Pastor Dr. Terry W Murphey Sr.

A self-reflective autobiography

 

I was born August tenth nineteen hundred and sixty one in Atlanta, Georgia to Vera Victoria Nix Murphey and William Jefferson Murphey. My father passed away July twelfth nineteen hundred and eighty; my mother lives at 105 Walker Ave. Fayetteville, Georgia. I have 6 sisters, 5 living across Georgia and 1 in Florida.

I grew up in a Christian home were attending church was not an option.  My mother and father had always been active in church leadership and the music programs. I began my training for church leadership at a young age; the first time for me to conduct a Sunday school class was at the age of 12.  As a teen I became an usher in the church participating in the choir. We attended several churches growing up with our father taking on music program all around the Atlanta area. Since we lived in the Atlanta area we attended Christian schools. The first was Eastlake Christian which moved to Stone Mountain and became Stone Mountain Christian School. Attending a Christian school there were two areas you did not get a bad grade, one being conduct and the other being the Bible. I attended Christian School through the 6th grade, in the early seventies we moved from Atlanta to Fayetteville Georgia. I attended Fayette County Junior High, and Fayette County Senior High a graduate in 1980.

 My father was self employed owning a piano repair business, where I worked summers and anytime I was out of school. I have always worked and been self supportive even when I was younger living in the Grant Park area of Atlanta I would spend many Saturdays taking the lawn mower a can of gas and go around and find places to earn extra money. Growing up in a large family if you wanted something you did not ask mom and dad you had to find a way to earn it for yourself. We had a happy home where everyone had chores to do but and we always had more than what we needed. Our parent worked hard to make sure we were taken care of and had nice clothes and a good home. We were brought up to behave and to mind and respect our elders. If you got out of line, and we all did from time to time we received Biblical correction, in other words they did not spare the rod. One element I feel that is missing from the rearing of children today. Being the middle child and only boy I was always getting in trouble for something, some time for thing I did do but many times for thing I caught the blame for.

In 1980 after my father passed away and there was a period in my life where I began to drift from God and to dabble in worldly obsessions. God knew the path he had for me to walk, in order to put me back on track he brought my wife Cindy and me together. We had known each other all of our lives and truth be told I always had a crush on her. At the young age of 19 a year after my father’s passing we were joined together in Holy Matrimony. We have been married 35 years and have two children ages 33 and 32 with both being married and have blessed us with 4 grandchildren.

In our early years we had a lot of troubles but God kept us together through thick and thin and with each year we grow closer and closer to each other with the main secret being Christ as our center point. We have centered our life on Christ and churches and this has helped us make it through. We accepted the calling into the ministry in 1990; we started out working in personal care homes serving as Chaplain learning the hard way of dealing with people. We were fortunate to have served under some very seasoned minister, which supplied us with valued training. I have said many times with the passing of these older season minister we are losing a vast amount of knowledge.

During the time working as a Chaplain we had an evangelistic team, doing Southern Gospel music and preaching. God used us during this time to reach many souls for Christ while allowing us to do some studies through Liberty Bible College.

I knew the time when God sat us down and began to prepare us for pastor-in by putting us back in the church environment as a minister of music. We have served at Willingham Drive Baptist church for 2 years as minister of music and in the Gleaners Baptist Church as minister of music, then adding associate pastor to our responsibilities with our mentor Charles Bennett preparing us to take over the reins when he steps down and retired from the minister. 

God has used us in many ways through the years. When Cindy and I pastor in a church we give our whole selves into the church. Serving God is our life; this is the area where we both have the most enjoyment and the feeling of fulfillment in life. We have a strong independent persona about us which help us in church leadership, we are not overbearing, and we always lead through love and example. Our way of leadership is by example, we find ourselves right in the middle with everyone else as we serve the church any way we can. We do believe in delegation of office as a project manager, we learned many years ago, you put good people in a position then trust them to do a good job.  We have served in all types of churches from the one which need restructure, and had lost the vision and needed refocus on outreach ministry to the church which were on fire and just needed guidance.

We feel at this time in our life in ministry we are to the point where God is going to place us in a church to become a family. We are not looking for stepping stones we are looking for the place where God will let us use the knowledge he has given us to work with a church in growing spiritually and physically. We are looking for the place that will be the fulfillment of our ministry till the day we retire or receive the call home to be with Christ.

We do preach from the KJV version of the Bible, we do not present water down version of the gospel message. We have always presented the gospel message as it was meant to be with love and true care for others. We use the Bible as our final authority, we teach the Bible from the standpoint as it was given to us for instruction, correction and guidance. I may not be the best preacher you will ever hear, but you will not find a better pastor to care for and love Gods people and be there when things are tough and someone is needed to rely on. I serve as a volunteer chaplain, I love people and like being able to be the calm presence when a person needs it the most in a time of crisis.

 I do not claim to be anything great, I am what I am by the grace of God. I am just waiting for our Lord and Savior to place in the place he would have us be.

Many church places infuse on which Faith statement which we adhere to, we adhere to God’s word the Bible is our final authority. Our main focus must be to God and the Bible this is the Faith message endorsed by God to follow and use for instruction.

 

Love in Christ,

Pastor Dr. Terry W. Murphey