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On Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 2 p.m., a service was held to honor and celebrate the life of one of the most well known ministers of Southside Virginia: Wiley Post Wallace. To say that Wiley was a character is a complete injustice. This man was a jack of all trades. From farming to preaching, gardening to pastoring (and yes…preaching and pastoring are 2 totally different things), blue grass playing to blue grass singing…there wasn’t much Wiley Wallace couldn’t handle.

This man preached at some point in several churches around here. In fact, the last time he preached at Kenbridge Christian, the church family I am honored to minister with, was for our 100th anniversary in 2009. I had been ministering here for 7 years at the time and Wiley began the morning message with strong humor as he was known to do. He then said (paraphrasing here) that he wanted to get serious real quick and wanted those who had hair that looked like his (white and grey) to pay attention and look around. He mentioned how lots of our churches looked older and unless we began to do whatever it took to reach a younger generation then the future of the churches could be in jeopardy.

He got a loud amen from that at the time. I won’t ever forget this moment of his message.

“Let us pray…”.

Prayer’s a beautiful thing. When it comes to prayer, folks either love it or they couldn’t care less. Prayer needs to be happening all throughout the day. We need to pray for way more than our meals. We need to pray for our family, friends, our communities and churches. We need to be praying WAY harder to keep sinners out of hell than we do to keep saints out of heaven. We are guilty of this, aren’t we? We pray harder for the healing of a person strong in faith than we do for the person we know for fact isn’t living in Jesus.

“Let us pray…”.

Wiley Wallace, as mentioned, was quite a character that was loved and respected. Wiley could make you laugh and love and after saying or hearing something off color, he was famous for saying… are you ready for this: “Let us pray…”. He then would laugh hard with his contagious smile and everyone would join in with him.

So…When was the last time you followed his advice? When was the last time you truly spent in prayer for more than yourself or your wants?

Stop and pray right now for those close to your heart and for those who need Jesus. Pray hard. Pray often.

“Let us pray…”.

Rev. J. Cameron Bailey is pastor of Kenbridge Christian Church. He can be reached at jamescameronbailey@gmail.com.