How five minutes with Charles Thigpen changed the world for one college student…
[Adapted from a 2011 article written by the late Jack Williams for the Georgia State Association of Free Will Baptists]
He turned 85 this year and lives in Byron, Georgia. His visionary leadership as a pastor, educator, journalist, denominational executive, and state promotional director spans more than 60 years. But back in 1962, it only took Dr. Charles Thigpen five minutes to stop the world for a Welch College student. Let me explain how that happened.
The fall semester was in full stride. I was a sophomore ministerial student, just married to the girl of my dreams, had borrowed money to pay for tuition and books, and signed up for a full load of classes. We were renting a daylight basement apartment near campus and driving a 1953 Ford.
Dumb Decisions
Then I made a series of dumb decisions. The first was quitting my steady job at Happy Day Laundry in downtown Nashville to sell Bibles door-to-door. I soon discovered that while I could operate a cash register and work behind the scenes at a laundry, nobody in Tennessee wanted to buy a Bible from me. I wasted a great deal of time and energy trying to peddle big family Bibles when I should have been studying and bringing home a steady paycheck from the laundry.
The second dumb decision was refusing to admit I had made a mistake by leaving the laundry and not asking the boss for my job back. Then things got complicated. Rent came due—no money. Groceries got low—no money. FWBBC classes met every day, but I was trying to sell Bibles to people who didn’t want them. You can see where this is headed.
My third dumb decision came one cold night when I got home late after selling no Bibles to find my former roommate Sherwood Lee parked on the street in front of our apartment. Sherwood did his best to convince me to find another job and return to classes. He was right, but I was angry—at myself for the dumb decisions I’d made and at his perception in seeing through it all. That’s when I decided to withdraw from college and head home to Louisiana.
Good Decisions
I told my wife about the decision. The next morning when I left to withdraw from school, she started praying, asking God to intervene. Who knew Dr. Charles Thigpen would answer her prayer?
When I arrived on campus, the first thing I noticed was how quiet things were. But I was too wrapped up in my plans for withdrawing to give it much thought. The receptionist sent me upstairs to meet with the academic dean to begin withdrawal procedures.
That dean was Charles Thigpen, whose chapel sermons had built fires in my soul over the preceding year. He listened quietly as I explained that I had to withdraw. Then his gentle response surprised me. “We’re having a Day of Prayer today,” he said. “Classes have been canceled. Students and faculty have gathered to pray and ask God to meet needs. The withdrawal will take a while, so go on to chapel, and let’s continue this discussion after the Day of Prayer ends at noon.”
That wasn’t what I wanted! I wanted to withdraw, not pray. But Dr. Thigpen shooed me from his office and, for the next three hours, I sat in Memorial Auditorium surrounded by prayers and hymns and tears. Somebody gave a testimony. Somebody shared a burden. Somebody gave me a hug. God did what God does.
By the time I returned to the dean’s office, the Day of Prayer had calmed my restlessness and opened my mind to hear Dr. Thigpen. He suggested I remain enrolled in Beginning Greek and Pauline Writings. My first reaction was to say no, but the prayer had done exactly what Dr. Thigpen knew it would.
I reluctantly agreed. And, just like Charles Thigpen planned, God took things from there. Rather than returning to the cotton fields, I quit trying to sell Bibles and returned hat-in-hand to Happy Day Laundry where the boss (a fine Christian gentleman) gave my job back. For the next three years, I mopped floors, cleaned bathrooms, worked the counter and cash register, put in 34 hours each week, and brought home a paycheck every Friday.
Charles Thigpen’s Influence
Dr. Charles Thigpen, the man who stopped the world for me in 1962, changed my life. Fifty years later, I still remember the day he became an answer to my wife’s prayer.
Seventeen year after Dr. Thigpen refused to let me withdraw, I interviewed him in his office. By that time, he was the recently inaugurated president of Welch College and I was editor of Contact magazine. The resulting four-page article was titled “The Time Is Now.” His picture in full academic robes dominates the front cover of the October 1979 issue. Neither of us mentioned 1962, but we both remembered.
There was nobody else quite like Charles Thigpen in my life. Because of what he did for me in 1962, I graduated from Welch in 1966; my daughter graduated in 1986 and has taught in the Business Department many years. My son graduated in 1991; my oldest grandson enrolled as a freshman ministerial student in 2011.
One more thing. In April 2005, Welch College invited me to serve as director of communications. As I write this article, my desk stands roughly 20 feet from the office where Charles Thigpen stopped the world.
Thank you, Dr. Charles Allen Thigpen, for five minutes that changed my life.
About the Writer: Jack Williams served more than 30 years as editor of Contact magazine, and as director of communications at Welch College.