By Asia Nail
The Truth Reporter
At 82 years old, John W. Williams, DMin, has no plans to stop.
Not while there is still work to do.
Not while there are people who need a word of encouragement, young people who need guidance, families who need prayer, and generations still waiting to hear what God can do with a life surrendered to His purpose.
A Calling, Not an Accomplishment
For 47 years, Williams has stood behind the same pulpit at Eastern Star Missionary Baptist Church. Along the way, God entrusted him with two more congregations, New Zion Baptist Church in Buffalo and Memorial Baptist Church, about 10 minutes away from New Zion.
He doesn’t describe the journey as an accomplishment.
He describes it as an assignment.
“It’s an opportunity to share the Word of God with the people of God,” Williams testifies. “For these 47 and a half years, the Lord has allowed me to stand in one pulpit. I’m grateful for that.”
That gratitude runs through everything he does.
Williams grew up on a farm in Holland Grove, Arkansas, a community that had a population of about 761 when he was growing up. His mother came from a family of 14 children, seven sisters and seven brothers.
Work was not something his family discussed as a virtue.
They lived it.
His mother rose at 4 a.m. to prepare breakfast. By 6, when there was enough daylight to see the cotton, the children were in the fields.
“Hard work is good for the spirit,” Williams says.
His father was a preacher, and Sundays belonged to church. Sunday school. Morning worship. Home for a meal. Back to church by 5 p.m.
And there was a rule at the family table: nobody ate until everyone was there and the blessing had been prayed.
Those lessons followed Williams into adulthood.
From the Classroom to the Pulpit
Williams became a schoolteacher in Indianapolis before God moved him “out of the classroom into the pulpit.”
The transition was not a departure from teaching. In many ways, it was an expansion of it.
John Williams, DMin, understands preaching as teaching, leadership as service and ministry as something that requires knowing why you were called.
“I didn’t want to major in my mind and have a minor in my major,” he reflects. “I knew that God had called me to preach.”
That clarity has carried him through nearly five decades.
His guiding Scripture has been John 9:4: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”
He has taken those words seriously.
Williams has served his congregations across hundreds of miles. New Zion is more than 300 miles from Eastern Star, yet the distance never became an excuse. His churches gather together three or four times a year, building fellowship across geographic lines.
Recently, 14 couples renewed their marriage vows during one of those gatherings.
For Williams, ministry is not simply standing behind a pulpit on Sunday morning. It is cultivating relationships until strangers become family and church members become generations.
“You only pastor with permission,” he explains. “People have to give you permission to be their leader, be their pastor, be the watchman of their soul.”
There is humility in that statement.
He does not claim ownership of the people God gave him. He considers himself a steward.
When the Assignment Gets Hard
His own life has required stewardship.
Williams has survived two strokes. He spent more than 30 days in the hospital and more than a year in rehabilitation. He returned with 98 percent of his ability to function.
Then he kept preaching.
He still travels regularly, sometimes flying every other week. He has spent 35 years serving in Buffalo, New York, and says that in all those years, he has only had to miss one trip because of weather.
“The Lord has blessed me with an automobile, trains that run daily, airplanes that fly to destinations and what have you,” he notes. “So if you want to do something, God has already made the way. You just have to be willing to go and do it.”
That is the voice of a man who has spent his life refusing to confuse obstacles with stop signs.
His faith is equally practical when he talks about young ministers.
“Know that you’ve been called by God, sent by God, and make sure you find out your assignment,” Williams says.
Then he offers his simplest counsel: “You’ve got to love God, love His Word, love His people and then enjoy what you’re doing.”
And when church leadership becomes difficult?
“Don’t fight people in your church,” he cautions. “Love them. Pray for them. God will bless you.”
Passing the Faith Forward
His vision for the future extends beyond his own ministry.
Williams worries about young people growing up without the family structures and spiritual foundations that shaped him. He remembers family meals, church every Sunday, parents teaching children how to work, how to conduct themselves and how to care for one another.
Times have changed.
But Williams insists the Word has not.
“The Word of God is the same as it was yesterday, today and forevermore,” he emphasizes.
That conviction is why he believes every generation has a responsibility to teach the next.
Psalm 145 calls believers to make God’s works known “from one generation to another.” Williams wants to see that happen, not merely through sermons, but through lives lived as examples.
His message is ultimately about legacy.
Not fame.
Not buildings.
Not titles.
Faith handed down. Wisdom shared. A young person is shown the path before they have to find it alone.
Williams often returns to Joshua 1:8, reminding believers to keep God’s Word close, meditate on it and live by it.
Then he says something that may be the summary of his entire life:
“I don’t want to do anything else other than preach and teach and tell people about what is required of us as human beings.”
From the Plow to the Pulpit
From the cotton fields of Arkansas to the classroom, from the classroom to the pulpit, from illness back to ministry, Dr. John W. Williams has continued to work the assignment God gave him.
That journey will soon live beyond the pulpit and the memories of those who have walked alongside him. In March 2026, Williams authored From the Plow to the Pulpit, a forthcoming book that traces the road from his humble beginnings on an Arkansas farm to a lifetime devoted to preaching, teaching and serving God’s people.
The title is more than a name on a book cover. It captures the arc of a life shaped by hard work, faith and purpose. The hands that once worked the cotton fields would eventually hold the Bible, and the lessons learned before sunrise on an Arkansas farm would become lessons carried into the pulpit for generations.
His book offers another way for Williams’ testimony to reach beyond the congregations he has served: a written reminder that sometimes the seeds planted in childhood take decades to reveal just how much they were meant to grow.
Still Working the Works
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of 47½ years.
A calling does not always make the road easy.
Sometimes it simply makes you willing to keep walking it.
As Williams looks toward whatever God has prepared, he remains grateful for the journey behind him and willing for the journey ahead.
“I’ve been young, but now I’m old,” he says, echoing Psalm 37. “I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken.”
Then, with the quiet confidence of someone who has lived what he preaches, he added:
“I’m just grateful.”
After nearly five decades of ministry, that may be the most powerful testimony of all.
Follow Pastor John W. Williams on Facebook for live messages, weekly sermons, ministry updates, and highlights from his 47 years of service.