Celebration Farewell Retirement Banquet 12/5/2021
1 Thessalonias 5:1-24 Romans 12:12-16
I want to say thank you for all of you coming to be with me in this time of celebration. Thank you to the members of the Celebration/Anniversary Team that made all of this possible. Thank you my friend Roger for your words. I want to introduce my Mom to you because without her, we would not be here today.
I thank all the members of my family who have come out to celebrate this event with me. It’s been a double blessing in that some of my brothers and sisters on my father’s side are just meeting the ones on my mother’s side.
I thank my wife Rev. Dr. Toby Gillespie-Mobley who has worked by my side in one way or another for the past 40 years in ministry. Much of the success I have had in ministry has its roots in her gifts, her love, and her support
When she and I met at seminary and started doing our field education work together with a tutoring/Sunday school program in a public housing complex, we had no idea we were actually launching a 42 year ministry team and a 41 year marriage.
I want to thank all of you who have been in one of the congregations we served. It was an incredible journey of walking with you and with Jesus through some of the most wonderful years of my life.
Wow this journey actually began with a failed bargain I tried to make with God. I came to know the Lord when I was 17. My grandmother Louise Bascomb had gotten saved and just fell head over heels in love with Jesus. She had started going to church under Rev. Baker in Hornell NY.
I started going to church the summer before my senior year of high school. I had been hurt in a football game my junior year and did not want that to happen again. Because I wanted a football scholarship to go to college I started going to church.
I figured if I went to church and put money in church, and tried to do right, “God would have to watch over me on the football field. Well that plan worked until the third game of my senior year. We were playing Sayre in Pa. I was a starting safety. They ran a play to my right. I read it perfectly and came up with a great hit and tackled the ball carrier. That hit was so hard I remembered seeing those sparkling stars.
The next thing I remembered was being on the bench and looking at the score board and seeing the other team was ahead. The last I had remembered, we were ahead in the game. I asked, “When did they score? A guy looked at me and said, “What do you mean when did they score, you blocked the extra point.” I have no memory of that event.
My neck was sore and the coach didn’t let me go back in the game because I must have had some kind of a concussion. There was I time when I wasn’t answering questions they asked. I was told to go to the hospital the next day just to check out things and make sure it was okay for me to play the next week.
I went to St. James Hospital. They did some x-rays and told me to wait. Well after a while I got tired of waiting, and started to walk toward the exit. The nurse came toward the door, and asked if I was Ricky Mobley. I said yes.
To my surprise, she said the doctor wants you to go to bed right away. I couldn’t believe I was in a wheel chair going up to a hospital room. I remember it seemed cold in that room. She told me the doctor would be in soon. I just wanted to know how many games I was going to have to miss.
The doctor came in and started talking. He said that I had injured my neck pretty badly and that I had cracked a bone. All I wanted to know was how many games I would miss.
He said, if I had of stayed in that game, I could have been paralyzed from the neck down. I still wanted to know how many games I would miss. He told me that I would never be able to play football again.
It seemed my world had ended because I was living for football and going to college. When he left I was stunned. I got out of the bed and got on the floor crying asking God how could you let this. I was going to church and even putting money in church so why did this happen.
God spoke to me and said, you weren’t doing anything for me. All of that was for you. A light came on and I realized God was right. I hadn’t been a sinner needed to be saved by grace. I was just a person trying to strike a deal with God to get what I wanted. Well on that floor I gave my heart to the Lord for the right reason.
That began a journey of faith with Christ that started in 1973. God was gracious and merciful. I was healed a few months later at First Baptist Church. I did go to college and I did play college football. I left with three records as a safety. 42 years later, one of the records has been broken, one has been tied and one is still in the record books.
After my football career was over, I knew I was going into the ministry. One of the things about going into a smaller church without a lot of money is that you get to have a lot more experience in a whole lot of areas that seminary didn’t prepare you for. You also are given the spiritual gift of a word of knowledge, because if God didn’t show you how to do it, it just doesn’t get done.
For all of you who still think the pastor only works on Sunday and after the preaching is done, the only thing left is a bible study class to do, maybe a funeral, and maybe a couple of visits, I want you to know, you are wrong.
I got to do a whole lot more than pastoring.
• I wrote, directed and acted in plays
• I wrote, directed, filmed, edited, and added music to movies
• I produced 10 different weekly tv broadcasts
• I produced radio programs
• I created and maintained the websites
• I got to be a painter
• I got to be a janitor
• I got to be a plumber
• I got to be the church musician
• I got to be the copier repair person
• I got to be the book keeper
• I got to be the basketball coach
• I got to be the Easter Bunny, Jesus, and Santa Claus in full costume
• I got to be the athletic director and game creator
• I got to be the delivery boy
• I got to be the supervisor
• I got to be the summer camp director
• I got to be a chef for session meeting
• I got to be the lawyer
• I got to be the floor layer
• I got to be the sidewalk cleaner
• I got to be church photographer
• I got to be the cart builder
• I got to be the editor for the monthly newsletter
• I got to be the van driver
• I got to be the van mechanic
• I even got to be the person blamed whenever something went wrong.
But far more important than those things, I got to be a part of so many of your lives in so many different ways. Sometimes, I was your son, other times I was your father or your brother. The person you just couldn’t wait to share your good news with.
Sometimes I was the person you cried with, laughed with, joked with, or just sat with. I have had so many wonderful different kinds of relationships with so many of you. So many of you are special in your own way, and you have blessed me just because of who you are.
Sometimes I was your leader, your encourager, your rock on which you were standing. Sometimes I was your pastor, sometimes your colleague in ministry, and sometimes I was just your friend.
But what really made the difference was that Jesus was calling me to be him for you in your situation. Your strength, your wisdom and your determination actually came from the Holy Spirit inside of me tying to let you know that Jesus loves you and I love you too.
It has been a glorious ride together. Pastor Toby and I will always treasure you in our hearts. Pastor Kellie is going to be one of the great senior pastors in the city of Cleveland. Pastor Kellie, we want you to know that you have already made us proud. It has been a joy working with you. Whatever we can do to assist you in your ministry in the future, we will do our best to be there for you.
So as I close one chapter of my life as one of the pastors of New Life At Calvary, and I become a pastor emeritus joining my wife in the status, I say yes to the will of God, whatever that will might be. I encourage you to do the same with your life. Thank You.
Summary: This is the speech I gave at my retirement banquet sharing my personal testimony of coming to the Lord & being thankful.
