Jackie Shelton said it is amazing how one week in the life of a church can change the next two decades.
Shelton, who is retiring after 23 years as pastor of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Wren, near Moulton, said a five-day revival in the fall of 1981 did just that.
“I’ll never forget it,” he said of the revival held 11 months into his tenure at the church. James Hickman, a pastor from southern Mississippi, was preaching.
“It was the type of revival where, before you gave the invitation, people were just waiting to come,” Shelton said.
“Some were even saved before services,” he noted. “It was just the Holy Spirit at work, and it was a real turning point.”
Shelton said he baptized 59 people the following Sunday night. More than 75 people were saved, including 35 people who were already members of the church.
And the church growth did not stop with that revival. From Shelton’s first Sunday, Dec. 14, 1980, until the present, the church members have increased from 488 to more than 1,800. Tithes and offerings have increased from $66,000 in 1980 to more than $1 million. And missions giving has increased from $13,000 to more than $200,000.
Shelton has led the church through four major building programs, and for the past 20 years the church has averaged more than 70 baptisms per year. Through it all, Shelton, 65, said the ingredients to his long ministry have remained simple and unchanged.
“You start with prayer,” he said. “One of the key verses we’ve emphasized over the years is that ‘man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ Preach and teach the Bible, and aggressively go after lost souls.
“Then once they get in here, you have to disciple them,” he continued. “And you have to have good people, and we have great people here. We have great leadership, and that’s why I feel good about retiring.”
A Lawrence County native who was saved in a revival service at age 11, Shelton said he struggled with the call to preach for three years while serving as a deacon at Moulton Baptist Church.
After marrying his wife Ben-Ann in 1961 and graduating from the University of Alabama in 1962, Shelton worked as a teacher, a bookkeeper for a cotton gin, and even owned his own cotton business.
“I surrendered to the call to preach in 1976,” Shelton said. “I was ordained in July of that year and immediately left for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.”
While there, Shelton was called to serve as pastor of Steep Hollow Baptist Church in Pearl River County, Miss., where he served for four and one-half years.
“I knew the Lord had called me into the ministry. I wanted and needed to preach,” Shelton said.
Steep Hollow experienced growth in those years, going from 80 in Sunday School to a high attendance of 365.
But then Pleasant Grove came calling, and Shelton, Ben-Ann and their children Stuart, Brett and Ben, all came home. “I always felt like I might come back,” Shelton said. “I fasted and prayed and knew this was where I was supposed to go. It’s amazing the Lord has blessed me as much as He has.”
Shelton plans to remain as the church’s interim pastor for the remainder of the year and to stay in the church after the new pastor is called.
“It’s a golden opportunity for someone,” said Shelton, who also hopes to write a book, do some interim work and minister to rural churches to help them grow as he has seen Pleasant Grove grow.
As for his legacy at Pleasant Grove, Shelton said the one thing he believes will remain is an abundant love found in the church.
“The love our people have is just tremendous,” Shelton said. “More than anything else, our church has a great love for the Lord and for each other.”
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