Mysterious dream helped ‘Preacher Barnes’ reach decision in 1978

Old Pleasant Hill church before moved to present location.

I hated to see in The Journal a couple of week ago that Clayton Barnes had passed away. I’d known “Preacher Barnes” for as long as I can remember even though I had not seen him in many years. For most of my life, he served as the preacher at the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, an old country church that sits in the fork of the Shiloh and Bear Creek roads, southwest of Frisco City.

I could tell lots of stories about Preacher Barnes, but one in particular comes foremost to mind. About 20 years ago, several years after his retirement as a full-time minister, he returned to Pleasant Hill to preach homecoming. Like most homecomings at the old-timey church, the crowd was so big that folding chairs had to be brought into the sanctuary from the fellowship hall to accommodate everyone in attendance.

After a few formalities at the beginning of the service, Preacher Barnes stepped behind the pulpit and looked out over the large, silent crowd. For a few seconds, he didn’t say anything, and he began to grow visibly emotional as he no doubt thought about the many years he’d spent behind that pulpit. He regained his composure and apologized, saying that his mind was full of thoughts of the many church members who had gone on to the other side.

He pointed to the “piano side” of the sanctuary and noted where early deacons like Orbie Lee Lambert, Sidney Stacey and others once sat with their families. He said he remembered the many Sunday afternoons that he’d eaten at their family tables after church, rather than driving all the way back to town, where he ran a small grocery store in downtown Frisco City. He said that the Lamberts, Staceys, Baileys and Blantons had been like family to him.

During his early years as the church’s pastor, Preacher Barnes was asked to take a job at another church. This new church had a larger membership, and it paid better. On a Saturday in August 1978, Preacher Barnes sat at his kitchen table and wrote out the letter of resignation he planned to hand the deacons at Pleasant Hill the next morning. Before going to bed, he slipped the letter into the pocket of the jacket he planned to wear to church.

That night, Preacher Barnes had a dream. In this dream, he pulled up in front of Sidney Stacey’s old wood frame house on the Shiloh Road, parking in front of the rusty iron gate, under the shade of an enormous, roadside cedar tree. About the time he opened the gate, 82-year-old Sidney Stacey, wearing overalls and brogans, met him on the walkway to the front porch. An old fox hound snuffled around their feet as the two friends shook hands.

“I know why you’re here,” Sidney told Preacher Barnes. “And I know what you’ve got in your jacket pocket.”

Preacher Barnes said he was sick over the decision and had come to ask what to do. Sidney told him that he understood, but asked Preacher Barnes to consider giving Pleasant Hill a little more time. He didn’t think he would regret it.

The dream ended when Preacher Barnes was woken by the sound of a phone ringing at his house on Snider Avenue in Frisco City. He sat up in bed, the dream still fresh in his mind, and then went to answer the ringing phone. The man on the other end of the line informed Barnes that Sidney Stacey had passed away in the night and that plans for his funeral were now underway.

Believing that God had spoken to him through his dream, Preacher Barnes tore up the letter of resignation and went on to preach at Pleasant Hill for almost half a century. Years later, on that homecoming day, he leaned out over the pulpit and looked into the faces of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those church members who’d gone on to their reward.

“You know, I have never regretted my decision for a single second,” he said with a warm smile before launching into the morning’s sermon.