Jim Massey personifies peace-bearing. In his quiet, calm, soothing manner, he has given peace the first hearing in every situation. He tackled thorny issues while helping many a church find peace in its congregational life and in its relations with the pastor. He is indeed a peace-bearer extraordinaire and next week, at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 18, the Virginia Baptist Historical Society will honor his lifetime achievements in its annual meeting, which will emphasize peace-bearing. The program will be held at Second Baptist Church of Richmond and is open to the public.
James Cambron Massey was born in the village of Flintville in Middle Tennessee in November 1919. Conversion came at age 7.
Fred Anderson
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“I remember the occasion clearly,” says the veteran minister, “and ‘went forward’ at the invitation, weeping. Seeing others make commitment still stirs my emotions. My sister, two years my elder, also made confession the same day; and we were baptized in a creek at the deepest spot called ‘Blue Hole.’ ”
Even at 90, he still recalls “the feelings of elation that day.” “I felt the warm love, acceptance and inclusion of that village church where I learned that ‘God is Love.’ I haven’t learned anything more important or more profound than that!”
Like everyone of his generation, he remembers the Great Depression. “We lost our home when my father’s job was terminated. My father later got a job with insurance companies and we moved to Nashville.” He considers Eastland Baptist Church in Nashville as his home church; and at age 16, he was teaching a Sunday school class. He loved missions and advanced in Royal Ambassadors.
He went to the East Tennessee Baptist school, Carson-Newman College, where he was a double major in English and Spanish with ambitions to teach in high school. He also was exposed to the racial and social injustices of the times and began to express concern over the social order.
He was a junior when he helped an in-coming freshman, Frankie Henderson, with her luggage. Frankie declares that at that very moment she fell in love with him. He graduated in ’42 and received his diploma and a letter from Uncle Sam expressing “Greetings” on the same day. A few months later Jim and Frankie were wed.
It was while in the army artillery that he felt a calling to the ministry; and after basic training, he was assigned to serve as a chaplain’s assistant. After the war and while waiting to enter Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., he lived in Frankie’s hometown of Rockmart, Ga., and swept the floors in a tire plant. “I always considered this and military service as valuable parts of my education.”
James Massey
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While in seminary he experienced a summer of clinical study at a mental hospital. “After graduation from Southern, my major professor, Dr. Wayne Oates, recommended me to the Louisville Council of Churches and the local jail as their full-time chaplain. This also provided advanced clinical learning and ministry opportunity. My office was located within the concrete and steel cell blocks. Approaches to rehabilitation of prisoners were often viewed with suspicion by ‘hard-line’ political appointees at the jail and some openly resisted such efforts. With short notice, my services were terminated. The editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote an editorial critical of the action. With a wife and baby to support, I did not realize at the time that God was preparing me to know what ‘forced termination’ would feel like to the clergy.”
Meanwhile in Southwest Virginia, God was working things out. Primitivo Delgado, then pastor of Marion (Va.) Baptist Church, told Massey’s sister, Dorothy, about a church that needed a pastor and inquired if her brother might be interested. Arrangements were made for Massey to preach at the Marion church on Mother’s Day 1952 and present to hear the young man was a search committee from Wytheville (Va.) Baptist Church. The familiar courting between would-be pastor and people took place at a picnic in Hungry Mother State Park; and before the day was over, the committee was showing the minister their town and church.
Massey saw a promising town and an attractive street lined with beautiful churches. He had found a new home! The church’s previous pastor had a good ministry but the church was weak, with about 235 members and a budget of $9,000. A small group had left the church and they were worshipping together without constituting themselves as a new church. Once they looked over the new pastor, they asked if they could give the money to the church which they had been collecting without any publicity; they did and soon returned to the fold. There were 40 new members the first year and things were improving.
Massey became known as the pastor in town who offered counseling. He also became a marrying preacher; and in the first five years, he conducted 89 weddings in the living room of the parsonage.
“The people in Wytheville were supportive. I must have shocked them unduly at times. I know Frankie did because she wore short-sleeve dresses and because unlike most pastors’ wives, she didn’t play the piano! We loved our people and they loved us.” There was a time of testing but in retrospect Massey declares that it was “God getting me ready to be the church-minister relations man in Virginia.”
The Wytheville pastor became active on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board scene during the tenure of Lucius Polhill, executive secretary. When Richard Stephenson became the executive, there was a movement to create an office for church-minister relations. Several recommended the peaceable man in Wytheville. At first, Massey encountered the natural suspicion of Baptists who were concerned that the office might usurp local church autonomy. He quickly proved the value and trustworthiness of the new office and built a network of support among clergy and laity.
Jim Massey established the closest thing to a Virginia Baptist personnel placement office. He and his long-time secretary, Janice Gurley, developed files which eventually totaled some 5,000 résumés of prospective ministers. For 15 years until his retirement in 1988, he listened to the troubles of many a Virginia Baptist church and kept a stack of crying towels in the corner for upset deacons and troubled pastors. He was the healing agent for many a church in conflict. He was and remains a peace-bearer.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, located on the campus of the University of Richmond. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.