Faith, Family and a Return to Brown County
It was the spring of 1995. I was a twenty-four-year-old seminary student driving up Route 68 through Paris and Maysville, Kentucky, headed for Brown County and an interview to become the Pastor of Decatur and Mount Olivet United Methodist Churches. Growing up in the shadows of Atlantic City, the Big Red Machine was all I knew about the area. When I first turned my car onto Russellville-Winchester Road, those who have become so dear to me and I, myself, had no idea that the first meeting would be so important. That night my destination was Richard “Butch” Arn’s house. Butch had agreed to be the head of the search committee for the new pastor. I was to meet with him and his family before we headed to meet the rest of the gathered faithful. Butch is one of the greatest men I have ever met. Still, I wonder if he would have even opened the door on that night if he knew that only three years later, in June of 1998, I would marry his daughter and leave with her to retur...