Appreciating Pastor Adrian Rogers
Because October is Pastor Appreciation Month, we at Love Worth Finding thought those who partner with this ministry might enjoy some stories shared recently by pastors and their wives about Pastor Adrian Rogers. These are just a sampling of good memories we heard at the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans:
“Adrian Rogers’ ministry, Love Worth Finding, has impacted me in so many ways over so many years. Primarily what I heard on the radio…and going through a study called ‘What Every Pastor Ought to Know.’”
—Brent Showmeyer, First Baptist Church, Eunice, Louisiana
“I was a full-time truck driver. One of the things that worried me when I was called into the pastorhood is I didn't have the seminary education. But I heard Adrian Rogers say he was too dumb to preach anything but the Bible and too smart to preach anything but the Bible. That made sense, and that's my philosophy in preaching. Stick with the Bible.”
—Glenn Byrd, Johnston Station Baptist Church, Summit, Mississippi
“I love listening to his sermons. He is so practical. He stands for truth. He's conservative, humble, and biblically accurate. He's just so strong on moral issues. He's one of my heroes.”
—John Razor, Alton Baptist Church, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
“At 29 years old, I surrendered to the ministry. And I was a bread vendor. The first two years of ministry, I had zero idea what I was doing. I would listen to Love Worth Finding, just load my bread truck and just listen to Dr. Rogers. …They broke in on the radio station (in 2005) and announced that Dr. Adrian Rogers went home to be with Jesus. And I just stopped loading my bread truck, sat down on the bumper and cried because he meant so much to me in my ministry. …If I can do anything to emulate him as far as preaching's concerned, then I know I'm on the right track.”
—Teddy Sorrells, Living Water Church, Gladewater, Texas
“My husband’s a pastor. My dad was a pastor. And we would come to conventions, and I remember during one of Dr. Rogers' convention sermons, my mother had a bag of goodies for us to keep us occupied and I cross-stitched a bookmark for Dr. Rogers. And it just said, ‘God loves you, Dr. Rogers.’ And I laid it on the stage after we finished, and so every year when I come to the convention, I think about him and his ministry and the legacy he left.”
—Melody Cain, Seymour First Baptist Church, Seymour, Tennessee
“I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and my dad and I, we’d go fishing every Saturday morning. We'd be listening to Love Worth Finding and Adrian Rogers on the radio, and I wanted to keep that tradition going. So anytime I took my son fishing, we'd listen to Adrian Rogers on the radio. He loved listening to Adrian Rogers so much, when he was about 6 years old, I had him start listening at night. He's 13 now and he still listens to Adrian Rogers' sermons before he goes to bed, falls asleep to Dr. Rogers preaching the Gospel.”
—Jackie Hill, Roseville Baptist Church, Roseville, Minnesota
“I'm a student pastor. I have listened to Adrian Rogers since I was probably 5 years old. My parents listened to him on Bott Radio Network. Once I became saved at the age of 16, I listened to him nonstop every day when I was getting ready for either work or for school. He's answered a lot of my faith questions just from the sermons. He's given me much biblical sound truth I can hold onto. Love Worth Finding is a great ministry. I use it for resources for my students all the time.”
—Tanner Selvage, First Baptist Church, Lake Jackson, Texas
“When I first came to Christ, June 8th, 1996, I wanted to learn the word. I was hungry, I was excited. I had the opportunity to go to a men's retreat where our pastor shared Dr. Rogers' study called ‘A Man of His Word.’ That study just really opened my eyes to what it meant to be a man of God, to be a husband, to be a leader. Not long after that, I can't say it's the only reason, but it was definitely a seed that was planted when I surrendered to ministry. I'm glad to say today that I've been pastoring for 25 years. Thank you, Dr. Rogers. God bless you.”
—Chad Jenkins, Monroe Street Baptist Church, Bogalusa, Louisiana
“I remember meeting Dr. Rogers back in the early nineties. My husband was doing the sound for seminary. Dr. Rogers did not love to sing. My husband sent me with the mic that was already turned on …I walked down and I told him, ‘Dr. Rogers, this mic is already on; it's muted in the sound booth, and it'll be ready when you're ready to preach.’ He told me to tell my husband that if he turned the sound on while the singing was going on, he would make sure my husband never graduated from seminary.”
—Angela Riggins, Calvary Baptist Church, West Point, Mississippi
“I'm a pastor and a chaplain candidate in the United States Army. When I was going to work, before I was a pastor, I was able to listen to Adrian Rogers’ sermons each morning. I didn't know who Adrian Rogers was, but I was impacted. His messages are still timeless because he wasn't gimmicky, he wasn't trying to do anything more, he just spoke the Gospel and he used his life to impact others.”
—Jessie Harrell, Bulls Gapp Baptist Church, Bulls Gapp, Tennessee
“When I first got saved, Dr. Rogers really discipled me through Love Worth Finding. When God called me to preach, I remember telling the team that was asking me to come preach, ‘I've got four Adrian Rogers messages and I don't know what I'm going to do after I get through preaching those,’ That man has meant the world to me.”
—Chad Grayson, LIFE Community Church, Jamestown, North Carolina
“Our church staff was heading to Bellevue for a conference in 2000. …We came up a day early and we were walking through the campus, and Dr. Rogers, I saw him walking through the parking lot. He didn't have a suit coat on, but he had his shirt and tie and suit pants and he was carrying bags of trash to the dumpster. I tell our staff, ‘If Dr. Rogers can take the trash out, listen, you can take the trash out.’”
—Gevan Spinney, First Baptist Church, Haughton, Louisiana.
Do you appreciate your pastor? You might want to consider providing him with a gift of our most recent book, “Pastor to Pastor,” which is based on ordination messages preached by Pastor Adrian Rogers. Find it in our online store.
