Bro Gary Hawkins 20: Setting Up a Tent at the Train Depot

[Coconut Flan]

Continued from here:

 

[Joyster]

Oh my!  I dropped in on Cornerstone Baptist's Facebook Brother Hart is preaching live at the tent meeting now.  This guy is something.  He is Gary's type of preacher.  You can hear Gary's "Haymen"s loud and clear. The poor kids in the front who just want the fun and have to sit through this to get to it.  

ETA:  Now this guy is telling Brother Hawkins to pray for him because he might say something that will get him in trouble.  He tells about Bible Colleges not teaching the right things.  I might have to do a Brother Hart summary, but there's no way I could do this guy justice.  Gary's having a spiritual orgasm with his hooting and hollering.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Joyster

[Joyster]

Cornerstone Baptist’s 11 AM Tent Revival Meeting in Gary’s Gospel Tent

It is hot; people are waving their fans.  There’s not enough seating for everyone, but the kids are going to be leaving to go under the pavilion for a special service after a couple of songs, so according to the song director, it won’t be so “squishy” then.  

The pastor talks about how during the spring program, the kids have been collecting money for missionaries; so far the kids have collected over $1,000.  This gets a loud “Haymen” from  what sounds like Gary.  Brother Nelson brought all the inflatables and is doing the children’s service for sixth grade and younger.

It was supposed to be the Hart family singing, but Brother Hart’s wife and son came down with bronchitis.  Instead, the pastor of the church sings the special music with his family.  They aren’t bad.  It is too bad the Hart family could not attend.  I listened to the Hart family online, and they are REALLY good.

The pastor introduces Brother Hart who is preaching the morning and evening service.  He will then leave to go home and take care of his family, and Brother Hawkins will preach Monday through Wednesday.  Some family called the Howls will come sing for them one of the nights. 

I decided to not summarize Brother Hart, but he is an interesting guy to listen to.  Hart starts off mildly, and  it doesn't take him long to start yelling as he preaches. He has that old time preacher cadence. If you want to view what I'm going on about, skip to 56:00 on the church’s video of this service. This guy and his family are what Gary (and Jill Rodrigues) want to be and are not.  He’s better than Gary at making jokes about the Democrats and getting to the food, he’s better at preaching, and his family sings a lot better and with expression.  

The Hart Family Ministries travel in an RV, sing old-time gospels, and preach with vigor at meetings throughout the Midwest, but their act is much better than the Hawkins or the Rods.  Brother Hart is a hard act for Gary to follow.  Plus, Brother Hart actually goes home to take care of his wife, although, I think Becky is better off without Gary home.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Joyster
Fixed link

[Dana723]

To be fair to Becky, if I had a choice between cancer and Gary, I'd choose cancer too.

 

I'm just joking of course.  But I can imagine if he were with her right now, it'd all be "Gary, Gary, Gary" and she'd be waiting on him hand and foot, no matter how she felt.  She may actually feel better without him there.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I didn't realize Becky has cancer. Are they sure it's cancer?

[Joyster]

21 minutes ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

I didn't realize Becky has cancer. Are they sure it's cancer?

I'm not sure.  All my information comes from his latest sermons. Gary has mentioned Becky saying she's going to die from cancer and how two nodules were found in her thyroid.  He has not come out and said she has cancer, but he implied it.  However, Gary is not exactly the best source for the truth.  Becky was supposed to meet with the specialist on Friday to see if surgery was an option.  I'm hoping he'll give an update tomorrow night.  I'm glad Becky went home and is going to doctors.

[Xan]

6 hours ago, Joyster said:

This guy and his family are what Gary (and Jill Rodrigues) want to be and are not.  He’s better than Gary at making jokes about the Democrats and getting to the food, he’s better at preaching, and his family sings a lot better and with expression.  

I agree that this guy sounds how Gary dreams of sounding.  That being said, I can't stand listening to him.  It brings back too many memories of my childhood having to listen to these guys who were in love with their own voices.  They shouted and did the "Amen" thing and added "uh" to the end of words, as in "Jesus died on the cross-uh to save us from our sins-un and to bring us salvation-uh".   I remain grateful that I'm no longer trapped with listening to these guys.  (And it was always men.)  The sermons that stuck with me were the thoughtful ones.  I loved the sermons that tied history or geography to a Bible story or that had a simple, moral message.  The yelling about going to Hell?  Not so much.

The old-timey preachers were just performers.

I agree about the music.  The Harts do nice harmonizing.  It's beyond the Hawkins' family talents but the Rods could do it if Jill had enough sense to figure out how to teach her kids to do it.

[smittykins]

Off topic, but wasn’t the college for the blind where Mary Ingalls attended located in Vinton?

[Bluebirdbluebell]

11 hours ago, smittykins said:

Off topic, but wasn’t the college for the blind where Mary Ingalls attended located in Vinton?

Yes, she attended the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton, Iowa, according to Wikipedia's article on the really Mary Ingalls.

[Joyster]

Gary had technical difficulties last night and only recorded the first three minutes of the service.  The church only had the first seven minutes of the service.

Gary recorded a three minute video from his hotel room last night to see if the Facebook Live was working. I don't think traveling without Becky is working well for him by the state of his motel room after 2-3 days.  Although, I have a teenager and she can quickly make a room look like that.

Becky texted him in the middle of his recording to say she could see him.  He is upset because he preached a really immediate (this is what CC said but I think he said something else that I didn't understand) and a great message.  Brother Hart did a great job yesterday, and he really wanted Brother Hart to see Gary's message last night.  He went on to describe the special singing (some guys from Illinois) and to ask for prayers that his tripod thing called piviot V-I-V-O (I'm not sure why he spells but he does) works tonight, backsliders will have their souls renewed, and that souls will be saved.  Lord willing, he's bringing the bread messages tonight.  I listened to that part three times and I really think he said bread.  I guess he means the main part of the service.

In the beginning of the video, Gary seemed quiet, but at the end he became animated because the Lord can come today, or tomorrow, or next week, he doesn't really know, he just knows it's soon and that should be a comfort to us.  He asked that the Lord fall on the tent souls, and all I could think of is the tent collapsing.

Spoiler

ETA: I just noticed how large the print is on Gary's Bible.  I'm not snarking on that; it just surprised me for some reason.  I wish my teacher manuals were that size.  I swear the math manual has size 8 font.  Luckily, I rarely need to look at it.

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Joyster
Fixed spoiler

[Joyster]

Gary's V-I-V-O stopped working after 9 minutes tonight.  Maybe we'll get another hotel video tomorrow asking for more prayers to get his VIVO working.  A light bulb went off in my head and I realized why this church seemed so familiar. He was at Cornerstone last year, and @thoughtful delightfully summarized the tent revival meetings (2021 Cornerstone Baptist) and @postscript, your avatar was filmed at the same hotel location Gary is staying at now.  One of my favorite quotes was from last year's summary:

Quote

All applaud, and we hear the child near the camera say, disgustedly, "Now she's soaked. Oh, my Gahd!"

Y'know, sometimes I wonder why I listen all the way to the end of these things, and then I am blessed with something like that.

So far the church's Facebook Live is running.  I missed the beginning of Gary's sermon, so I don't know if he gave an update on Becky.  

[postscript]

3 hours ago, Joyster said:

Gary recorded a three minute video from his hotel room last night to see if the Facebook Live was working. I don't think traveling without Becky is working well for him by the state of his motel room after 2-3 days.  Although, I have a teenager and she can quickly make a room look like that.

Becky texted him in the middle of his recording to say she could see him.  He is upset because he preached a really immediate (this is what CC said but I think he said something else that I didn't understand) and a great message.  Brother Hart did a great job yesterday, and he really wanted Brother Hart to see Gary's message last night.  He went on to describe the special singing (some guys from Illinois) and to ask for prayers that his tripod thing called piviot V-I-V-O (I'm not sure why he spells but he does) works tonight, backsliders will have their souls renewed, and that souls will be saved.  Lord willing, he's bringing the bread messages tonight.  I listened to that part three times and I really think he said bread.  I guess he means the main part of the service.

You're not kidding! It looks like a college dorm room. Becky probably does all the packing and laundry for the team. In a weird way, it's good to see him acknowledge he's not doing as well without her. Maybe he's learning to appreciate her contributions. 

 

[Joyster]

Gary is posting his videos on his Facebook again. His plans for tonight are also posted:

I caught the first 5 minutes of Gary's Live sermon tonight; the connection was really bad.  He said that he was going to take the week off next week due to his wife's surgery next Thursday.  He is planning on sleeping day and night to catch up on his beauty sleep.

The summary below is from May 31, 2022 at the Cornerstone Baptist Tent Revival (no closed captioning was available):

Gary starts off telling us we will be reading from II Corn-on-icals (Chronicles) Chapter 7.  He enjoyed fellowshiping with the pastor and his wife at the Pizza Ranch.  They don’t have those places out East, so when you come here, you have to eat at one of those places.

Gary tells us the title of his message is, “A Recipe for Revival.”  He doesn’t know.  Some of you men might cook, but he doesn’t do that stuff.  He gets the stuff to the kitchen and that’s as far as it goes.  He doesn’t know nothing about recipes.  He’s watched his wife do stuff.  Thank God for Pinterest and even recipe books.  When you have all the individual ingredients, they don’t taste too good.  But when you put them together in the freezer or the oven, they taste pretty good, amen?

There has to be sacrifice for a revival.  There has to be things you forsake.  We have technology now, so you can miss your TV show because you have a DVR, amen?  God wants you to give up things.  Some people say that if Adam and Eve hadn’t messed up, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.  Gary tells them, like you haven’t sinned?  Gary promised if he had to name those animals, he would have messed up.  If that fruit had anything to do with Chinese food, he wouldn’t have had a bit of problem eating it, amen?  God will put revival in Iowa or North Carolina if people want it, but we have to come out of our comfort zone.

Gary did his bit about not everyone who thinks their saved is saved.  Then he talks about Jacob last year being excited about being an uncle. He was 14 then; he’s 15 now.  Gary just became a grandfather last year and he’s not even old enough for that stuff.  Ever since Jacob got back to North Carolina, he’s wanted to see his niece.  They live about three and a half hours ago, and they STILL haven’t seen him.  Gary’s looking forward to going because he will make them see him.  He’ll go get the baby, he doesn’t care about the parents, amen?  Here’s the thing about being grandparents and having grandchildren.  His boy is getting married and it won’t be long before another one come in.  The reason he has these grandkids is because he hadn’t killed his kids as they were growing up, amen?  More about him being saved and being saved to have revival, blah, blah, blah.  

You have to have a calling.  If it was up to his daddy, he’d be in North Carolina, amen?  His wife told him he’d have to leave early and come on home.  She said leave the tent and all (NOOOOOO…not the Godly tent Gary dragged everywhere for seven years; Becky, what were you thinking asking him that?).  Of course, Gary told her, “One more night, baby, one more night.”  Hey, you don’t have to be a missionary.  This town is your Jerusalem.  You don’t have to go far to find sin.  In all the cities Gary has traveled to, he’s found that sin city is not just in Vegas.  It’s everywhere.

Number three is we have to humble ourselves tonight.  God ain’t too happy with pride.  Gary travels a lot, but he don’t go to too many camp meetings. He’s not better than anyone else, but he’s seen the stuff that goes on.  Little cliques. He went to one service where the preacher preached on another preacher.  Gary has 66 books (points to the Bible) to preach on.  The day he can’t find something in that book to preach on, he better just sit down and shut up.  Not many people fear God today.  We need to fear God.  Gary watches Facebook.  Some you are against it, but that’s OK.  “You just pray for him; he’s as spiritual as you are. “ And then he says what he said last week in Nebraska, “Just go ahead and take your halo off.  You’re not as good as you think you are?” Gary looks on Facebook and he sees all this bragging about how many souls were saved.  Gary didn’t save nobody.  Some sow the seed, some give the water, and God gives the increase.  When Gary's third daughter would get compliments after she sang, she would always reply, "It's all because of Christ." Gary tells us he  is zero; he’s a bunch of zeros.  We need to humble ourselves. Seven years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ gave him a gospel tent.  However, this is God’s tent; he’s just using it. There's a van out there that's God's van.  Brother Josh doesn’t like Gary’s trailer, but God gave it to him.  “Come boldly unto the throne of God doesn’t mean come thinking you are somebody.”

I stopped listening at 1:01:00.  Gary’s taking a little too long to get to all the ingredients for revival, especially since I don’t want it.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Joyster
fixed weird wording

[Xan]

10 hours ago, Joyster said:

You have to have a calling.  If it was up to his daddy, he’d be in North Carolina, amen?  His wife told him he’d have to leave early and come on home.  She said leave the tent and all (NOOOOOO…not the Godly tent Gary dragged everywhere for seven years; Becky, what were you thinking asking him that?).  Of course, Gary told her, “One more night, baby, one more night.” 

Gary lives on the road to avoid having to stay in North Carolina.  I think he's afraid he'd have to take care of his mom and dad if he moved back and everyone knows that Gary is not a caretaker.  He's the one wanting a caretaker.

I bet Becky wanted him to cut the meeting short and, of course, Gary refused.  That meeting didn't have enough attendees to warrant keeping the tent up.  They could have moved the preaching to inside the church for the last night.  Gary just didn't want to have to come back at all and, if he was forced, it would be him leaving at the last minute.

Everyone between Iowa and North Carolina, watch out on the road.  Gary has been driving for hours and is probably distracted by religious music.

ETA:  And now he can show up and tell everyone how tired he is and how he needs to sleep.  If they were hoping for any help from Gary with Caleb's wedding, they're out of luck.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Xan

[Joyster]

Gary made it back to North Carolina.  He's glad to be the pit of the van for a little bit.  I think he left  out the word "out," but I like thinking of Gary as being the pit of the van.  

The song leader of Gary's most recent meeting had a call and response he used all the time.  The song leader would say, "God is good," and the congregation would say back, "All the time."  Then he would say, "All the time," and the congregation would respond in unison, "God is good."  I wonder if Gary is going to start doing that to get participation from a nodding off congregation.

 

[Joyster]

Gary's son Caleb's wedding will be live-streamed tomorrow, Westside Baptist Livestream, at 10 am central time.  I don't think I'm going to be able to watch any of it.

Also, Gary's sister announced a tent meeting at Old Paths Baptist next week.  Gary might actually be taking the week off.  I wonder if they're using his tent.   A Bible seems like a weird prize to win.  Wouldn't the kids already have a Bible?  

Spoiler

 

[Joyster]

It's been raining here and my plans were changed.  I ended up being able to watch the live stream of most of the wedding.  The sound didn't work for me on the link I provided before.  I ended up watching most of it on the church's Youtube live.  

Be warned, I don't snark about weddings.  It's a couple's special day, and I always hope what they include has meaning for them.  That being said, it was a nice, short ceremony and the decorations enhanced the ceremony.  The colors of the outfits, lavender for the bridesmaids and silvery gray for the groomsmen, went well together.  Jacob was a groomsman.  The ceremony was the perfect length- 30 minutes. Gary sat in the front with Becky and his parents.  I'm going to say something positive about Gary.  He looked nice and acted appropriately for the wedding in the parts I saw.  A blurry screenshot is below:

I spotted Michaela in the congregation with her husband and adorable daughter.  However, I'm going to respect her wishes to keep her family private and did not take a screenshot.  I did not spot Gary's ex-wife, but I don't know if I would recognize her.  I did spot Gary's sister and brother-in-law at the end.  When Sarah's dad, who has views I cannot stand, was leaving, cradled in his arms was a picture of Sarah's mom.  Tears fell down my face.  I need to get past this perimenopause stage of my life--that's what I'm blaming the tears on!

Something Gary might not like--they used canned music and played a contemporary country song at the end.  I mean, it mentioned God once or twice, but it was not an old-time hymn.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Joyster
Change Facebook Live to Youtube live

[griffin]

Well, the wedding was better than that pitiful one Gary's daughter had at some park ramada. At least it was in a decent church. Sarah's father carried a framed photo of her late mother which was sweet. The four bridesmaids' lavender dresses were tea length and set off with always super-chic white keds. Each one displayed lovely VPL as she plodded up the aisle. Jacob was not best man.  Becky wore a full-length dress of filmy fabric nicely featuring her knee-length slip. The boys were in slacks, shirtsleeves and suspenders. The minister's delivery was poor. Multiple times, he would say "Now I'm going to read to you from such and such book, chapter number 17, verse number 10 through 15". He read the whole service from a white sheet of notebook paper. All "God created the  cattle and the fowl of the air and man needed a helpmeet, yadda yadda". Man shall leave his mother and father .. you know the drill. I don't think he's done many weddings. A song droned on for so long, J & S had to just stand there holding hands waiting for it to be over.The song when dad walked Sarah up was so long that they got to the front and had to stand there for endless verses. She was very serious throughout.The kiss was unremarkable, perfectly nice. No burst of applause or Duggar-style antics. 

[postscript]

I was bored yesterday afternoon so I watched most of the wedding video. I’m also reluctant to snark on weddings, especially when it’s obvious this is the best the couple can do with their budget. In this case, I liked the decorations, which were appropriate for the church, and I liked the colors. The bride’s dress was also classic and suited her. the music wasn’t to my taste, but it was obviously meaningful to the couple. They also did a knot-tying ceremony (new to me, but which I liked) in lieu of a unity candle. 

The smaller of the two flower girls did what two year olds do and stopped in the middle of the aisle. The photographer needed to beckon her forward. itlooked like her mother was one of the bridal party, so the little girl stood at the altar rather than going into a pew as I’m accustomed to seeing small attendants do. The little girl then wandered around the front during the ceremony, which was cute but probably distracting in person. 

Perhaps best of all, Gary wasn’t involved at all during the ceremony, and there was no lengthy sermon 

Watching Gary’s daughter and her child in the congregation made me wonder if Gary will be spending time with his grandchild while he’s home. He seems to have so little interest in children. Any other grandparent would be posting pictures or at least announcing that they got to spend time together. I’m betting Gary says nothing. 

Caleb has a wedding photo up on Facebook as his profile picture, with a glimpse of a small but attractive cake in the wedding colors. He asked for prayers as they drive to Tennessee, so I assume that’s where they are honeymooning. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by postscript
Stupid typos.

[Xan]

5 minutes ago, postscript said:

I was bored yesterday afternoon so I watched most of the wedding video.

I watched it too.  I wondered if the woman sitting behind Gary's daughter was Gary's ex-wife.  She looked like Michaela.  

I liked that they had cupcakes and a smaller cake.  I think that's a good option.  I sort of wish Kaylee would do the same for her wedding.  Everyone could have a bit of cake but it's not as expensive.

I admit to tearing up when the dad walked back down the aisle with his late wife's picture in his arms.  That was just sad.

I was particularly happy that neither Gary nor his dad did the service.  That was a wise choice.

[Joyster]

1 hour ago, Xan said:

I watched it too.  I wondered if the woman sitting behind Gary's daughter was Gary's ex-wife.  She looked like Michaela.  

I wondered this also.  She was definitely a relative.  She was sitting next to Gary's sister and brother-in-law were all having a friendly conversation before the ceremony started.  It could be Caleb's mom  or Caleb's aunt Shannon.  Did anyone spot Caleb's youngest brother ( can't remember his name)?  I assumed he would be sitting by his mom.  I hope Caleb's mom was able to attend.  She commented on Caleb's announcements yesterday. 

While I was checking for Caleb's aunt's name on his Facebook, he posted another picture:

Edited June 5, 2022 by Joyster

[postscript]

Apparently Gary’s beloved truck is up and running again. He posted that they are panning to take it out on their next jaunt. He thanked “the one’s” (sic) who worked on it as well as the Lord. 

Caleb has also posted honeymoon photos. Looks like they are honeymooning in Pigeon Forge. Among their activities are go-karts and the Dixie Stampede. He and Sarah look happy so I can’t snark on them other than to say they look so young to be married. 

[Xan]

Gary put up a brief post on Facebook.  I guess it's about Becky but I'm not sure.

For anyone who hasn't yet seen Gary's wonderful truck that @postscript discussed, here's that post with pics.  Two pictures of the truck.  No pictures of Becky.  We can tell what and who are important to you, Gary.

Spoiler

 

[Joyster]

I think Gary's post is about Becky, but you are right, @Xan, it's unclear.  Becky posted a link for a song The Answer.  That's it.  It's about how God is the answer when you are feeling alone and everything is going wrong.  Becky's surgery is supposed to be tomorrow.  I hope things go well.

Michaela posted  side by side ultrasounds of her oldest daughter and the daughter she lost.  She named the daughter she miscarried Noami (that's how she spelled it--not sure if it's a typo) Mary lynn.  If she had carried the baby to term, she would be similar to Nurie Keller with spacing.  

In Gary's truck posting there was a cute dog.  I thought we could use some brightness.  I think the dog was thinking, "I'm not sure how far this guy is going to make it with those crappy tires."

[Xan]

Oh, for the love of....  Gary's put up another post.  He's thanking God for filling his truck up with gas.

 

I'm pretty sure that God doesn't have a gas card.  Someone was nice enough to pay for your gas, Gary.  Thank them directly.  And is this really your priority right now?  Becky's having surgery tomorrow and you're posting about gasoline? 

Gary sucks so much.