LITTLE ROCK — Pastor David Harris was serious about saving souls, but he was not a “fire and brimstone” preacher, his daughter said.
“It was always about finding the humor in everything,” Beth Harris said. “I used to compare him to Andy Griffith rather than a preacher - he had that demeanor, just soft and kind, and if you weren’t laughing with him something was wrong. Even in the worst of times right now, he’d be cracking jokes, just trying to be there for people.”
Harris, 64, senior pastor at Oak Park Baptist Church in Little Rock, died Tuesday from injuries suffered in a two-vehicle accident on Interstate 30 near Scott Hamilton Drive in Little Rock around 8:20 p.m. that day. His 10-year-old granddaughter, Maci Harris, was also killed. Other relatives were injured, and the Arkansas State Police is still investigating the accident.
“They had just picked me up from the airport, we were heading back to the house,” said Beth Harris, who lives in Cincinnati. “We were on our way to celebrate Christmas.”
In high school, David Harris knew “his calling” was to be a pastor, his daughter said. However, his first mission was getting a date with his dream girl, whom he often saw with her family while he was a bag-boy at Kroger.
“He would tip the other stocker guys to change aisles with him so he could bag their groceries and consequently carry them to the car,” said his son, Paul Harris.
David Harris and his wife, Chris, married in 1968, around the time he graduated from Central Baptist College in Conway.
In 1976, he found his spiritual home at Oak Park Baptist Church, at 8200 Flintridge Road. He was known affectionately as “Brother David,” said Laura Turner, who is married to worship pastor Jim Turner.
“He wasn’t just a preacher that people saw on Sunday,” Laura Turner said. “He had close relationships with the children of our church. You could always see him giving kids high fives. He was concerned of the spiritual welfare of each and every member.”
Focused on outreach, he was known to visit home bound people or even grocery shop for people who couldn’t afford food, Laura Turner said.
In a 2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article, he said: “I think one of the biggest needs of our church - and I’ve prayed about this, and my church knows this - is evangelism.”
Paul Harris said he remembered as a child once waking up to his father leaving the house at 3 a.m.
“He said, ‘Well son, someone’s at the hospital and I’m going to go sit with him,’” his son said. “That’s how he was.”
He was known for including “corny jokes” in his sermons and making all churchgoers feel special, including a wheelchair-bound young man who sat in the sanctuary’s cry room.
“Brother David would say, ‘How’s that joke, Chris?’ and point back to that room,” Laura Turner said.
Besides the deep love he had for his congregation and family, he was a devoted Indianapolis Colts fan.
“It was a comment in many of our Sunday sermons, whether they were winning or losing,” Laura Turner laughed. “For one of his anniversaries, [church members] bought him an autographed photo of Peyton Manning, and it’s hanging in his office to this day.”
Even before Paul Harris formally adopted his wife’s daughter, Maci, in July, his father doted on her like his own.
“She called Gran and Pappy’s the ‘house of magical goodness,’” Paul Harris said of his daughter. “They came from a bit of a troubled past, and she was not real trusting of male figures in her life. ... She took immediately to my dad. He treated her like the littlest princess in the world and loved her like you wouldn’t believe.”
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 01/04/2013