Everyday Hero #8

 September 21, 2022

Pastor Ellis is my last Everyday Superhero (at least for now). I’ll tell you right from the start that he wasn’t the greatest preacher. I sat under his teaching for nearly a decade, and cannot remember a single sermon, but I heard them three times a week: Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday night prayer meetings. Here’s what amazes me about that: When we first started attending Westside Baptist Church, he was pastoring part-time. While holding a full time job at Kodak, he prepared three sermons each week, visited the sick, officiated at funerals, weddings, baptisms, worked alongside the men on Monday night work nights. I don’t know how he managed to do everything he did.

When my maternal grandfather lay dying in the hospital in Clifton Springs, NY, easily an hour and a half from the church, pastor Ellis drove there every day, sat with him, prayed with him, till the day came when my grandfather’s stubborn will broke down and he prayed to receive Christ. Every day. By that time, Pastor Ellis had left his job at Kodak to pastor the church full time. It was a financial sacrifice; Kodak was one of the best places to work back then. Pastor Ellis left that behind, and drove to Clifton Springs every day. My grandfather is with Jesus today because of the faithfulness of Pastor Ellis. 

When it was time to consider going to college, I talked with Pastor Ellis. He gently warned me about the things I would encounter when away from home. No, it wasn’t drugs or even premarital sex. He was concerned that my faith not be compromised by false teaching at that Wesleyan college to which I had applied.

While I was away at school, the church elders decided that Westside needed a more educated pastor to reach the growing suburban population of the area. Pastor Ellis had only a three-year Bible School degree, which didn’t have the sophistication of a four-year degree followed by a Masters. He was let go, and ended up in a small church a bit west of the city in Parma Corners.  

He participated in my ordination—a Fundamental Baptist laying hands on me alongside my United Methodist bishop and District Superintendent. In our system, it’s the bishop who ordains, but for me, it was Pastor Ellis’ hands that I felt most. Years later, I was able to visit him and his wife in their condo in Florida. I told him how much his example in ministry had impacted me, and whenever I considered what it meant to be a pastor, his face came to mind. He died soon after that visit, and I am so very grateful I had the opportunity to tell him how much he meant to me. 

I’m retired myself now, but when I think of what it means to be a pastor, Charles Ellis comes to mind, a true Everyday Hero.