It takes a varied background to do a varied job, and Reverend James Dismuke, whose work as Minister of Education for Delmar Baptist Church requires great flexibility, has the proper training for his job. Born in Florida, he considers himself a native of Tennessee, where he attended high school and graduated from Union University. He obtained his Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary at Wake Forest, North Carolina. During college days, he worked part time for the Coca-Cola Company as driver, salesman, machine operator.
During his tour in the U.S. Army, he trained as a medical aid and later worked in engineering supply. Back in civilian life, he worked summers selling Bibles and other books door-to-door, an experience he considers not only profitable, but valuable for a future minister.
He began his ministerial career as Minister of Education for the Broadmoor Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He came to St. Louis ten years ago to serve as minister of youth at Third Baptist Church and has been busy with young people ever since. His work at Delmar Baptist Church started in 1966 and has centered on designing and implementing learning experience for the religious education program.
Seeing the quiet dignity of the Delmar Baptist Church buildings as you walk by, you might not be aware of all the activities besides worship services going on inside. The Sunday religious education program has about 240 members, ranging from infants to adults. The Tuesday-Thursday Club designed for young people aged 6 – 12 but including a number of teenagers, meets from 5:15 to 6:30 p.m. The young people have religious training, Bible stories, recreation, and occasional dinner trips. Volunteers and college students help staff the program.
On Saturdays a teen-boy club meets. This winter they had their own basketball league, four teams from the immediate area and two from other neighborhoods.
The Delmar Baptist pre-school, a non-tuition, four-day a week school, is manned by volunteer nurses and mothers, directed by Mrs. David Humphrey. Mr. Dismuke reports that this class is always filled up and that he is astonished at the activities of even three year-olds in the program.
In his comfortable office Mr. Dismuke expressed his opinion that youth programs have to be large part of church work, especially in urban churches. Last summer Delmar Baptist conducted a large scale youth program and he hopes to continue his efforts in the summer of 1971. He commented that it is harder to run these programs when many of the congregation must commute some distance to the church for services and for volunteer activities.
The effort is worth it, in his opinion. “Not only in the pre-school, but in all the programs, the young people are warm, affectionate, just great.” If he had a recommendation for the neighborhood, it would be to emphasize what he does among young people and adults in the church programs . . . to learn people’s names and use them. “It is so easy to feel ananymous in a big city environment. If people call each other, ‘hey, you’ or think of ‘that kid down the block,’ the relationship will never be on the same basis as if we say ‘John Smith’ and think of `Willie Doe’ as individual persons. No one can feel lost and anonymous if people learn his name and use it.” With the number of people involved in the programs at Delmar Baptist Church it will be a minor miracle of Reverend Dismuke, and the pastor, Dr. Brooks Ramsey, can keep all the names straight.
Along with these youth and education programs, Rev. Dismuke is doing graduate work at the St. Louis University Center for Urban Affairs, is a member of the Missouri Association of Social Welfare, the Adult Education Association, the Religious Education Association. He is co-president of the St. Louis Association of Christian Education Workers and is active in a number of other church-related organizations. He lives in Ames Place with his wife and two children, Steven and Lisa.
Original photograph caption
Rev. James Dismuke
Originally published in The Paper, May 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_05.pdf, printed page 4.
