David Leo Doran was said to be one of the greatest preachers to ever walk in shoe leather. I have said it myself and have heard many others say the same thing. He was an old time fiery preacher. He would quote more scripture in one sermon than most preachers use in a year’s worth of sermons. He could tell a story like you have never heard it told anywhere else. Most important of all, when he came to the pulpit, you knew that he had been in touch with God.
David did not have very much formal education. He had to leave school in the tenth grade to work and help support his family. Yet he always had a hunger to learn and continued to study and educate himself. He would talk to well educated men that he admired and ask them what books they recommended. He would then buy the book and read it from cover to cover. He was much disciplined about this. I remember someone recommended Clyde Narrimore’s book, “The Encyclopedia of Psychological Problems.” They said it was a good book to have to help when you had to counsel with people. David bought the book and read it from cover to cover, word for word.
He was a preacher who studied. He would eat lunch on Sunday afternoon and then go to his study and prepare for the message that night. When he was finished, he started on his Bible lesson for Tuesday night. Tuesday night, when he got off work, he would eat, bathe and change clothes, and then he would head for the church to finish up for Bible Study that night. He never walked to the pulpit without spending hours in study and prayer.
He took his responsibility so seriously that I recall a time or two when he would actually tell us that he didn’t have a message, although he had spent time in study and prayer, he didn’t have a message. He refused just to go through the motions or just be redundant in what he had to say. He was honest and up front and said he had nothing.
I saw him, one night at a Fellowship Meeting, it is a service with several churches, preach. He was preaching on Jehu telling different men to come see his zeal for the Lord. David got to preaching about being zealous for the Lord. He got to preaching about being like Jehu, who they said drove his chariot ferociously. David grabbed the hand of a young man sitting in the front of the church and he began to run around the building. All the while he is pulling this young man behind him and preaching with all his might about having zeal for God.
Mind you, at this time David was probably about 47 or 48 years old. The young man had just returned from Marine boot camp. David ran him around that building until his tongue hung out, while David never missed a word or slowed down. The man could preach!
A Bible Study, that David taught, might last an hour or more. A sermon that he preached would be thirty minutes or so. That was his average. A Pastor once called him to preach for them for several nights and the night of the main event the Pastor requested David preach on a certain subject and asked him to preach for three hours. David did just that, he preached for three hours and although I was not able to be there, those that I spoke to later told me it seemed just like minutes.
When David was 59 years old, he found out that he had Parkinson’s disease. If you are not familiar with Parkinson’s disease let me briefly explain its affects. Parkinson’s disease is the result of a chemical deficiency between the brain and the nerve center that sends signals to the muscles. As a result, many of the things we do reflexively have to be thought out in order to do them. For example swallowing is something done as a reflex, we don’t think about it at all. Yet with Parkinson’s you have to think through the whole swallowing process. Many people with Parkinson’s have problems swallowing food or even saliva.
Parkinson’s affects walking, talking, and standing. I won’t go into detail, but because of the lack of the signal from the brain to the nerve center it was soon evident that David’s time as a pastor had come to an end. It was also obvious that he would no longer be able to preach the way that he once had preached.
David was a champion; he squared his shoulders and faced the problems before him. I must say that the most difficult thing for him to face as a result of this disease that so handicapped him, was not being able to preach the way he loved to preach. At the time of his being diagnosed with Parkinson’s I was David’s associate pastor. When he could no longer carry on the work as pastor, in the church where he had pastored for twenty-five years, He and the church asked me to step in and carry on his work. Being his son and his student, I knew how he wanted to stay involved so I encouraged him to seek other ways to minister. One of those ways was discipling young Christians.
When I became Pastor, the people in the church began to call David “The Elder” as a way of honoring him for his life time of service to that church. When we started working together with David teaching young Christians I called it, “Sitting at the feet of the Elder.”
David dealt with Parkinson’s and all the affects it had on his life and his body for ten years. In 1999 the doctors told him and the family that Parkinson’s had taken its toll and David didn’t have much longer to live.
I spent many nights, along with my brothers and oldest son, sitting in David’s living room, sometimes holding his hand. Mostly just sitting talking quietly and listening to him talk to us. I don’t remember a lot of the details of those conversations, I think it was more of his spirit strengthening ours than it was of words and dialog. I just remember being there with him. As the days went by, David became weaker. He became so weak that they brought a hospital bed in and set it up in his living room.
I remember on a Saturday afternoon I was sitting with him. Faye, his wife and my mother, had laid down to rest. David was a sleep and I was sitting on the couch in the living room thinking. It was very quiet and still. I watched David as he slept and seemed to labor a bit in breathing. In the still time my mind went back over the years and I began to remember the different times that I had heard my Dad preach. I began to relive those moments and those sermons which we called “Messages,” my how he could preach.
I walked through the years. I remembered the times and the places. There were one room school houses. There were school gymnasiums. There were Camp Meeting Tabernacles and Brush Arbors. There were nice Church buildings and other buildings that had been converted from a former life into a church building. There were big crowds, medium size crowds and there were small crowds. David had preached in them all and to them all.
I remembered sermon titles like, “Are You Asking for Trouble?” “You Know Too Much!” “Check Points on the Road to Heaven.” “Five Things I Would Like On My Tombstone.” “A Three and Two Count!”
It was a pretty overwhelming experience. In my heart I knew that David didn’t have many days left to live. Along with that knowledge and the memories I felt just a little overwhelmed. Then I remember a thought that came to me. Maybe it was more of a wish or even a prayer than a thought, actually. Whatever it was, I said to myself, “I wish I could hear Dad preach one more ‘Message.’ I wish I could just hear him do it one more time.”
My eyes had actually been closed and when I opened them Dad was looking at me. I asked him if he had gotten some rest and he answered back appropriately. Then we both sat there somewhat lost in our thoughts.
A few moments later, Faye came into the room to check on David. They spoke to each other in low tones and then Faye left the room. I didn’t think any more about what had been going through my mind because within just a few moments’ people started coming in to the house to visit. There was Slim and Rose Daniel. Jean Daniel and the Petranoff family showed up. Marc and Valerie Anderson came walking in and the house was soon filled with family and friends from the church. One of the last people to come in that evening was Joe Silva. Joe and his wife Sheryl were new Christians that David and Faye had been teaching and Joe looked to David as a son does to a father.
After Joe came in, David began to talk. Suddenly he was once again the Pastor. He looked at my wife, Melinda, and asked her if she would get out the old accordion. He looked at me and asked me to get out my guitar. Then he looked at us all and said that he had asked Faye to call everyone in so that we could have a time of worship and fellowship. It was about this time that I realized the people he had had Faye call in were the people that he had pastored for so many years. These were “his people or his saints.” He had loved them, led them to Christ, discipled them and pastored them for twenty-five years. They were those who were dearest to his heart and he to theirs.
He would tell us the song that he wanted us to sing and we all gathered in and sang our hearts out. He would call the name of an individual and ask them to sing a “special” song that they had sang in church, and they would sing their hearts out. What a time we had. You could feel the Spirit of God as it began to minister to each of us.
After everyone had sang and after we had pretty much exhausted the old song book. David spoke to Justin, his oldest grandson and my oldest son, and told him to go into his office and bring him some things. When Justin returned he had with him some sermon notes and a chart which he set up for his Grandpa.
David turned to Joe and said, “With all that has happened I haven’t been able to teach you this lesson that I really want you to hear. I have called you all in because I have something that you really need to hear.”
My prayer was answered. My desire came to past. There on his hospital bed “The Elder” preached one last “Message” to his people. I got to hear him preach one last time.
He preached from Hebrews 10:34-38 which reads:
Heb 10:34-38
34 For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” KJV
The words of the “Old Preacher’s” last message that stuck with me were this. Don’t cast away your confidence in God. Trust Him that He always does the right thing. I don’t know why things in my life haven’t worked out the way that I planned them, but I have confidence in God that I will receive my reward and that He knows what is best.
Yes, just as I had remembered it, the Preacher had a Message and that Message was for me. I am thankful I got to hear him preach one more time.
Just a thought! God Bless!
David did not have very much formal education. He had to leave school in the tenth grade to work and help support his family. Yet he always had a hunger to learn and continued to study and educate himself. He would talk to well educated men that he admired and ask them what books they recommended. He would then buy the book and read it from cover to cover. He was much disciplined about this. I remember someone recommended Clyde Narrimore’s book, “The Encyclopedia of Psychological Problems.” They said it was a good book to have to help when you had to counsel with people. David bought the book and read it from cover to cover, word for word.
He was a preacher who studied. He would eat lunch on Sunday afternoon and then go to his study and prepare for the message that night. When he was finished, he started on his Bible lesson for Tuesday night. Tuesday night, when he got off work, he would eat, bathe and change clothes, and then he would head for the church to finish up for Bible Study that night. He never walked to the pulpit without spending hours in study and prayer.
He took his responsibility so seriously that I recall a time or two when he would actually tell us that he didn’t have a message, although he had spent time in study and prayer, he didn’t have a message. He refused just to go through the motions or just be redundant in what he had to say. He was honest and up front and said he had nothing.
I saw him, one night at a Fellowship Meeting, it is a service with several churches, preach. He was preaching on Jehu telling different men to come see his zeal for the Lord. David got to preaching about being zealous for the Lord. He got to preaching about being like Jehu, who they said drove his chariot ferociously. David grabbed the hand of a young man sitting in the front of the church and he began to run around the building. All the while he is pulling this young man behind him and preaching with all his might about having zeal for God.
Mind you, at this time David was probably about 47 or 48 years old. The young man had just returned from Marine boot camp. David ran him around that building until his tongue hung out, while David never missed a word or slowed down. The man could preach!
A Bible Study, that David taught, might last an hour or more. A sermon that he preached would be thirty minutes or so. That was his average. A Pastor once called him to preach for them for several nights and the night of the main event the Pastor requested David preach on a certain subject and asked him to preach for three hours. David did just that, he preached for three hours and although I was not able to be there, those that I spoke to later told me it seemed just like minutes.
When David was 59 years old, he found out that he had Parkinson’s disease. If you are not familiar with Parkinson’s disease let me briefly explain its affects. Parkinson’s disease is the result of a chemical deficiency between the brain and the nerve center that sends signals to the muscles. As a result, many of the things we do reflexively have to be thought out in order to do them. For example swallowing is something done as a reflex, we don’t think about it at all. Yet with Parkinson’s you have to think through the whole swallowing process. Many people with Parkinson’s have problems swallowing food or even saliva.
Parkinson’s affects walking, talking, and standing. I won’t go into detail, but because of the lack of the signal from the brain to the nerve center it was soon evident that David’s time as a pastor had come to an end. It was also obvious that he would no longer be able to preach the way that he once had preached.
David was a champion; he squared his shoulders and faced the problems before him. I must say that the most difficult thing for him to face as a result of this disease that so handicapped him, was not being able to preach the way he loved to preach. At the time of his being diagnosed with Parkinson’s I was David’s associate pastor. When he could no longer carry on the work as pastor, in the church where he had pastored for twenty-five years, He and the church asked me to step in and carry on his work. Being his son and his student, I knew how he wanted to stay involved so I encouraged him to seek other ways to minister. One of those ways was discipling young Christians.
When I became Pastor, the people in the church began to call David “The Elder” as a way of honoring him for his life time of service to that church. When we started working together with David teaching young Christians I called it, “Sitting at the feet of the Elder.”
David dealt with Parkinson’s and all the affects it had on his life and his body for ten years. In 1999 the doctors told him and the family that Parkinson’s had taken its toll and David didn’t have much longer to live.
I spent many nights, along with my brothers and oldest son, sitting in David’s living room, sometimes holding his hand. Mostly just sitting talking quietly and listening to him talk to us. I don’t remember a lot of the details of those conversations, I think it was more of his spirit strengthening ours than it was of words and dialog. I just remember being there with him. As the days went by, David became weaker. He became so weak that they brought a hospital bed in and set it up in his living room.
I remember on a Saturday afternoon I was sitting with him. Faye, his wife and my mother, had laid down to rest. David was a sleep and I was sitting on the couch in the living room thinking. It was very quiet and still. I watched David as he slept and seemed to labor a bit in breathing. In the still time my mind went back over the years and I began to remember the different times that I had heard my Dad preach. I began to relive those moments and those sermons which we called “Messages,” my how he could preach.
I walked through the years. I remembered the times and the places. There were one room school houses. There were school gymnasiums. There were Camp Meeting Tabernacles and Brush Arbors. There were nice Church buildings and other buildings that had been converted from a former life into a church building. There were big crowds, medium size crowds and there were small crowds. David had preached in them all and to them all.
I remembered sermon titles like, “Are You Asking for Trouble?” “You Know Too Much!” “Check Points on the Road to Heaven.” “Five Things I Would Like On My Tombstone.” “A Three and Two Count!”
It was a pretty overwhelming experience. In my heart I knew that David didn’t have many days left to live. Along with that knowledge and the memories I felt just a little overwhelmed. Then I remember a thought that came to me. Maybe it was more of a wish or even a prayer than a thought, actually. Whatever it was, I said to myself, “I wish I could hear Dad preach one more ‘Message.’ I wish I could just hear him do it one more time.”
My eyes had actually been closed and when I opened them Dad was looking at me. I asked him if he had gotten some rest and he answered back appropriately. Then we both sat there somewhat lost in our thoughts.
A few moments later, Faye came into the room to check on David. They spoke to each other in low tones and then Faye left the room. I didn’t think any more about what had been going through my mind because within just a few moments’ people started coming in to the house to visit. There was Slim and Rose Daniel. Jean Daniel and the Petranoff family showed up. Marc and Valerie Anderson came walking in and the house was soon filled with family and friends from the church. One of the last people to come in that evening was Joe Silva. Joe and his wife Sheryl were new Christians that David and Faye had been teaching and Joe looked to David as a son does to a father.
After Joe came in, David began to talk. Suddenly he was once again the Pastor. He looked at my wife, Melinda, and asked her if she would get out the old accordion. He looked at me and asked me to get out my guitar. Then he looked at us all and said that he had asked Faye to call everyone in so that we could have a time of worship and fellowship. It was about this time that I realized the people he had had Faye call in were the people that he had pastored for so many years. These were “his people or his saints.” He had loved them, led them to Christ, discipled them and pastored them for twenty-five years. They were those who were dearest to his heart and he to theirs.
He would tell us the song that he wanted us to sing and we all gathered in and sang our hearts out. He would call the name of an individual and ask them to sing a “special” song that they had sang in church, and they would sing their hearts out. What a time we had. You could feel the Spirit of God as it began to minister to each of us.
After everyone had sang and after we had pretty much exhausted the old song book. David spoke to Justin, his oldest grandson and my oldest son, and told him to go into his office and bring him some things. When Justin returned he had with him some sermon notes and a chart which he set up for his Grandpa.
David turned to Joe and said, “With all that has happened I haven’t been able to teach you this lesson that I really want you to hear. I have called you all in because I have something that you really need to hear.”
My prayer was answered. My desire came to past. There on his hospital bed “The Elder” preached one last “Message” to his people. I got to hear him preach one last time.
He preached from Hebrews 10:34-38 which reads:
Heb 10:34-38
34 For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” KJV
The words of the “Old Preacher’s” last message that stuck with me were this. Don’t cast away your confidence in God. Trust Him that He always does the right thing. I don’t know why things in my life haven’t worked out the way that I planned them, but I have confidence in God that I will receive my reward and that He knows what is best.
Yes, just as I had remembered it, the Preacher had a Message and that Message was for me. I am thankful I got to hear him preach one more time.
Just a thought! God Bless!
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