The Battle is Over, The Victory is Won so Onward and Upward Christian Soldier: Clyde H. Thompson

These days I seem to be saying farewell to many of the people in my life who played a significant roll in shaping who I am both as a person and as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This week I have said farewell to another, Clyde Thompson. 

If one is interested in his life you can read the summary found in his obituary.  Suffice it to say that in his 91 years he demonstrated himself to be a loving husband, caring father and committed Christian. Everything he undertook to do he did with faith and energy. No one felt joy as energetically as he and no one carried a burden with more grace. He became a part of our family through marriage and in our minds has been one of us ever since. 

In 91 years he accumulated so many life experience the telling of which are often legendary. His simple straightforward concern was genuine and heartfelt. He was touched by the needs people had both spiritually and physically. He often used a sack of groceries to open the door in a heart for the gospel.  

He was a patriot serving the country by helping man a PT boat during WWII. He could have and should have written his own “PT-109.”   

In forty years of full-time ministry he pastured only three churches. His first church was was FBC in Beasley, Texas. Then when the mission in Lomax was constituted as the First Baptist Church of Lomax he became its founding pastor. Finally he spent the last 24 years as pastor of the Garden Road Baptist Church in Pearland, Texas. I should note for accuracy that before the church moved to Pearland it was called the Minnetex Baptist Church. In a sense he ended his active ministry pretty much where it started at Lomax.

However, I digress from what I want to share about Clyde Thompson. I first met Clyde when I was a student at Pasadena High School shortly after I had surrendered to the preaching Ministry.  A group of us young preacher “going to be’s” had formed an informal school of prophets. We’d travel from church to church to hear some of the prominent preachers of our day or in support of one another when some pastor would let one of us fill their pulpit. 

Clyde often would use one of us to preach on a Sunday night when he was in Lomax. It was on one of these occasions in the early 1960’s that I met Clyde Thompson. And our journey together began.  

Clyde Thompson was a young preacher’s best friend. He not only gave us a chance to practice our preaching he was always encouraging and uplifting. In fact, his influence was such that when I was pastor of the Highland Park Baptist Church in Kilgore in the early 1970’s I invited Clyde to preach the first revival service I had while there.  In turn, I preached what might have been the first revival services that the Garden Road Baptist Church held in their first building when it was brand new. That revival led to me becoming the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lomax in the mid 1970's.

My point is only this . . . many a young preacher owes Clyde Thompson a debt for allowing them to develop and hone their preaching skills in the churches where he served as pastor. I large part of his legacy is not just the people whose lives he touched as their pastor and friend. It also includes the hundreds and thousands of lives touched through the ministries of those of us who he gave the opportunity to learn, yes I said learn, the art of preaching by actually preaching a real sermon in a real worship service and extend a real invitation to receive Christ. He knew we were novices yet he took a chance and trusted his beloved church family to us so we could gain the experience we’d need in the days ahead as ministers in a Baptist church. Such was his love and faith.  

His obituary says, “His legacy of love is vast, and words are not enough to express all he did for his Lord, family, friends, and people in general” and that is certainly true but to those of us with whom he shared his pulpit his legacy is still being recorded as we continue.

There is so much more that I could say as the lives of the Thompson family and our family became intertwined over the years. There have been moments of joy and days of sorrow; there have been times of laughter and hours of weeping; and there have been days spiritual mountain tops and plenty of valleys.  I believe it can all be summed up in the words of Andre Crunch’s song “Through it All”  . . .  

I've had many tears and sorrows,
I've had questions for tomorrow,
there's been times I didn't know right from wrong.
But in every situation,
God gave me blessed consolation,
that my trials come to only make me strong.

I've been to lots of places,
I've seen a lot of faces,
there's been times I felt so all alone.
But in my lonely hours,
yes, those precious lonely hours,
Jesus lets me know that I was His own

I thank God for the mountains,
and I thank Him for the valleys,
I thank Him for the storms He brought me through.
For if I'd never had a problem,
I wouldn't know God could solve them,
I'd never know what faith in God could do

Chorus
Through it all,
through it all,
I've learned to trust in Jesus,
I've learned to trust in God.

Through it all,
through it all,
I've learned to depend upon His Word.