William Lewis Turner died this week of complications 
from prostate cancer. The obituary says Bill was 78 years old when he passed away but you’d hardly know it. His spirited outlook and high energy seemed more suited to a person many years younger. Well into his sixth decade of ministry, Bill was pastoring a new church and teaching the craft of preaching at a local seminary when he left us. Most people who knew Bill were shocked to hear of his passing because it seemed he was way too busy living to die. But death gets us all eventually. No one gets out of here alive.
Bill was my pastor and one of the best preachers I’ve ever known. What made him so effective in the pulpit was his commitment to preaching the Gospel. “But don’t all preachers preach the Gospel?” you ask. No. No they don’t. Very few preach the Gospel nowadays. Too many modern American pulpits are nothing more than dispensaries of narcissistic religious nonsense disguised as faith. Pandering to peoples’ demands for “relevant” preaching, Christ’s Gospel is reduced to self-help themes that are more about building self than loving neighbor. People love sermons that extract “biblical principles” for how they can live stronger, smarter, and more successful lives. Not many enjoy sermons that tell us to take up the Cross and lay down our lives for others.
Bill never relinquished that Gospel. He had a way of connecting his listeners to the redemptive faith of the ancients, grafting us into the deepest roots of Christ’s message and calling us beyond the immediacy of the present moment to find our place in a procession of the faithful that reaches all the way back to the Beginning. This was true not only in Bill’s preaching but also in the music and liturgy of worship. When you sing the hymns at Bill’s church you are not a solo voice singing church-karaoke but part of a chorus too numerous to be counted that includes your parents, grandparents and all the generations before you who have sung the hymn you are singing. In other words, you belong to something much, much greater than yourself and much, much deeper than this present moment.
Bill led people to Christ and to each other.
He was a preacher’s preacher and I am grateful to have known him.
Well done, Bill.
And thanks.
What a wonderful testimony about a man of God!
Marty, that was a perfect testimony and a beautiful LIFE for Our dear Bill Turner….a family of God… and for US…
Amen . . . and amen! I could listen to him preach all day long. I’m sorry I got only twenty minutes per week for eight years.
Marty, you have absolutely captured the essence of “Bill the professional.” Most folks wouldn’t believe, but Bill began the next week’s sermon the minute he walked into the house from church on Sunday. It was so important to him that he would “get it right” on Sundays. I appreciate your ministry to us during these difficult days.
Marty, Thank you for capturing the essence of Bill and what he meant to us at Faith Fellowship. He was a wonderful preacher, pastor, and leader. Thank you for your help during these difficult last few months. We value you.
Thanks, Marty. Well said!
A friend from long ago- in the 50’s a group of young people had a youth team that had week-end youth revivals in various churches in the area- wherever someone would invite us and feed us. Some of the group were from churches in town while some from the country churches. Bill was one of the preacher boys (a teenager). We have wonderful memories of those weekends of preaching, singing, and enjoying life.
Thank you, Marty, for saying so well what we all thought of Bill. He was the best!
I appreciate very much this beautiful, powerful and well-deserved tribute. Thank you. Bill was a dear friend to me and my deceased husband, John Claypool. I love Earlene dearly and my prayers continue faithfully for her and Bill’s whole family.
Thanks for sharing this, Ann. Your late husband was a great inspiration to me (and many). Funny how the circle of dear ones is a lot smaller than we realize. Thanks for your friendship with Bill and Earlene. And thanks for speaking John’s name and providing me a memory for which I am most grateful! ~ Marty
One of the best blogs I’ve ever read. Completely inspiring and rejuvenating to read the words describing this incredible man’s life and his passion as pastor. A man we were very privileged to know and love because of the equally incredible, loving wife he had by his side through it all.
I remember Billy Turner, that is what we called him when he was growing in the First Baptist Church of Wetumpka, Alabama, standing on the piano bench and singing in church, when he was about five years old. His mama and daddy were sitting In the congregation, bursting with pride. I never saw Billy after became a grown man, I know that he was a man of God and will be sorely missed.
As I grew up, attending First Baptist Church in Lexington Kentucky, Rev Bill Turner was my bigger- than- life guide to the work of diving deep into trying to understand God and Christ through the Bible, and indeed through many other sources, philosophy, current events, other religions etc. His passing makes this old earth a little emptier. Thanks Bill.