A servant’s heart

• By MARK H. HUNTER
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Nov 7, 2009

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The members of St. John Baptist Church have long known about their pastor’s servant’s heart.

They’ve watched him serve as a teenager singing in the choir, as a young man teaching Sunday school and as their pastor for 13 years leading the church in service to the surrounding community.

Now the Rev. Donald Ruth is getting national recognition. He has been selected for the 2009 Servant’s Heart Award presented by Christian Tools for Affirmation Inc., in cooperation with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. CTA Inc., based in Fenton, Mo., sells church-related products.

Ruth was chosen from a nationwide pool of more than 2,000 pastors and church leaders who were nominated for the third annual award by their congregants. He will receive, along with his wife, Bernice, a fully paid, three-day seminar and inspirational getaway at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove, a plush retreat center in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, N.C.

Ruth will also be presented with a plaque during the church’s annual “Love Banquet” at 7 p.m. Dec. 5.

“God has people here that he wants us to minister to,” said Ruth, 56, explaining how he was humbled to receive the recognition. “Being a servant — that’s what my job is.”

St. John Baptist Church was established on Rafe Meyer Road more than 100 years ago, and its 500-seat facility, built in 1984 in the middle of eight acres, includes a large fellowship hall, a kitchen and library full of computers. There are about 600 members, Ruth said, and the average attendance is around 400.

Church member Edna Cosey isn’t surprised about Ruth winning the award because she nominated him. As the former director of the church’s Hurricane Katrina shelter, where 200 evacuees were cared for and fed for eight weeks, she saw Ruth’s compassion first hand.

“Our pastor is a humble-spirit kingdom builder,” Cosey wrote in her nomination letter. “He reaches out to all races, ages and socio-economic groups. He teaches by example, in giving, service, compassion and his interceding for others.”

Cosey credits her pastor with going beyond the perceived duties of preacher to serving food and even cleaning the large facility when needed. “Nothing is too menial for him,” she wrote.

Penny Iannacone, an administrator at CTA, Inc., who oversaw the contest, explained that a group of employees, who volunteered as judges, used a criteria list with a scoring range of one to 10 points, to narrow the pool to 140, then down to 30 names, then down again to the final first-, second- and third-place winners.

“Our owners, Steve and Dianne Darr, started the business with the heart to encourage God’s people, pastors and teachers and leaders in the churches,” Iannacone said.

While CTA is a for-profit company, the Darrs have attended several seminars at The Cove and made an agreement with the Billy Graham Association to cover the seminar costs, Iannacone said. CTA will pay for the other expenses and both groups promote the award in their advertising, literature and Web pages.