; nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren
Bo Brantley, 80, sees church and community activities as avenues for sharing Jesus Christ. Brantley is a deacon, trustee, Sunday School director and Discipleship Training teacher, as well as an agent for Woodmen of the World Life Insurance, board member of Flomaton Area Chamber of Commerce and Escambia County Health Care Authority and member of Gideon International since 1976. He hosts the “Sunday Down South” radio gospel hour on WKNU 106.3 in Brewton from 8 to 10 a.m. on Sundays.
Q: What influences in your life pointed you to Christ at the beginning of your faith journey?
A: The first full-time pastor we had at Little Escambia Baptist Church led me to the Lord one evening. … He met me at the barnyard gate and began to talk to me. I accepted Christ right there. We were in a revival at the time. That Friday, I walked the aisle and professed Christ as my Savior. As a 15-year-old boy, I was baptized in a creek one Sunday afternoon with 55 other people.
Q: When and how were you led into your ministry work?
A: I became Training Union director at 15. That was a turning point. But it made me more aware of what God wants in my life. Several years later, I was on a pastor search committee and heard a man who was with Gideon International. I felt that was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t qualify on business grounds. My wife and I opened the Sears Catalog Store (in Flomaton) and that qualified me business-wise. In April 1976, I was accepted into the Gideon ministry.
Q: What does your ministry work demand?
A: As a deacon, it demands that I be in church, do God’s will and be in His work — visitation, teaching, leading others to be disciples. In Gideons, it allows me to work with pastors in our area in sharing Jesus Christ to those lost all over the world.
Q: What do you get from your ministry work?
A: Absolute joy. I love my church work. I love my Gideon ministry. It just keeps me involved in God’s work.
Q: How do you see yourself involved in this in the future?
A: I intend to be involved in the church and the Gideon ministry as long as the Lord will allow me to pick up one foot and put it in front of the other. You don’t retire from the Lord’s work.
Q: What difference will this ministry work make for you in the future?
A: I … hope that it would make me a better person, husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather — that others might see Jesus in me.
Q: What difference has Jesus Christ made in your life?
A: He saved me as a sinner and made a better man out of me. He has had three opportunities to take me, but has left me here for a reason.
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