The Making of a Preacher -Prep

The Character of Matthew Marks

Matthew Marks is a 5' 10" 50-year-old of 175 pounds with a fairly athletic build. He considers himself still able to "turn the heads of ladies 20 years my junior if I really wanted to," thinking that "Life might be fun if I really could..."

Ever since he was an early teen Matt has been a little paunchy (or "pudgy" as some cultures put it.) He returns to his "fairly athletic build" every time he returns to his program of running or walking a pretty consistent three to five miles every day. It all started when the other boys in eighth grade made fun of him as a "fatty." He asked the P.E. coach, (who was the only person in his life that he thought might have the answers at the time,) "What do I do, Coach? I don't want to be 'fat.' Is there any hope for me?" His response was simple, "Son, I'll let you run the quarter-mile track, during P.E. class. That should help." From that day forward Matt ran the track throughout eighth-grade, finishing second in the end-of-the-year track meet Mile Run against students from his cross-county rival school.

Matt went to public schools throughout his twelve years of primary education, feeling a little like "a fish out of water," since he was a child from a Christian home in a pluralistic environment. The other students took great pride in calling his a "Christian," right after he'd displayed a few angry words, due to the taunting and bullying. "Little Christ," they'd sneer, "Yep, that's the kind of savior I want, too!"

Homelife was pretty consistent. Sundays followed the same format every week. Get up. Take a bath. Get dressed. Have breakfast,...carefully in order to keep the newly-pressed clothes clean. Grab your Bible. Rush out the front door. Walk across the pastorium yard and across the churchyard. Up the steps. Down the hall. Into the Sunday School room. Find a chair. Sit down. Listen as intently as a young boy could to the Sunday School lesson.

After Sunday School was the Worship Service, followed by a big Sunday lunch, usually with generous helpings of fried chicken and Southern Sweet Tea. This necessitated a rather long Sunday afternoon nap, which was prescribed by Dr. Mom. Finally, the day ended with another Worship Service, supper and the long emotional effort to get to sleep before another exhausting week of school, where he didn't want to be five days a week during the hours of 8:00 AM & 3:00 PM. The only bump in the road was the Wednesday evening Prayer Service, which was more like a Sunday School lesson, but it took place in the sanctuary with the preacher, (aka his Dad,) standing at the small portable pulpit (or lectern) placed right in front of the first pew, usually on the left side of the church as you look from the front door to the choir loft.

Matt's Dad didn't have much real time with Matt, during his youth because he never could seem to pastor a church that was large enough to support a pastor full-time. His Dad, Carlos Marks, was a hard-working man, who wore the title, "Bivocational Pastor" with all the grace that was needed for such a moniker. "Dad" had grown up as a migrant worker in the Deep South of the United States, working six and a half days a week with his only real break, being the trip to church every Sunday morning with his Nana. Now, Carlos preached on Sundays, (morning and evening) and on Wednesday evenings, but Monday through Friday he would drive the hour and a half every morning and evening to teach in a penitentiary, helping the inmates to earn their GEDs.

As a recap, Carlos Marks was up at dawn on Sunday mornings, getting dressed, brushing up his sermons, preaching the morning sermon, taking a nap and/or visiting the sick or homebound on Sunday afternoons, preaching the evening sermon, eating supper and going to bed to get ready for his 5:00 AM wake-up time on Monday morning for the new, long, grueling week, which meant that he was home between six and seven most evenings. Saturday was a day with Matt, right? Hardly. Saturday was a long day of visiting the church folks since he couldn't be with them during the weekdays.

This, also, required Matt to spend most of his days closely relating to his Mom. Saturday mornings were spent in some beauty salon somewhere, but always in the closest town to the church, that his dad was pastoring at the time. Matt was usually trying not to gag in response to the fumes of "permanent wave solution." Is there any reasonable wonder why Matt was teased by the other boys in his class at school for being not only a "fatty," but also a "sissy"?

The emotionally-distressing name-calling and bullying that Matt endured throughout junior high and high school were not helped by the fact that he was not socially-adept at relating to the children his age. The girls wouldn't "give him the time of day" as a rule and the boys treated him like a goof. This meant that Matt threw himself into his music. He had played the piano since he was six-years-old, and he had been singing since he was about three. In high school, he learned to play and to march with the tuba. The band became his family and the students, who were a little younger than Matt all seemed to be less threatening and therefore much better friend material.

Matt was plagued by AD/HD and maybe even a little bit of autism or Asperger's Syndrome, but he didn't know it at the time. He just thought he was a social clutz. His social stock took a further nose-dive every day in his classes. Matt was brilliant. He knew every answer to every question his teachers asked, and he raised his hand every time to try to answer every question, even shaking his hand in front of the teacher. This only served to alienate the other students, who thought he was just a show-off and a "know-it-all." The teachers were none-too-happy, either, because their job was to engage all the class, not just one student. However, in his defense, no one ever stopped to tell him that this was the reason that the teacher ignored his so often as well as why the other students often wouldn't speak to him very kindly.

Matt realized later in life that this was one of the weaknesses of Society at large. The socialites could navigate social mores, (which were unwritten social rules that everyone "just knew.") However, everybody didn't "just know" these unwritten rules, which made the autistics and the socially-inexperienced students feel quite defective. All of these socially-disenfranchised students, including Matt, all felt the same way, separately, but they didn't know that they all felt the same way, separately, because they were too ashamed to admit that they felt defective. I mean, "Who wants to admit that?"

Matt wanted friends because according to the modern Social Color Code, Matt is "highly blue" or a "High-C," according to another test. Ultimately, Matt was your typical Greek Melancholy, who loved details, organization, and excellence in everything he did. However, most of the popular kids in his school were, also, apparently and intentionally average in their grades in order to avoid the labels of "brainiac" or "know-it-all."

Matt had a strong belief in God in general and Jesus Christ in particular from the age of six when he "got saved." He liked church life. He liked playing basketball until his brother got taller than he was and started winning more than he did.

Matt gained a philosophy of life from his father when he was very young. "Love the Lord Jesus Christ no matter what in life, even if the whole world hates you for loving Him. The people in this world oppose you for now in this life, but if Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then no one can stop you from being with Him forever. Time is short. Eternity never ends. Always choose the eternal over the temporal."

Matt may not have understood what his dad meant when he was really young, but he understood that Dad loved Jesus, and that was all that mattered to him at the time. Later in life, Matt shortened and simplified his Dad's philosophy. When Life got tough, Matt would often repeat Bible verse like Proverbs 3:5-6 and John 14:6, then he would end the personal pep rally with these words. "Jesus is right. Jesus is the Key to an eternity of Joy."