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Do I Hear an Amen?
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2017/04 - April
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It shall be said, though you won’t find it in either Testament, that God truly does have a sense of humor. Do I hear an amen?
When Billy Potts was minister of the Highlands Baptist Church in the late 1920s and 30s, he delivered such moving sermons that his words often brought him to tears.
Marshall Reese, ten-ish at the time, asked his mama why Reverend Potts cried in the pulpit? Mrs. Reese replied that it was probably because the Reverend was thinking about all the bad things he had done in his life. Perhaps that was a sermon within a sermon for Marshall as he sat reflecting on his own previous decade.
But Reverend Potts, a spirited man filled with passion and compassion, could laugh as energetically as he could cry. Terry Potts, Reverend Potts’ great-grandson says, “His sense of humor, particularly his penchant for punning, won him fame if not fortune in his travels on horseback for over 1,500 miles a month as a circuit-riding minister across Macon and Jackson Counties and well-into north Georgia.”
Here’s an often-told Reverend Potts tale: Eva Potts Massey was in the congregation one day when Reverend Potts’s prayer meandered past Georgia and into the land of the unintelligible. Eva began to worry that the Reverend was having a stroke. She stealthily tiptoed up to the pulpit to investigate. She discovered the reverend’s dentures had come loose and he was too embarrassed to make the necessary adjustments in front of the entire congregation. When he saw Eva approaching, he turned beet red and burbled an immediate in-Jemus-nam-amum.
And that, dear parishioners, is the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but . . .
To learn more about Highlands preachers, teachers, and out-reachers, visit highlandshistory.com or email [email protected]. The Highlands Historical Society Museum will be open for visits beginning Memorial Day weekend – or earlier. Amen!
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