Pastor Mike Bowling's Testimony

   

Pastor Mike Bowling

     Mike Bowling is a recently retired Pastor that ran from the Lord for nine years when God called him to pastoral work. In 1972 he was 22 years of age and he had an attack of appendicitis and had to go to the hospital for surgery. He went to St.Francis now known as St. Francis Downtown. He was placed in room 417. They did his surgery and as he laid there he began to pray and the Holy Spirit began to deal with him. He told the Lord he would do more for him if he would see him through this because it was quite an ordeal with his appendix nearly rupturing. After the surgery he went home and really didn't think anymore about what he prayed about. Ten days later a cyst appeared that had to come out, he went to the hospital for a second time and they said they didn't have any more rooms available. They told him he was just going to have to lay there until they could get him ready after surgery. Finally they said they have a room.....room 417. This was the exact room that he promised God he was going to do a lot of things for him. He went home, and as he was recouping he was lying in the bed and about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning he woke up and he could see his self sorta like a vision standing in the pulpit of his home church; Rutherford Rd. Baptist Church. He saw his self preaching there.  All of a sudden the Holy Spirit just broke him and he began to cry and his wife  Charlene woke up and asked what was wrong now because she thought something else was wrong because he had 2 surgeries within 10 days apart.  He said the Lord is calling him to preach.  She sat straight up in the bed and asked are you sure?  He said he has never been more sure in all his life.

      So he began to prepare for the education to be a pastor.  He searched the schools and decided to go to North Greenville and since he was in the military, the GI Bill paid for everything.  From North Greenville he went to the University of Carson Newman in Tennessee, there he finished his bachelors degree, and he was going to go on to seminary but a church called the University wanting a young man to come over and preach because they didn't have a pastor.  The preaching professor asked him if he would go preach, he said yes he would go. He went and preached 2 consecutive Sunday mornings and Sunday nights.  That was 4 preaching opportunities in 2 weeks. He noticed the chairman of the pulpit committee and the chairman of the deacons got together and they were talking as they left the church and he was wondering what they were talking about.  He said he surely hope he didn't do something out of the ordinary or say something that was contrary to the bible for him just being a young student in the ministry.  He went home and he was a part time stock boy at TG&Y in Tennessee.  The pastor of the church came and asked him to be their pastor and Pastor Bowling said no, he couldn't do that because he is still in school and he doesn't have enough education or know how to be a pastor yet.  He told him no and turned him down because he thought he wasn't ready. That man came to him for 5 consecutive nights and asked him to be their pastor and all 5 nights he turned him down and it scared him and he thought what in the world am I trying to get into.  He then let the devil try to talk him into thinking that he needed to be a youth minister.  So he said he had enough education and that he is going to go home and be a youth leader, and that is what he did.

     He moved back home and he was a minister of youth leader and activities at Clearview Baptist Church in Travelers Rest.  He did this for two and half years and he was really running from the Lord even though he was doing some ministry, he did preach alittle bit.  Some people there in the church owned Carolina Tool and Equipment Company and they wanted to know if he would go to work for them doing inventory.  So he went to work there to be the national sales manager and for 9 long years he ran from the Lord doing other work other than what God called him to do.  Finally when Ron Riddly came to pastor at Clearview he preached a  series of messages on "Listening To God's Call" that got a hold of his heart again and he surrendered to the ministry after 9 years of running. Pastor Bowling was ordained and God began a work in him.  He knew God was in it when he sold a house in 6 days that he had bought in Travelers Rest.  It wasn't long after that he found out that Shiloh Baptist Church was looking for a pastor and a friend of his Wayne Hester and his mother Mrs. Hester was a member at Shiloh and he wanted to know if he could submit his name and he told him yes.  Then they began to talk to him and God just sorta lead them together and that was his first pastoral work at Shiloh Baptist Church in August of 1990.

     He pastored for 22 years and retired this past July of 2012 at the age of 62.  Now he is enjoying his retirement.  He has his name in to do interim work at different churches as they come available.  He fills in on Sundays for pastors on vacation.  During the time he was running from the Lord he learned a lot.  God gave him extra education when he went to Fruitland Bible Institute and took  Homiletics under Dr. Writings, he went to all kinds of seminars and took everything he could to enhance his education and further his knowledge of the scriptures since he didn't go to seminary.  He said preaching the bible is a very serious thing, God teaches his ministers to rightfully divide the word.  He feels like if he stands in the pulpit and preaches that an 8 year old couldn't understand him as well as an 88 year old he has failed.  He tries to be as simple as he possibly can in his delivery to get God's word across so that people could know and understand it.  He wouldn't recommend anyone to run because if God has called someone to the ministry, and it is a calling, and it has to be a calling that God deals with them directly to the point where he wants them to do what he has called them to do.  He's thankful that he did that and he is reminded of what Jeremiah said, he said he tried to run from the Lord and after a while he said God's word is like a fire in my bones and it was a burning desire to preach God's word, and Jeremiah went back and preached God's word.  A lot of times he thinks of Jeremiah when he ran for 9 years.  He didn't actually start his preaching till he was 40 years old and he preached till he was 62, he preached for 22 years, not counting the two and half years of youth ministry.  He was thankful for it, he lead a good many people into God's Kingdom, performed a lot of marriages and a lot of funerals.  He counts it a joy and privilege to be called from the highest calling of the Universe and that is...God Almighty.