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Rev. John Dicks will be honored

Rev. John Dicks will be honored with a basket dinner
following worship Sunday at the Philipi Baptist Church. The 88
year old minister has served many churches in the Beulah
Baptist Association.
It would be safe to say that Bro. Dicks has baptized at least
1,200 people during his ministerial career.
Bro. John Dicks began pastoring churches back in the circuit k .. .. *■-«' ■-
riding days when preachers usually traveled by buggy and
sometime horseback, and has pastored as many as six
churches at one time, preaching one Sunday each month, and
in the morning at one, in the afternoon at another.
On May 1st, 1967 Rev. Gus Johnson, Executive Secretary of
the Florida Baptist Foundation, started a trust fund in honor of
the long and extensive ministry of Rev. John Dicks. At that
time Bro. Johnson wrote to many churches and individuals
where Bro. Dicks had formerly served, as follows - “No man
has done more than John Dicks has in his ministry...for rural
churches, none has given more of himself, few men in rural
pastorates have won more people to Christ, none has more true
friends.”
This fund was established especially for the purpose of
assisting young ministerial students who are atending or will
be attending the Baptist Bible Institute at Graceville, Florida.
Through these scholarships, Bro. John will very likely be
ministering many years after his active ministry is physically
over.
Brother Dicks gave the first offering on the first building
erected on the Middle Florida Assembly Grounds. He also
gave the first donation on the Dave Alderman Chapel built on
the assembly grounds.
Dr. John Maguire, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the
Florida Baptist Convention from 1945-1967, has this to say:
“I have known no man who so completely fills the role or the
office as Pastor-Minister-Shepherd as John Dicks. As Pastor
he is always concerned about all of the flock; as minister no
child ever escapes his love and attention; as Shepherd he feeds
all the flock who have any appetite for spiritual food.
“John Dicks in my estimation is a giant among'men, a friend
to every man of God and fellow minister. No one ever seeks his
counsel that he does not have time to give it. He is a man of the
soil as well as a man of the people. He will be listed among the
great by those who really know him. He is truly a man after
God’s heart.”
The following was copied from a Hopeful Baptist Church
Bulletin of January 30,1955:
“John Dicks was ordained to thegospel ministry at the Rev. John Dicks
Hopeful Baptist Church, January 31,1915, at the request of the
Philippi Baptist Church. It is with pride and great joy that we
of Hopeful Baptist Church can look back and also say that it is
recorded in our books that .he was converted at this, our
church!”

Article appearing in the Lake City Reporter in 1976 honoring Rev.
John Dicks (at age 88) for his service in many churches in the Beulah

Baptist Association. “It would be safe to say that Bro. Dicks has
baptized at least 1,200people during his ministerial career, ”
according to the article.

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