Mike Moody, the newly elected president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, has a special admiration for military veterans and those who are currently serving in the armed forces.
Mike and Billie MoodyPerhaps that is because Moody first sensed God’s call to the ministry while serving in the Navy. In 1972, he was serving aboard a destroyer escort, the USS Brumby (DE-1044),?home ported at the Charleston Naval Station, which allowed him to be at home most weekends when the fleet was not deployed and to attended Bethel Baptist Church in Greenville with his fianc?e.
“One Sunday when Dan Ray was preaching, one particular statement penetrated to my heart,” Moody recollects. “He said, ‘Today, there are wars raging around the world and wars raging inside some of you.’ I felt as if he were looking directly at me and was quite certain his finger was pointed in my direction.? I remember gripping the pew so tightly that my knuckles turned white. ?
“My future wife leaned over and whispered, ‘Are you all right?” Moody continues. “I said, ‘I don’t think so.’? That was the day I sensed God was doing something unusual in my life. There was a war raging inside of me – it was a contest to see who would control my life.”
Moody had trusted Jesus as his Savior some years earlier, but God now wanted to direct the course of his life. That afternoon, he realized the joy and peace that comes with surrendering to the will of the Heavenly Father. And God continued to confirm that calling.?
Shortly after this experience, Moody was deployed to the North Atlantic, where his ship had an explosion in the engine room that left it without power. After 30 days in Scotland, it was determined that repairs were impossible, and the ship was towed back to Charleston.
Part of the crew returned early to Charleston, and Moody was assigned temporary duty with a chaplain. This gave him an opportunity to work in a local orphanage, making facility repairs and mentoring children.
After the ship was repaired, the crew was deployed to the Middle East, and he assumed the duty as Protestant lay leader aboard the ship. “Chaplains would only be deployed with the squadron,” Moody explains. “Since we were the only ship underway, I had the privilege of conducting religious services aboard ship.”
Moody served aboard the Brumby for much of his enlistment. As a Yeoman, Petty Officer Third Class, he worked in the ship’s office, directly for the captain and executive officer. He was responsible for all correspondence and maintaining ship files, manuals and documents.?Aboard the Brumby, he visited a number of countries, including Scotland, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Sierra Leone, Monrovia, Liberia, Angola, South Africa, Mozambique, Iran, Kenya, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Brazil.?
“My father served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and my uncle was a career soldier.?Serving in the military seemed to be the natural thing to do,” says Moody, who grew up in Greenville and enlisted after graduating from Wade Hampton High School in 1970.?
After a four-year stint in the Navy, he married his high school sweetheart Billie, also from Greenville. “She was very active in her church and from the time she was a young teenager felt that one day she would marry a pastor,” recalls Moody.
Having felt a call to ministry while in the military, Moody enrolled at North Greenville College. After receiving an associate’s degree, he entered Carson-Newman College in Tennessee, where he served as associate pastor of Alpha Baptist Church. While at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, he served three years as chaplain at a Fort Worth nursing home.
Billie, a graduate of Winthrop University, teaches fourth grade at Cedar Grove in Williamston. “There are many ways that she has enhanced the ministry that God has given us over the years, but I would say the greatest way is that she has a strong sense of God’s call upon her life,”? Moody says. “She has a great love for children and knows that God has called her to be a public school teacher.”? Billie has used her gift of teaching in every church he has pastored.
The Moodys have two sons: Josh, a graduate of Anderson and Clemson universities, is an employee of The Commercial Bank in Honea Path, where he lives with his wife Katie; Adam is a Corporal in the Marine Corps, now serving in Iraq. ?
Moody enjoys reading military history and biographies from the Civil War and World War II.? “I enjoy reading about two men in particular, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” he says. “Both were godly men with great faith.” ?
Honea Path First Baptist, where he has served for seven years, has enjoyed steady growth, and he believes launching the “Watchman on the Wall” prayer ministry has made the most difference in the congregation. “With the commitment of 108 prayer warriors, we have seen God move in some remarkable ways” – along the Way.