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From A Local Pastor
Louis Caddell Shares Words, Art In New Book
A retired local minister is offering some of his 80 years of wit and wisdom in hopes that it will “bring people closer together through communication and love.”
Louis Caddell, a retired Methodist minister who preached at both Randolph Street United Methodist Church in Lexington and St. John’s United Methodist Church in Buena Vista, hopes that people who read his book, “The Wit & Wisdom of a Whimsical Pastor,” will learn “how to laugh a little, how to realize that we’re different, [and] how to realize that the closer we get to one another, the more we realize that our communication is different in some ways.
“Even though we have the spirit of Christ, we shouldn’t take others for granted,” he said. “If anything, this book should make us think more effectively about how we communicate with one another.”
Caddell began working in the ministry in 1967 as a local pastor in the Methodist Church (in the United Methodist Church, local pastors are pastors who are assigned to a church and perform the regular duties, but are not ordained in the United Methodist Church), with his first church located just outside of Philadelphia, Miss.
He did his undergraduate work at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., and then attended the Emory University School of Theology in Atlanta. As part of his studies there, he worked with an inner-city ministry in a Black community.
“That was a real eye-opener for me, to be just an old Southern boy who was full of prejudice, to [become] someone who realized that all people are created in the image of God,” he said.
He returned to Mississippi for another church, then began working on a master’s degree in education due to a budding desire to work in Christian education and incorporate art into his ministry. He took graduate programs in St. Louis on art therapy and acquired a doctorate degree.
Caddell has been an artist most of his life, a passion that was inspired and encouraged by one of his cousins who Caddell describes as a “phenomenal artist” who worked primarily with customizing cars. Art, he says, is another form of communication.
THIS PAINTING of Randolph Street United Methodist Church also serves as one of the illustrations within the book. Caddell served as pastor of the church from 2013 to 2016.
IN ADDITION to featuring local churches, many of the illustrations in the book also include a man talking to Jesus, who offers his own wit and wisdom to his companion.
OTHER EXAMPLES of Caddell’s paintings that appears in the book is one of two people chatting outside of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Buena Vista (above), where Caddell served as pastor from 2016 to 2022, and one of a ladder extending to the spire of Randolph St. United Methodist Church (below).
“When people look at a picture, it communicates something,” he said. “So how can you take a picture and make it communicate in a beautiful way, in challenging ways, in ways that you maybe haven’t thought about before? ... When you look at it, do you say, ‘Oh that’s a pretty picture,’ and walk beyond it, or does it pull you in, and does it make you think about you’re really looking at, how it was done, who really did it?”
Caddell incorporates some of his own art into his book through a variety of illustrations depicting Jesus and walking through downtown Lexington and talking with a person on the street, usually with an amusing caption or two. The cover of the book also features artwork by Caddell, with a collage of paintings of several Lexington churches that he had painted some time ago.
Caddell initially retired from the ministry in 1998 and went to work for a consulting company, which brought him to Lexington. The company, he noted was founded by a man who started his professional life by selling bibles and “grounded himself in principles of ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’
“I felt like I was in a kind of different ministry,” he said. “I didn’t see myself as being anything different, other than being behind a pulpit. I was kind of a people person [and] caring for others.”
After 13 years with the company, Caddell retired, citing changing values within the company as his reason. Soon after, the local United Methodist Church district superintendent, an ordained elder appointed by a bishop to oversee the pastors and local churches in a district, learned that Caddell was an ordained minister and arranged for him to begin preaching at Randolph Street United Methodist Church in 2013. Caddell said that his three years at Randolph Street was “the most profound” time of his life.
“The biggest gift they gave me was the gift to be myself,” he said. “I’m a white guy [in a Black church], but there’s a love of Christ, and it doesn’t matter what color you are. It’s how it affects you and how you move to help others help themselves.”
During his time at Randolph Street, Caddell helped oversee renovations to the church, including the installation of elevators, a revamping of the sanctuary and the installation of a new kitchen.
“I could not believe the condition of the church when I got there,” he said. “I thought, ‘Here’s a ministry. Let’s see if we can make a physical plan that can benefit the members of the church.’” Caddell then spent six years at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Buena Vista. Both churches, he noted, had “a lot of loving people.” He is currently preaching at Marvin United Methodist Church in Cornwall, north of Buena Vista “The Wit & Wisdom of a Whimsical Pastor” is available online through all major book retailers, as well as at The Bookery in Lexington.
CADDELL FIRST began working as a Methodist pastor in 1967, stands outside of Marvin United Methodist Church in Cornwall, north of Buena Vista, where he is currently serving as the pastor.
