Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

Pennell had been on an executive committee for Tennessee Southern Baptists and had
preached the keynote address for a State Training Union Convention. Friends counseled him not
to “mess around with the Independents,” or he would lose his prestige. Pennell answered, “When
I saw the literature talking about the `Reed Sea’ instead of the `Red Sea,’ stating that sun was
reflecting off Moses’ burning bush and it was not really burning, and that Jonah may not be an
historical book, I felt I couldn’t put up with the liberalism.”
Pennell told Dr. B. R. Lakin at the time, “The Independents have nothing to offer me.”
To which the elderly statesman replied, “That’s right; the Independents offer you nothing, but
God offers you everything. Magnify the Lord, be true to His Word, and trust God alone.” It was
hard for Pennell to venture out without denominational publications and committees, yet he
knew that God was on his side. Today he confesses, “I am not fighting the Southern Baptist
Convention; I’m fighting liberalism and a philosophy that’s wrong.”
The church is known for its strong stand on separation. Pennell led a city campaign
against legalized drinking and is known as “the pastor that doesn’t believe in long hair,
miniskirts, movies, and dancing.” He also has a strong “God and country” emphasis.
Evangelist Lakin has had a great impact on the church, willing to come when the work
was small, though many evangelists only go to large congregations. Pennell recalls how Dr.
Lakin sat around the kitchen table with him and talked about Dallas Billington, John Rawlings,
Harold Henniger, Beauchamp Vick, and Tom Malone and pointed to Acts 5:42: “And daily in
the temple and in every house, they ceased not to preach and teach Jesus Christ.” In Lakin’s first
revival with them, they had 32 professions of faith and a total of 225 on the last day, and chairs
down the aisle of the packed house in an afternoon service.
Pennell, a skeptical Southern Baptist preacher, went to a Sword of the Lord Conference
in Greenville, South Carolina. He didn’t want to get mixed up with “Pentecostalism,” but when
Dr. John R. Rice gave the invitation to come forward and seek the filling of the Spirit, he went to
the altar and lay prostrate on the floor, praying for God’s complete filling. Pennell went to Bible
lands with Dr. Lakin and Dr. Tom Malone, according to him, “searching for something, praying,
‘Lord, do something.’” One night in the Pilgrim’s Palace Hotel in Jerusalem, he wept for hours
by his bed. “I got up and knew that God had met my needs.” It was as though God had outlined
what to do. Pennell came home and had Malone and Lakin come for a Bible conference. He
began attending Hyles’ Pastors’ Schools. That spring, in his first Sunday School campaign,
attendance jumped to over 300 in Sunday School for the first time, and in the next two years the
church grew by another 100. In 1970 he heard Dr. John Rawlings speak on the bus ministry at
Tennessee Temple Schools. Rawlings said, “Sunday School buses are not transportation, they’re
a ministry.” Pennell came home and began preaching, “Go into the highways and byways, that
my house may be filled.” One bus ran with 18 riders the first Sunday, but dropped to 8 the next
Sunday and struggled for six months. Pennell did not give up. Charles Whitsel became bus
director and the next year the bus ministry took off, when they added six buses and, eventually,
ten, not paying over $1,000 each. Now the church averages over 500 on the buses; on a recent
Sunday the buses had a high of 761, with Joe Day bringing in 129 and Bill Hamilton, 125, and
David McCray with 123.