It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
CS Lewis
Hope you're donning your Blue Suede Shoes because we've got a lot of ground to cover this week as we continue our walk in Memphis. Speaking of shoes, Steve Gaines, who now sits at the helm of Bellevue Baptist Church, had VERY BIG shoes to fill when he succeeded Dr. Adrian Rogers as senior pastor.
For our readers who may not be familiar with Steve Gaines, today's post will serve as a brief introduction. Here's a link to his 10-page bio at his personal website that you may want to check out:
http://bellevuepastor.org/about/biography/
Truly, it's everything (and more) that you would probably want to know about Bellevue's senior pastor.
Here's an excerpt from Brother Steve's bio that describes his courtship with his future bride, Donna Dodds. It's a sweet story…
During his senior year at Union, Steve prayed for God to send him someone to date—a young woman who really loved God, and as he added, he wouldn’t mind if she were good-looking. Donna Dodds was beautiful inside and out. She was the 1976 Tennessee’s Junior Miss and a top ten finalist in the Miss Tennessee pageant. An excellent student and a campus leader, Donna was captain of the cheerleading squad, president of her sorority, homecoming queen, and Miss Union University. Along with Steve, she was selected as a campus favorite by her classmates. While he could not help but notice Donna, it seems that she also noticed Steve—and the priorities he was establishing for his life.
On their first date in December 1978 Steve fell in love. “As I stared into her eyes I couldn’t believe it. The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen was talking about how she had been called by God into the ministry when she was twelve years old. She said that she had always thought that one day she would be a missionary. I was thinking, ‘How about being a pastor’s wife?’”
Sitting on a bench outside together, he played his guitar as they sang hymns and praised the Lord. At the end of the date the couple held hands and prayed. “I felt God’s presence so strongly when we talked with the Lord that night,” Steve said. On his twenty-first birthday a few weeks later they confided their love for each other, and in April, 1979, the couple became engaged. Fittingly, it was Dr. Agee who married them on June 14, 1980.
We didn't realize that Brother Steve is a singer. He's obviously a man of many talents! In keeping with our Elvis theme, we wonder whether he serenaded the love of his life with this classic tune. We love it!
LOVE ME TENDER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZBUb0ElnNY
Who knows…Steve may have even sung this Elvis megahit when Donna accepted his proposal of marriage.
ALL SHOOK UP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqsX7xQWRoU&feature=related
As we continue our introduction of Steve Gaines, here's an important excerpt from his website that explains in his own words how he came to be the senior pastor at Bellevue —
http://bellevuepastor.org/about/biography/8/
An Open Door: Bellevue Baptist Church
While serving in Alabama, Steve preached at Bellevue Baptist Church approximately once a year over a nine year period at the invitation of Pastor Adrian Rogers. “I always had a great time at Bellevue,” he said. “I told Donna that Bellevue was the only place besides our church at Gardendale that I really felt at home when I was preaching. The staff and the church members were especially nice to us when we came to Memphis, and they always responded warmly to my sermons.”
When Dr. Rogers announced his retirement in the fall of 2004, Steve discovered that the pastor search committee was considering him as a candidate. Twice he removed his name from the list of prospects. “But the Lord kept working on me and on the search committee, too,” he said. “They asked me to meet for another interview, and I’m glad we did, because in that setting the committee members as well as Donna and I began to realize that God was bringing us together.”
Chuck Taylor, chairman of the search committee, told The Commercial Appeal, “After eight months of praying, searching, watching, and waiting, we were 100 percent united and 100 percent convinced he is God’s man for Bellevue.”
On July 10, 2005, the Bellevue family called 47-year-old Steve Gaines to become Bellevue’s seventh pastor. On that historic day the congregation overflowed the worship center in both morning services. “There may not be a human reason why we’re here, but I believe there’s a heavenly reason why we’re here,” the new pastor said from the pulpit. “Today’s not about Steve Gaines, and it’s not even about Bellevue Baptist Church. Today is about the kingdom of God and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
When Bellevue’s pastor search committee extended the invitation for Steve to be Bellevue’s new pastor that morning, he responded with one word: “Yes!” That morning Dr. Rogers welcomed Steve and Donna to Bellevue and rejoiced that Steve would be the first pastor he’d had since he was “a 19 year old boy.” Dr. Rogers also jokingly said to the committee, “I want to know what took you so long to find out what I knew all along!”
We mentioned in Friday's post that Steve Gaines preached his first sermon as senior pastor of Bellevue on September 11, 2005. Tragedy struck a mere two months later. Here's a description of what happened in Gaines' biography:
Steve stood in the same pulpit and preached the funeral for his dear friend. Grief over Dr. Rogers’ rather sudden passing was intense for a church family that had honored him at his retirement only eight months earlier. Bro. Steve, too, felt the loss deeply. “I personally had looked forward to having him near and available as we moved forward. But in God’s sovereign plan, that was not to be.”
Numerical growth in every area of the church’s life marked the Gaines’ first year at Bellevue, but the second year was one of the most difficult of their lives. “Dr. Rogers had warned me that the transition from his 32-year ministry to mine would not be ‘all honey with no bees,’” Bro. Steve said. “Once again my wise mentor was correct.”
If you're not familiar with what happened during the second year of Gaines' pastorate at Bellevue, that will be the controversial topic we will discuss in tomorrow's post.
Now that we have introduced you to Steve Gaines, we thought you might like to know a little more about his wife. Brother Steve hit the jackpot when he met and married Donna because, after all, she's a strong Christian and a beauty queen! It's no wonder why Steve fell in love on their first date. Just so you know that Steve isn't exaggerating, here's proof that Donna was all that and more! Take a look at this church display which spotlights Steve's "little queen" (see the photo of Pastor Steve's letter below).
In a megachurch, it's probably difficult to get to know the pastor's wife, so here's a display that was set up in May 2007 for the benefit of the congregation. We're including these photos here so that our reading audience might become familiar with Donna Gaines, who is currently serving on the SBC Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.
http://sbcvoices.com/great-commission-resurgence-task-force/


Since we're focusing on Elvis' love songs in today's post, here's a CLASSIC! Enjoy!
BURNING LOVE