City's faithful tended by water-loving shepherds
JERRY AULDS

You gotta be physically, as well as mentally fit to labor effectively in the Lord's vineyards.

Getting fit for those labors is why three or four chilly mornings each week, local ministers Joyce McCormick, Jim Lane and Keith Gibbons shiver and shake their way through several waterbased aerobic and iron-pumping exercises at the El Campo Aquatic Center.

The results, says Gibbons, the pastor at El Campo's First Christian Church, are both "exhilarating" and staminaenhancing. McCormick, who shepherds the congregation at First United Methodist in El Campo, game an "amen" to Gibbons' assessment while adding, "It just makes me feel better."

And according to Gibbons, Lane, who retired from Memorial Baptist in El Campo but now tends a flock in Markham, testifies to many of the same sentiments, but also finds the exercises have helped in Lane's recovery from a recent surgery.

I failed to query the threesome on the theological implications of the aquatic experience as it relates to baptism, to wit: Has McCormick the Methodist held firm on sprinkling or moved closer to the full immersion practices of the Baptist and Christian denominations? My leap into these chilly waters is likely to produce a trio of "cold shoulders" answers.

The Tuesday community-wide Thanksgiving service at First Baptist Church of El Campo confirmed for me that El Campo and this area have continuously had men and women of faith who were ready to "jump into the swim" for their neighbors.

It seems to me we have been blessed with men and women who can both preach and pastor, teach and succor. Comfort and confront.

And each of them, whether it is my pastor, Richard DuBroc from First Baptist, or Father Gary Janak of St. Philip Catholic Church or John McCord of El Campo Church of Christ, when they speak directly to us, it is one-on-one and we do not feel compelled to spin around and see if there is a congregation we did not know about bunched up behind us.

By the way, Pastor Danny Roberts of New Life Assembly of God, the man in charge of the city-wide Thanksgiving meal, is sometimes a member of the group at the aquatic center. They say he casts bread in the pool.

Thankfully, based on the response on Thanksgiving Day, it looks like it's working.