Betty Pugh Mills, his pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Richmond and his chief softball catcher, called him “the king of narrative preaching.” Claude Dollins, a former colleague on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board staff and a long-time friend, called him “the great listener, the great encourager.” Joe Vaughan, his long-time work colleague, called him a best friend. Betty Marsh, his wife of 55 years, simply called him “sweetheart.”
Cecil Elwood Marsh was all of those things and much more. In his work for Virginia Baptists, he wore so many titles and headed so many offices and departments that it would take all of this column space just to list the different fields. “People used to ask me exactly what I did,” Cecil once wrote, “and I never knew how to say that I did a little of this and a little of that. I have enjoyed an enormous variety of ministries.”
Cecil Marsh held multiples positions at the Virginia Baptist Mission Board before his retirement.
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Variety was an understatement. First, there was the Training Union Department; and the very mention of BTU dates all dinosaurs. There was church administration, church recreation, family ministry, deacon training, church secretaries, youth work, ministers’ wives activities, and so much more. Organizational charts kept changing, but Cecil was among the survivors. He did so many jobs and did them all so well that he only had to be shifted on the chart.
He frequented Eagle Eyrie with all those summertime Youth Weeks and the Junior High and Senior High weekends. Thousands of Virginia Baptists date their first encounter with Cecil Marsh to Eagle Eyrie gatherings. And Cecil was doubly glad to go to Eagle Eyrie because it brought him back to his hometown.
Born in Lynchburg in 1932, Cecil grew up in the Fort Hill neighborhood and spent more days than he may have liked at his father’s Portsmouth Fish Company, learning that he did not want to spend the rest of his life selling seafood. He grew up in College Hill Church and E.C. Glass High School. The people of the hill city made lasting influences upon the young Cecil. He once recalled a string of them: Coach Jimmy Bryan from high school days, “Miss Sally” the librarian who helped him “catch a love for reading,” and Joe Bowman who was a pastor-mentor.
And then it was off to the Baptist school, the University of Richmond. Cecil claimed Solon B. Cousins, the legendary minister and Bible teacher, among his favorite professors. He appreciated the opportunity of college and showed it by making dean’s list and serving on the student government. He was active in campus religious life, yet he also enjoyed the athletic life of Spiders.
He attended Southern Seminary; and after graduation, Joe Bowman was the person most instrumental in his receiving a call to be the first pastor of Randolph Memorial Baptist Church just outside his hometown. Interestingly, the pastor position was funded in part by a grant from the Virginia Baptist Board; and years later, Cecil would oversee the selections for pastoral assistance grants. He remained at Randolph Memorial for 11 years and came to the General (now Mission) Board in 1967 at age 35.
He began during the administration of Lucius Polhill and served with three executive directors. The freshmen staffers in ’67 along with Cecil were Jack Price, Jim Shurling and Claude Dollins. Cecil and Jack stayed for the long run. When Cecil retired in 1994, he had given 27 years to board work, which included speaking engagements in an estimated 1,200 Virginia churches, extensive trips crisscrossing the Commonwealth and activities in the larger Baptist world. He was engaged by the Foreign (now International) Mission Board to help develop an orientation program for newly-appointed missionaries and he continued this activity from 1967-90. He wrote and spoke on church life.
As he prepared for early retirement, he kept referring to the last months at the board as his “Bell Lap,” meaning the last time around a track for a runner. He admitted that the board career was not his first race and probably not his last.
There were other races including interim pastorates and a stint back in his hometown as director of missions for the Lynchburg Baptist Association. He kept on running. After all those years of overnight trips for the board, there was more time to spend at home as husband. He continued to always be an active and involved father for his grown daughter, Deborah, and sons, Lewis and Larry. And following the death of their daughter in 2005, Cecil and Betty opened their home to their grandchildren, Eric and Celia, and enjoyed parenting all over again. They also had time with their other grandchildren, Daniel, Brian and Rachel. There were many more laps around the racetrack of life.
Cecil kept his style. He was laid back and full of fun. He enjoyed glad times and hearty laughs. He was known for somehow and someway slipping into a sermon an illustration from that greatest of theologians, Charlie Brown and his gang. He was a people person who by his own winsome personality and ability to listen drew boys and girls and men and women to come to him.
When he retired in ’94, he explained his reference to his “bell lap.” “In a track meet during the long distance races,” Cecil wrote in his department’s newsletter, “a bell rings when the runners begin the last lap. Years ago, a gun was shot to signal this, but the bell obviously had a softer sound. The bell lap means the finish line is in sight and the runners give it all they have left.”
Over the last year Cecil heard the bell off in the distance. In March of last year he urged the members of Hillcrest Church, his last interim, to get on with the business of finding a future pastor. He rejoiced that grandson Eric Marsh-Delk was accepted into his alma mater, UR, and saw the irony that the Spider was living in a dorm called Marsh Hall. He gave his granddaughter Celia Marsh-Delk “enough memories to last a lifetime.” He kept close with old friends. He and Betty traveled that last lap together just as they had for so long. The last lap concluded on Jan. 18 when Cecil Marsh, at age 77, made it to the finish line.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.