Billy Graham Center
Archives
From Collection 516, T1
From Collection 516. Rev. Hart talks about his first experience of preaching as a young man in Jamaica.
HART: I had no opportunities to preach. I was still preaching to banana trees. That was my practice group. And one day, my first message to people...I was fourteen years of age. Dad used to go to the prison and have a service once a month or something like that. One Sunday a month he was assigned as the one from this group that would preach in prison. But this particular Sunday he couldn't go. He had a...he was flat on his back with a serious attack of sciatica. It plagued him toward the end. And he...he couldn't go to preach. So I just went around and didn't say anything to him. I got a message in my mind (I think it was about blind Bartmaeus) and I remember going around and saddling a horse, slinging my piano accordion across the saddle. I used to play a piano accordion, I played a couple of musical instruments. I have to use past tense because I hardly do it anymore. But I played a couple of instruments and got the horse saddled and got my message together. And then I went to dad towards the time I would have to be leaving to get to that service, and said to him, "Dad, I am ready to go now." "Where do you think you're going?" "Well, don't you think the men at the prison ought to hear some message?" "That may be so, but where do you think you're going?'
SHUSTER: [laughs]
HART: So I said, "I think I have a message to give to them." "What's that about?" And I had to go over the details of the message, the outline of the message for him. And then toward the end I saw a smile break across his lips as he was lying on the bed. And I knew then that I had won. So he said, "Well, I'll tell you what. On your way over to the prison, you stop by Brother Slifer's [?] house, pick him up and tell him to go along."
SHUSTER: He was a deacon at the church?
HART: He was a deacon at the church. But he didn't bother me at all, because he was a silent brother. [laughs] He was no preacher. He would have been no competition. So on the way I stopped by and picked up Brother Slifer [?] and we both went on over to the prison. And when the prisoners heard, "a boy preacher," they all came out then. They all came to see what this boy preacher could do. And the Lord gave help. I preached the sermon and, to be sure, thirty-seven of those men, when I gave the invitation, came forward in that big gymnasium type auditorium there and made professions of faith in Christ. At the close of that time, I dealt with them as a group. There were no counselors. I just dealt with everybody and I did what the Lord leading me to do. That's...that's the first time I ever preached to live people, apart from the practice sessions with my brothers and sisters...