Not many people can claim ‘Hog Creek’ as their first home, but Rev. Wilbur Greene can do just that.
“Hog Creek is what they call it,” the 65-year old minister shared last week. “That’s where my mother came from up around Bradley.”
The area is close to the church he pastors, New Damascus.
Greene was one of nine children and graduated from Jones County High.
Following graduation, he attended Crandall College for two years. After working for what was known then as Macon Junior College for just over a year, he was recruited by Bibb County for his computer system skills. He stayed there four years before moving to a company that contracted with Houston County. He was in computer management and stayed with that firm until he retired in September of 2017.
Greene is married to the former Jennifer Richardson, whom he met in grammar school, though they never took classes together. They also both attended New Damascus Church early in life.
“I’ve been singing since I was two,” he said. “I was music director for the church. “Mama Ruby” (Mrs. Ruby Towles) started picking Jennifer up and bringing her to church.
“We were both young, and we had gifts,” he commented. “We were never in the children’s choir. We were in the adult choir all the time. And, over the years, we became good friends.”
Harold J. Parks was the music instructor for Jones County High and involved in the pair’s singing opportunities.
“We became like his little children because we had talents.He would take us places, and we would sing at weddings to each other.
“I’ll tell people she wasn’t my choice,” Greene laughed, “and she’ll tell people ‘he wasn’t my choice.’ We were just like brothers and sisters; we were that close. But I thank God for opening my eyes.”
The couple married Nov. 5, 1983. He was 23 and in school, while she was working at Lynn Haven Nursing Home. Greene recalls times Jennifer would help him on the sly.
“We would go out; we were big boys, big girls,” he said. “We would go out on a date, and we’d be sitting at the table. The other couple would be sitting together, and the other guy would pull out his money to pay. Then she would kind of nudge me and slide some money under the table. Or sometimes she would give me money before we left the car. They wouldn’t know it was her paying, and not me.”
Jennifer Greene is not employed per se now but likes to and has a knack for helping others.
“She has an attraction to helping both old and young people,” Greene commented. “It’s a passion of hers, and I don’t stand in the way of that. You want to get under her skin, you say something about an old person.”
The long-time minister felt like he knew early on what life held for him.
“I tell people, even as a little boy, I always knew,” Greene recalled. “People would say, ‘You want to be a preacher. I see it on you.’ My brother always said, ‘if you would just tell daddy the truth.’
“Some things in life, peer pressure causes you during your teenage years to try to prove to people ‘I can be bad,’” Greene acknowledged. “Some people won’t hang around you because you’re too good or whatever.
“I guess I’ve kind of known by how I acted, but I didn’t understand it,” he continued. “Didn’t understand why someone else should have something rather than me. If there was a conflict, even at home, if they wanted it and I wanted it, I would just simply let them have it. It’s like it’s in the spirit.”
“I started migrating, and one night I was doing something with some of my peers. It just hit me,” Greene confessed. “I realized that God had spoken and said, ‘This is not what I called you to do.’ I was just sitting among some friends.
“I didn’t stop right then hanging out, trying to show them ‘I’m a bad boy too, ’ or whatever, but gradually it pulled me back in and drained me, and I said, ‘God, I give up.’
The new convert somewhat fought the commitment at first.
“I guess I have always known, but I accepted it when I was 22. For a year I pulled away, a year and a half, but at the age of 24, I made God a promise. I said, ‘Ok, I’ll do this.’ He sent me my wife. He did his part. Now I had to do my part.”
Greene’s ministry began officially when he was licensed to preach in 1984. He was ordained in 1987, pastoring that same year at Mt. Zion in Cochran. He later ministered at two other churches before he returned to his home county, accepting the pulpit at New Damascus in 2005.
“I was baptized at New Damascus, but not in the church pool,” Greene revealed. “I was baptized in what we called Ms. Pat Hungerford’s pond.”
Rev. Dr. A.W. Russell licensed and ordained Greene.
“Dr. Russell was a school teacher at both the Southern Baptist and the General Mission Baptist convention,” Green pointed out. “He had 20-something years of teaching ministers as well, and I was able to be under him for three and a half to four years.”
The minister related a story he had been told, one that strengthened his faith in the power of God. He said he was one year old when his mother was diagnosed with a serious heart valve problem.
“In the ’60s, you had heart surgery, you maybe had a 10 percent chance. Now, it’s no big deal. But,” Greene said, “they told her, ‘You won’t raise this baby.’
“They gave her five days; she lived a whole month. They gave her six months; she lived six months. They gave her a year, she lived a year. They said, ‘You will live four more years, five years total.’ My mother said, ‘God brought me this far. I’m going to trust God.’
“When my mom talked about me or introduced me,” Greene recalled, “she would always call me her miracle baby. She lived 38 years later.”
His mother was in the hospital in Augusta years later, and one of the doctors who performed the surgery flew in on a private plane to see her, Greene said.
“Their only task was, one of the doctors who cut her open, they only wanted to see the patch that they put on her heart. It was my understanding that the doctor who told her that ‘you won’t live and raise this child’ was still living, an old man, and he saw that patch was still intact.
“That’s the story, and when I preach that point, I say, ‘I guess God needed a witness that it would be Him that would keep her and not them. He kept that patch on her heart.’
His mother died at the age of 69.
Greene said the New Damascus look has changed since he started.
“Before COVID, when I first came back, there was a wave of people. There was about 10-12 years left on the sanctuary mortgage, and we were able to pay it off in three and a half years.”
The disease, though, brought new challenges.
“It came out, we can’t have church, stuff like that. I told them I was going to the church anyway. If I have to go to jail, I will go to jail. But,” Greene added, “my priority in having church was being safe. If I have to stand outside on the porch or whatever, I will preach, and they stay in their cars.”
Greene noted that he was a tech person.
“We can get an FM broadcast, which we do. We can broadcast. I can preach, and you stay in your car.”
In fact, he commented, he has done that to a ‘packed house.’
“I have preached from one of the little stoops we have, and I looked out, and the intersection between the two buildings was packed. On the outer perimeter of that were cars going around the church listening. On the highway there were cars parked, up and down the road.”
The minister said the results were evident.
“The increase in the finances went up. They came early to bring the tithes to the altar, to put in the baskets. We were Facebook live. We had people who were so supportive of what we were doing.”
Greene said New Damascus has never since COVID officially said it was back in church. He explained that the system allowed him to speak to churchgoers on the outside.
“Even the deacons didn’t come in. They stayed outside to make sure things were going ok. The musicians were on the inside, and we had PA speakers.”
On one occasion, Ms. Mattie Middlebrooks arrived and went inside. When the minister tried to stop her, she had a ready reply.
“I go to Walmart with my mask on. Why can’t I be civilized and come to church with my mask on?”
Greene said people started going inside after that, “but we have never officially said we’re back in from COVID.”
Greene has been ministering 41 years now. How much longer will he occupy the pulpit?
“Early in life I wanted to be old, to have a lengthy time to afford to other ministers the knowledge God gave me with the advantage I had with my mom and father then Dr. Russell, who never ceased to teach me. I want to be that kind of blessing as he was to young ministers.
“It’s a mission-able burden that sometimes you may want to run the other way, but your calling and love for God and his people pressure you to another step.”
