Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302180442
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PASTOR LAUDED FOR LONG SERVICE
They call the Rev. Branan G. Thompson Jr. "a jack of all trades and master of them all."When his Colonial Avenue Baptist Church congregation honored him recently for his 25 years as their pastor, Thompson wore successively the hats of fisherman, magician, cook, skier and construction worker.
He also was recognized as a talented, although amateur, musician and artist and was given a fur cap in preparation for a weeklong trip he and his wife, Gay, recently took to Russia.
To help pass the time in the former Soviet Union, while Gay Thompson shopped with a gift from the Colonial Avenue congregation that paid for their trip, , Thompson received a first edition of the classic novel "Dr. Zhivago" from Jim Rademacher, the evening's master of ceremonies.
Members of the church who presented the hats and tributes offered observations that their trim, Georgia-born pastor keeps the church cold for economy; eats only lettuce leaves; and nearly bought a fake camel's hair coat from a huckster in Paris on a trip with the Rev. Kirk Lashley, coordinator of Southern Baptist work in the Roanoke Valley.
Though his looks have changed little since he arrived from a rural South Boston church in 1968, Thompson is now past 50 and has two grown sons.
Thompson, as the guest of honor at the church's traditional Valentine's Day dinner for the membership, took it all in good sport.
Several guests were among the 160 at the dinner. They testified to the community respect Thompson has built up in his 25 years in Roanoke. Clergy from different faiths recalled his broad outlook on current religious issues, his commitment to ecumenical cooperation and his deep interest in medical ethics and new discoveries about human relationships.
Although Thompson doesn't hold the Roanoke Valley's longest tenure as pastor to the same congregation, among Southern Baptists he is the third-longest serving.
And, as denominational executive Lashley observed, for any Southern Baptist to maintain such support from his congregation in these days of bitterness between moderates and conservatives, that's a distinction in itself.
When he came to Colonial Avenue, the congregation had not been in its worship center long. A church organized to serve the expanding Southwest County suburbs of 35 years ago, Colonial Avenue still has some charter members and young adults who remember the church's founding.
During Thompson's stewardship, the original worship center was remodeled into a fellowship hall. The congregation packed its new sanctuary for dedication the same November night in 1985 that Roanoke had one of its worse floods. Recently, a new wing - with offices, more classrooms and facilities for the handicapped - was occupied.
The church has grown in outward appearance and in numbers because Thompson has dealt with both its members and friends in an unfailing spirit of gentleness and love, speakers said during the anniversary celebration.
"Your judgment has been tainted with grace," said Lashley.
"Branan has made us feel like everybody is somebody, and Jesus Christ is Lord," said Rademacher, the master of ceremonies.