February 26, 2001
Homegrown preacher marks 20th year in same church
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___LEWISVILLE--"There's no place like home" might be Kenneth Wells' motto.
___He's lived his whole life in the Lewisville area, where his ancestors settled from Tennessee in the 1860s. And this month, he celebrated his 20th anniversary at Northview Baptist Church, his one and only pastorate.
___"He's a hometown boy. I remember when he was at Piggly Wiggly," his previous job two decades ago, noted church member Joanne Blacketer.
NORTHVIEW BAPTIST CHURCH in Lewisville commissioned a portrait by artist Matthew Campbell to help commemorate the 20th anniversary of Pastor Kenneth Wells
___"He's a Lewisville person. He was born and bred here," added Paul Presley, a longtime deacon in the church, located near Lake Lewisville in the northeastern section of the Denton County community. "He's been here so long, he knows everybody in town."
___ Maybe not everybody on the booming edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, but everybody who's been around for awhile. His breakfast in a local café is interrupted constantly by friends and well-wishers, some who attended Lewisville High School with him, others who have known his family for generations.
___He's been chaplain of the Lewisville Police Department for 19 years. He also served as moderator of Denton Baptist Association, president of the Greater Lewisville Kiwanis Club and a leader/supporter of the local Future Farmers of America and 4H organizations.
___Asked if he ever moved away, he allowed that his family did live over by Old Alton Baptist Church--where his great-grandfather was baptized in 1905, on the other side of the lake but still in Denton County--for a short while.
___But God has kept Wells in Lewisville, just as God has kept him at Northview.
___His grandparents and mother and dad were members of First Baptist Church in Lewisville, Wells reported.
___"But in 1962, I lost my dad," he said. His mother, suddenly single, discovered "it was tough to do the church thing."
___So, young Kenneth grew up outside church for about 10 years. Then, when Calvary Baptist Church, an independent congregation, needed to install air conditioning, they called his grandfather, who brought the 16-year-old boy along to help out.
___"I showed up, and those people loved me to the Lord," he said.
___During his senior year in high school, "the Lord began to work on me, calling me to preach," he said. "I couldn't believe it. I was so shy. Back then, I saw more of the high school floor than people's faces."
___Wells wanted to be a veterinarian and planned to attend Texas A&M University. Instead, he followed God's lead and graduated from Arlington Baptist College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, all the while working in the local grocery store.
___He began courting Teresa Chapman, the pianist at First Baptist, and they married in 1980.
___About then, he thought he would have a chance to be youth minister at the church. But Leonard Molone, the pastor and his friend and mentor, had to tell him, "It's not you."
___And that's about when God opened a door at Northview--where his wife and her parents had been charter members.
___"They interviewed several guys" for pastor, Wells remembered. "Immediately after, the church came back and said, 'We want Kenneth.' I was 23 and inexperienced. I suggested they look at the other guys. But they said, 'No, it's you.'"
___He became the church's baby-faced pastor in February 1981, with a starting salary of $50 a week and an average attendance of about 30.
___Although he was young, Wells was not daunted by suggesting change.
___"The few years before that, they had given nothing to missions," he said. "The previous year, no one had been saved or baptized.
___"But from the business meeting that I suggested we start giving to missions, we went 13 weeks in a row with somebody being saved, baptized or joining the church. We stood up for missions, and the Lord honored it."
___Now, the church averages about 260 or 270 worshippers on Sunday mornings, despite a location that is "covered" by a large apartment complex--making the church facility almost invisible to the community.
___"We've been a good transition church," Wells observed. "We've accepted the community. Our church is known to have a home-style flavor.
___"Lots of young couples have come through. We have had the opportunity to introduce them to the Lord. And for us to have sustained growth, even despite our location, it has been a blessing of the Lord."
___Now, the church is thinking about relocating, to gain both visibility and space for growth. "But that may be a few years away," the pastor said.
___Wells carries his sense of place and community into the church.
___"Our church is very family oriented," he said. "I know everybody in our church by name. Every Sunday morning, I shake hands with everybody. The biggest disappointment is when people have to leave us."
___That sense of family also spills over into the community. His work as police chaplain, in Kiwanis and in school and farm-oriented organizations--as well as a lifetime in town--pushes him out among the people.
___"In a lot of ways, I've got to become a community pastor," he said. "I preach funerals and perform weddings from the community--people I've known from school, people who knew my folks."
___Mrs. Wells teaches at Lewisville High School. Their children are J.D., 16, a sophomore; Heath, 13, a seventh grader; and Emily, 10, in the fifth grade. The children are involved in the usual suburban activities--sports and music. But they're best known for their success in showing pigs. J.D. won the Fort Worth Stock Show a few years, and Heath showed a reserve champion at the State Fair.
___Their church honored Wells on his 20th anniversary as pastor Feb. 18 with a celebration marked by speeches, music and presentations.
___For Wells, it was like a family reunion.
___"I'm very close to the people. They're our personal friends," he said. "I don't know that I would want to be anywhere else."
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