Congregation that trains members for service around the world honors its retiring minister.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Fifty years after preaching his first sermon, Ron Edwards jokes that he knows the secret to ministry.
Change churches every three years.
Actually, Edwards — who is retiring from full-time preaching — spent the past 37 years serving the Roosevelt Drive Church of Christ in this military community about 120 miles southeast of Raleigh.
Given the transitory nature of Marines and Navy sailors, it just seemed like his home church kept changing.
“I’m the only guy that the congregation moves, and I stay,” Edwards, who will turn 81 in October, said with a laugh.
Within a few years of moving to Jacksonville in 1985, Edwards said he came to recognize — and embrace — Roosevelt Drive’s role as a “training congregation.”
The faces change at this church near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River.
The mission does not.
This story appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.
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