CALLED INTO MINISTRY
I am the youngest of eight children. Our family were sharecroppers – meaning we lived on someone else’s farm while sharing in the expense and profits of the enterprise but doing all the work! During the summer break between my junior and senior year of high school, I went to Baptist Bible College in Mayfield, Ky. My brother, John, was an instructor there. The school had male students, most of whom were 30 years old and above. They were using me to see if someone out of high school could successfully pass the course. I had no desire to be a preacher. I had my brother John who was a pastor, an uncle who was a pastor, a brother in law who was a pastor and I figured that was enough for one family! Anyway, after about two weeks of classes, I felt that the Spirit of God was dealing with me about becoming one! I talked to my brother, and he suggested I continue to be open to what God might be saying to me.I put a fleece before the Lord. If this particular thing would happen, I would consider it to be a confirmation of what I was hearing in my spirit. It happened exactly as I prayed! That was almost 56 years ago!
HOW IT ALL GO STARTED
My brother, Dr. John T. Parish, preached on a Sunday morning at Our Savior Baptist Church in January 1981. One of the deacons, Joe Hardy, asked if he would be interested in becoming their pastor. He said, ‘no’ but I know someone you might talk to. That person was me. I was pastoring in Paris, Tn. Joe called me to come speak on a weekend. As a result of that weekend, and further conversations on the phone, the church called me as Pastor even though I kept telling Joe I was not interested in pastoring in Louisville. To get him to quit hounding me about it, I told him I would pray about it. A couple of weeks later my wife asked if I had prayed about going to Louisville, and I said no. She said, ‘you told Joe Hardy that you would.’ I asked her if she had prayed about it and she said she had. I asked, ‘what did the Lord say?’ Her response was ‘yes.’ I prayed about it and got the same answer! We moved the last week of May 1981 and I was the Senior Pastor for 21 1/2 years. Since that time I have served as Teaching Pastor and my son, Tim, has been Senior Pastor since January 2003.
WE MOVE TO LOUISVILLE
We came to Louisville in May 1981 to pastor a small church called Our Savior Baptist Church which was composed of Spirit-filled people that had retained the name Baptist. Near the end of 1981, we changed the constitution and by-laws to conform to a charismatic church structure. As we were thinking and praying about the name for it several possible names were suggested. We finally settled on New Life Church. The week following, one of our members Leta Hardy, told me the following story. Before I came the church had an interim Pastor, Dr. Rod Buckson. The church had been struggling to stay together and at the conclusion of a service Dr. Buckson prophesied that ‘out of the ashes of Our Savior new life would come.’ We had heard correctly in choosing the name New Life Church! Since that time the church has grown in number, impact in the community, and around the world seeing the hand of God meet human need! To God be the Glory!
INNER CITY MINISTRY
We had a couple who were members of NLC who felt led to go to Youth With A Mission in Elmsprings, Arkansas. When they finished the course and returned, they, along with some others, felt called to do ministry in the inner city of Louisville. As a result, the inner city ministry was born that continued from 1990-2000. We bused the kids into rented facilities and had children’s church with them one or two nights a week. The seeds of the Gospel were sown and we began to see fruit from it. We believe there will be continuing fruit as the years go by.
BUILDING BUILDINGS
When we came to Louisville in May 1981, the church was meeting in the women’s club in St. Matthew. About 9 months later we rented a house on Browns Lane. We had services there for about a year. At that time we were averaging about 100 people on Sunday mornings. From there we moved to a Seventh Day Adventist Church for a few months before moving to Zachary Taylor Elementary School. While there we purchased the present property on Goose Creek Road. We purchased 8 1/2 acres that had been a small farm.
The local banks were hesitant to lend us money because we had never borrowed money before and had no credit rating. We raised the money to pay off the land and used a church finance company, by selling bonds to church members and others in the community, to build the first three buildings.
As the church continued to grow, we saw the need and felt led by the Holy Spirit to build a new auditorium. It was started in June 2006 and was occupied in August 2007. We also purchased the house on either side of the auditorium which gave us slightly over 11 acres.
RADIO AND TV MINISTRY
While pastoring in Paris, Tn. I began a ministry on 52 cable stations across the USA. I brought that ministry with us when we moved to Louisville. We went on WBNA channel 21 here in Louisville and for many years were on Sky Angel satellite broadcasting The Word program that covered all the contiguous states in the USA.
After getting to know Dr. Lester Sumrall, he invited me to put our program on his short wave radio stations. He had five of them that covered 90% of the earth’s population. We did that for two years.
Some Stories from our Ministry in Paris, to give some more background and context to the Ministry.
When we pastored in Tennessee, there was a young man who was the son of a family in the church who drank alcohol and used drugs that we had been praying for. I had told him that when he was ready to turn to God I would come and pray with him. One night about 2 a.m. he called and asked me to meet him for he was ready. I met him in the parking lot of a grocery store. When I got in his truck I discovered that he was drunk and angry at me for getting his parents involved in our charismatic church. He threatened to shoot me with his 45 caliber revolver which he pulled from under his seat. I talked him out of doing that. Then he took his hunting knife from his belt and threatened to stab me to death. I talked him out of that. Then he threatened to beat me up, again I talked him out of that. I answered a number of his questions about life in general. By that time it was about 4 a.m. I asked him if he was ready now to submit his life to the Lord and he said “yes.” He was born again, delivered from demon spirits, and filled with the Holy Spirit! He asked me to follow him home because he did not think his parents would believe him when he told them what had happened to him! I agreed that they probably would not believe him. He woke them up and told them what had happened and at first they could hardly believe it but I affirmed that everything that he had said was true. They cried, shouted, and praised God! That young man when to Bible school and became a useful disciple of Jesus! To God be the Glory!
While we were pastoring in Paris, Tn. one of the young ladies in the church began to have emotional and mental distress. At a Women’s Aglow meeting she came forward for prayer. The guest speaker, and some of the other ladies present, began to pray for her. They said she had a demon and were trying to cast it out with no success. Several of the ladies went for lunch at the home of one of the members of our church and afterward again tried to cast this spirit out with no success. The lady, in whose house they were, called me to come to help them. After praying and rebuking the spirits for a few minutes, I recognized we were getting nowhere and I backed away to pray alone. After about 5 minutes I had a short vision, it must have lasted about 2 seconds. In the vision, I saw this girl with her boyfriend in a mobile home. It was on a Thursday at 3:30 p.m. and I also saw the house number on the outside. The mobile home was blue and gray on the outside. I saw them in the back bedroom having sex. I immediately joined the group and declared what I saw in the vision. She said, ‘who told you that?’ I answered the Holy Spirit and when I rebuked the spirit, it came out instantly and she was set free! Praise be to God!
In early 1978 two other men and I went on a mission trip to Mexico. One night after teaching I was praying for people in a prayer line. After I prayed in English, the missionary would interpret it into Spanish. I had never studied Spanish and only knew 3-4 words of it. Suddenly while laying hands on a woman in prayer I began to speak a language I did not know. I noticed the missionary was not saying anything. After the service, I asked him about it. He said that I spoke perfect Spanish, and since he knew the lady, he mentioned that the things I said in prayer to God for her were exactly what she needed! Later in Guatemala on the same trip, it happened again! It has not happened since. When I pray in my prayer language (glossa) I may pray in one of several different languages. Some sound oriental, others American Indian, and others sound different than any language I have ever heard, perhaps a heavenly language (1 Cor.13:1). God can do much more than what we think He can do! Let us not try to put Him in a theological box, He just might jump out and do it anyway!
In preparation for our 40th anniversary at NLC, we discovered this from our church bulletin of May 16, 1982.
NEVER AGAIN
1. Never again will I confess “I can’t” for “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phil.4:13
2. Never again will I confess unmet needs or poverty for “My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory.” Phil.4:19
3. Never again will I confess fear for “God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind. ” 2 Tim.1:7
4. Never again will I confess a lack of faith, for “God has given to every man the measure of faith.” Romans 12:3
5. Never again will I confess weakness for “The Lord is the strength of my life.” Ps.27:1 Also “…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Neh.8:10
6. Never again will I confess the supremacy of Satan over my life for “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” 1 Jn. 4:4
7. Never again will I confess defeat for “God always causes me to triumph in Christ Jesus.” 2 Cor.2:14
8. Never again will I confess sickness for “With His stripes, I am healed.” Isa.53:5 “Himself took my infirmities and bore my sickness.” Matt.8:17
9. Never again will I confess lack of wisdom for “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.” 1 Cor.1:30
10. Never again will I confess worries and frustrations for I am “Casting all my cares upon Him who cares for me.” 1 Pet. 5:7
11. Never again will I confess bondage for “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” 2 Cor.3:17
12. Never again will I confess condemnation for “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
MISSIONS
Since the church has been in existence it has budgeted and given at least 10% of its income to local, national, and international ministries. Over 40 of our members have gone through training at Youth With A Mission in Elmsprings, Arkansas, Nashville, Tennessee, Orlando, Florida, Kona, Hawaii, and other places.
Because of this, after praying for an avenue to start a YWAM base in Louisville, Andy Landers, who was known by a number of our members who had ministered with him in Arkansas, approached Tim about renting our buildings to them to establish a base in Louisville! They started in 2007 shortly after our new auditorium was finished.
In addition to YWAM outreaches, the church has sent ministry teams to Haiti, Nigeria, Niger, South Africa, Ecuador, and many other nations.
HISPANIC MINISTRY
One of our beliefs is that a church in any setting should be reaching those of various nationalities, and racial people groups. Several years ago, a hispanic group approached us about renting our gym on Sundays to hold services, which they did for several years. Now, the founding pastor of that group is on staff at NLC and is in the process of establishing several hispanic works in Louisville!
CHURCH DISCIPLINE
There have been a few occasions when it was necessary to do church discipline when all other means had been exhausted. Most of them have occurred when relationships went beyond the boundaries.
Once we had a small group leader who was also a counselor on a crisis hotline. He talked several times with a lady who called in and the relationship got out of hand. The leadership of the church confronted him and but he refused to repent. We, therefore, had to relieve him of his position.
On another occasion, we had a Sunday School teacher who had an affair. When his wife found out about it she came to see me. I went to him and he refused to repent so he was no longer allowed to teach the class anymore.
At a night service, we had a visitor stand up at the end of a praise song and began to prophesy judgment upon the church. She said a number of things that were totally erroneous. I stopped her and told her to sit down which she did. After the service, she followed me to my office and proceeded with the curses on the church. I told her to leave and never come back. I reminded her that the curse causeless would not come. I refused it and told it to go back where it came from! I haven’t heard from her since.
Church discipline is the responsibility of the leadership of the local congregation, divine discipline is left up to God Himself.
PASTORAL TRANSITION
Around 1995 I was teaching at Ecclesia College in Elmsprings, Arkansas. One evening before a night class, the director, Oren Paris, and I were having dinner. We were talking about leadership issues when he said, ‘to have long-term success you must have a successor.’ I had previously been thinking about that topic and when he said that it strongly resonated within me. My son, Tim, and his wife, Marlene, were finishing Bible College. After much prayer, we invited them to move to Louisville so that he could be my associate pastor. Initially, he had no interest in being a pastor because he thought he would be a missionary.
He serviced seven years as my associate. Around 2001 I began to sense that I should transition the church to him. We began to get him involved in our Elder meetings and he started preaching more on Sundays. After we made the transition we looked back at the preaching schedule for 2002 and discovered that he had preached 26 out of the 52 Sunday services.
We made the transition the first Sunday in January 2003. The people accepted him with open arms. He has done a tremendous job. I have remained on staff as a Teaching Pastor, as well as an Elder.