Wesley House celebrates lifelong Texas pastor

Wesley House assisted living facility in Atlanta has become a home to a diverse assortment of folks from all walks of life throughout the years.

One such individual is 94-year-old Pastor Charles Russell–or Brother Russell as he is most commonly called.

Bro. Russell has about 8 decades of service under his belt, having preached practically his entire life, beginning as a teenager.

Only recently retired from Turkey Creek Baptist Church in Hughes Springs, Bro. Russell reflects on a place where he has had about 22 years’ worth of fond memories and well-loved congregants.

During a casual visit with his son and daughter- in-love John David and Kathy Russell, Bro. Russell recalled a lot of his past work with the church and his loving family, showcasing his sharp wit in fun back-and-forth teasing and exchanges with Kathy and John David.

Born February 16, 1929, Bro. Russell has led a fascinating life of service, pastoring mostly rural northeast Texas churches, and it all began at the tender age of 16.

Russell was first saved at age 11, five years before he felt convicted to become a pastor.

A tent revival had come to town with a cowboy minister, who he remembered was called “We were living in Longview, Texas,” Russell said. “The Cowboy Preacher came and put up a tent across from the bus depot. My father and mother weren’t church people at that time and the first time we went to the tent revival we sat in a car parked across the street.”

“Gradually, gradually, we drifted inside the tent and I was in the front row–I don’t know how I wound up in the front row, but I did.”

It was at this moment that Charles Russel’s life changed forever. “There were some ladies behind me. One reached over and touched my shoulder and said ‘son, why don’t you go,’” Russell said. “And that’s all I needed. I went down and I was saved that night at that tent revival.”

It was five years later when he felt the call to preach. “When I was 16,” Russell recalled. “I remember waking my mother and daddy up one night and telling them I believe God wants me to be a preacher, God’s calling me to be a preacher.”

Soon after, that’s exactly what he did, pastoring Lone Star Baptist Church near Cason, Texas–while still just a teen.

Russell said he ministered there half-time before going full-time with them. He was there for about 3-4 years total.

“Then I went to Macedonia church which was outside Pittsburg, Texas,” Russell said.

Russell also preached in Bonham, Queen City, Greenville, among other associations of churches and ministries.

After finishing college at Commerce, Russell graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1957.

“He came back from Greenville to Linden (First Baptist),” John David said, concluding that his father stayed at the church in Linden for about 17 years.

“We got back here in like ‘81 and they went to Jacksonville about ‘83,” he added. Bro. Russell served as the Director of Missions in Jacksonville for a group of three counties called Dogwood Trails from about 1983 until the early 1990’s when he retired from that position.

“He was a pastor to the pastors, that’s what a director of missions is,” Kathy Russell explained.

Russell only stayed retired for a small amount of time before taking over at Turkey Creek, where he retired “for real” after 22-23 years in the fall of last year, the three joked. The pianist from Turkey Creek, Julie Combest, gifted Bro. Russell with a large photo, printed on canvas that depicts Bro. Russell was a teenager Baptizing folks in a creek around Cason, Texas, when he was with his first church (Lone Star Baptist). The photo is very special to the family as it shows the beginning of Bro. Russel’s life of service to God as a minister.

Outside of preaching, Bro. Russell enjoys fishing and woodworking. Ola Deane, his beloved wife of 54 years, passed away in September 2005. “She didn’t like being called Ola, but she’d let you call her Deane,” Bro. Russell said, laughing.

Together, they have two sons, Wayne and John David–only two years apart. “My two boys turned out to be fine men,” Bro. Russell said, adding that both are involved in the church, with John David serving as a deacon and Wayne Russell serving in the choir.

From his two sons, Russell has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Other than keeping God first in the marriage, Bro. Russell had some advice for couples planning on getting married.

“There’s really got to be unselfish love to have any kind of a real relationship,” he said.

Bro. Russell knows a thing or two about marriage, having officiated the marriage of both his sons, his brothers, grandkids, nieces, and many, many other family, friends and parishioners. Once, at Turkey Creek Baptist Church, Kathy said they had a social event and realized that nearly every couple there had been married by her father-in-law. When asked what he thinks about the world today as opposed to the world he grew up in, Bro. Russell said it seems to be changing for the worse.

“But, maybe I’m wrong,” Russell said. “You know, in recent years I’ve been thinking a lot about God, the sovereignty of God and the endlessness of space. He is the God of the Universe and sent His son to die for us.”

God’s magnificent creations and His love, so vast and endless, is truly mind blowing, he said.

“The endlessness of it all,” he explained. “It’s beyond our mental capacity to grasp … we can think about it, but it’s really beyond our comprehension.”

Note for readers: In May 2022, Bro. Russell was the subject of an article written by Gary Ledbetter for the Southern Baptist Texan, texanonline.net. In the article, entitled ‘East Texas pastor honored for 77 years of faithful ministry service’, Ledbetter wrote that Russell was honored for nearly eight decades of service to the Lord during a meeting with Enon Baptist Association, which covers deep Northeast Texas.

At the event, Bro. Russell was also given a plaque expressing gratitude for his ministry by Roy Ford, the Northeast Texas field representative for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.