When the Rev. LaVon Post of Conway stands before his congregation every Sunday, not a single face looks like his.
They are black, and he is white, but he said all that matters is they worship the same God.
“The fact that I’m white and the church is African-American — should that make a difference in God’s kingdom? The answer is no,” Post said.
Post, 66, is the part-time pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church on Pinnacle Valley Road in Little Rock.
He spent eight years as pastor of First United Methodist Church of Malvern before moving to Conway in late June with his wife, Deborah. They wanted to be closer to one of their two daughters, who lives in Casa.
“I just wanted for a while to be a part-time pastor in one of our smaller churches,” Post said.
He said a month before they moved, the Rev. Richard Lancaster, district superintendent of the Central District of the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church, asked Post to consider being the minister at St. Paul. Post said Lancaster told him, “‘You and your wife will be the only Caucasians in the church.’”
Post, who has been a pastor for 40 years, said it is rare that a white United Methodist minister is appointed to an African-American church.
“Well, I thought about it and prayed about it, and I started thinking what the Bible teaches — did we really believe what we say we believe?’”
Lancaster said he doesn’t know the statistics statewide, but Post is the only white pastor of a historically African-American church in the Central District. The flip side is more common — a black pastor in a predominantly white church, he said.
“LaVon is open to different experiences. He does lots of different things, so he’s a multifaceted person with lots of different interests,” Lancaster said.
He said Post was retired and available, and St. Paul United Methodist Church was open to having a white pastor.
“We’d had a discussion about that — they just wanted a good pastor,” Lancaster said. “The race issue was not a front-burner thing for them at all.”
Post and his wife started attending the 147-year-old church, which he said has an attendance of about 45 people each Sunday.
“The congregation has been incredibly kind and gracious,” Post said. “They did not expect me to reinvent myself. They wanted a pastor, someone who would love them, someone who would visit them in the hospital — I can do that. The past 2 1/2 months have been precious.
“I shouldn’t have been surprised by that. It is a wonderful church; it just happens to be an African-American congregation.”
St. Paul United Methodist Church member Regina Norwood of Maumelle said she grew up in that church, moved away and reconnected with St. Paul in the 1990s.
“Basically, we’re interested in hearing the true word of God,” she said. “So far, so good. No one has run screaming from the church.”
Norwood said the congregation enjoys Post’s style.
“We find him to be a very laid-back, soft-spoken person who loves people,” she said. “His sermons are very interesting and relatable, and he and his wife both are very appreciative of the reception they’ve received. They’re embraceable people.”
Oscar Dyer, 79, of Pinnacle Valley has been a member of the church for 67 years. He said the church has had two white pastors in that time, one for a month and the other for about six months.
“I couldn’t find a pastor that would be any more dedicated than he is. He genuinely feels respect for the church and the people,” Dyer said of Post.
“I think I can tell that just by talking to a person and seeing him interact with people after the service or in meetings. He’s genuinely a God-led person; he preaches good sermons,”
Dyer said.
“He’s kind of laid-back, so he’s like some of the preachers I’ve seen before and unlike others,” Dyer said. “What he says, he seems to mean. He knows how to put a sermon together. I don’t need the whooping and hollering. I can take any of it, but I listen to the message more than I do the style of delivery.”
Dyer said Post often comments about his low-key preaching.
“I told him, ‘You need to quit saying you’re not a good preacher, because you are,’” Dyer said. “And his wife is just as sweet as pie.”
Post is relaxing in a leather recliner in his bare-bones, but beloved, man cave on the second floor of his home. He is wearing a St. Paul United Methodist Church polo-style shirt, jeans and sandals. He also describes his preaching style as “laid-back.”
“I’m not a strong, dynamic preacher,” he said.
He doesn’t shout to show his passion.
Post grew up in El Dorado. His family moved there from Louisiana to look for work just after World War II. They were trying to farm without irrigation in Louisiana, “and they were about to starve,” Post said.
His father got a job at a full-service gas station and received his paycheck once a month.
“He thought that was heaven,” Post said. Post’s mother worked at a grocery store.
Post became interested in the ministry while participating in a large youth group at an independent church in El Dorado his senior year of high school.
“I really felt a sense of satisfaction serving others,” he said.
Post went to Columbia College in South Carolina, and his parents took out a 90-day loan at the beginning of every semester to pay his tuition, then paid off the loan.
“I deeply appreciate that,” he said.
He went to seminary in Denver, Colorado, and after he graduated in 1977, he was placed in the Rowell charge, between Warren and Pine Bluff. He preached at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. at three different United
Methodist churches.
“They actually spoiled us rotten,” he said. Post said he wondered aloud to his wife whether they should become Methodists. “I’ll never forget her answer. Debbie said, ‘These are the sweetest people I ever met in my life.’”
During his career, Post has been assigned to Arkansas United Methodist churches in El Dorado on two occasions, although 25 years apart, as well as in Foreman, Camden, Nashville, DeWitt, Batesville and Malvern.
“I was nudging close to retirement, so I stayed an extra year or two [in Malvern],” he said.
“Every pastor has strengths and weaknesses — every one,” he said. “The next pastor will be strong where that one was weak. They try to offset. One of my strengths is gently directing a church’s attention to needy people around them. It’s called the gift of compassion in the Bible.
“Malvern had a tremendous need in childhood hunger. It has an incredible percentage of students who get free or reduced-price meals in school.”
The Malvern church and community raised money for the Food 4 Kids backpack program, which sent food home with needy students. He also organized Harvest of Hope, a project that sold smoked pork roasts and chicken, at churches in El Dorado, DeWitt and Malvern to raise money for Food 4 Kids.
“When I think of Malvern, I think of a town of 10,000 that has the biggest heart of people I’ve ever met,” he said.
Post said that of all the meaningful experiences he’s had as a pastor, one stands out.
He was pastor of a church in Camden, and in 1992 he went with the United Methodist Committee on Relief to south Louisiana to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew.
“We were assigned a woman in her 80s; she was a widow. She lived in a shotgun house. Part of the roof was blown off; the windows were blown out,” he said.
The woman’s daughter lived next door. Post said the daughter told him that her mother would sit on the porch of that damaged shotgun house and pray out loud: “Lord, you gave this house to my husband — will you help me?” Her daughter urged her mother to move in with her.
The mother would tell her daughter, “No, you wait and see,” Post said.
“Here we come. We tell her we’re going to rebuild her house. She immediately goes to her daughter and says, ‘I told you. I told you God was going to help me get my house rebuilt,’” Post said.
“That was like a thunderclap in my life, in ministry,” Post said. “I started talking less and looked for practical ways to show the love of God. That was probably the most pivotal event in 40 years. After that, I started looking — what is something we can do?’
“I could have stayed in Camden and preached all day long about helping others. Helping rebuild her little shotgun house changed me as a person and as a pastor.”
Another transformative event in Post’s life was when he almost died.
In 2008, he was riding his bicycle in El Dorado and had a collision with a car.
“I went up in the air,” he said. Post suffered six broken ribs, a fractured vertebra and punctured lungs. He was in the intensive-care unit of a hospital for seven weeks in a medically induced coma.
“At first, I didn’t know if I could walk again,” he said. “When I lay in that hospital, I decided I was going to ride my bike again, come blank or high water,” he said, avoiding the usual word in that phrase.
First, Post had to relearn how to walk, shave and brush his teeth. He started riding slowly on a protected trail, building up his endurance.
He set a goal while he was in the hospital, too.
“I was determined on my 60th birthday to ride my bike 60 miles. It was my way of saying to Satan, ‘You didn’t win that battle, buddy. My father did.’”
Post turned 60 on Feb. 1, 2011, but it snowed, so the ride was delayed. It wasn’t until April that he did it, but Post achieved his goal. He and his daughter, Amber, her husband and some of his friends rode the River Trail in Little Rock.
“Four times back and forth is 60 miles; I’m painfully aware of that,” Post said.
“The next day, on a Sunday, the sermon was quote, unimpressive,” he said, laughing. Who told him that? “I measure myself.”
Post said he feels a passion to preach even more since the accident.
“There’s a good chance I shouldn’t even be alive,” he said.
Not only is he alive; he has new knees. In 2015, he had both knees replaced. About three months ago, he became the chaplain at Arkansas Surgical Hospital in North Little Rock, where he had his operations.
Post said he loves to walk into a room and tell someone, “You’re going to love that new knee.’”
He tells them he had both replaced. “I’ll say, ‘I rode my bicycle 15 to 20 miles a couple of weeks ago.’ It gives them hope,” he said.
Post said he also tries to bring hope through his church ministry, and being at St. Paul is no different.
He said his goal for the St. Paul congregation is for it to grow large enough to hire a full-time pastor.
“I hope they can say, ‘We love LaVon, glad he was here, but we need a full-time pastor now.’ I’d be proud of them. I’d hug their necks,” he said.
That doesn’t mean he’s ready to retire to his man cave.
“As long as I have good health, I want to in some way be involved in ministry. I mean, it’s in my DNA. The thought of not being able to love and share with people — I can’t imagine,” he said. “I want to be involved in sharing agape love.”
And Post said that has nothing to do with color.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.