Sermons of Victor Gibbs
Here you will find the many sermons that our Dad, Victor Gibbs, prepared and preached over his lifetime of pastoral ministry.
Dad began pastoral ministry in 1949 after graduating from Pasadena College, a Nazarene college in California, later moved to Point Loma in San Diego, CA. His first pastorate was at the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Riverside, CA. His last pastorate was in Morgantown, KY where he spent the major portion of his ministry. His last year as pastor of this church was in 1983. After that he preached at quite a few churches in the area including a few at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Morgantown. In 1991 he again became pastor of the little church in Livermore Kentucky and did so until 1995. So he pastored it longer after his retirement than when he first came to Kentucky in 1951. He also attended the Morgantown Church of the Nazarene on Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings and often preached there as well. He also delivered quite a few messages on the local radio station in Morgantown - WLBQ.
Dad's method of preparing a sermon was to fold an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper in half like a bulletin and then write on the halves of the folded paper so that it would fit inside his Bible. He did the same for typed sermons. This method of preparation was constrictive since it made it difficult to get much on a single page. For this reason, Dad generally left little, if any, margin especially on the right side of a page. This was true even when using his typewriter.
Dad often put a date on his notes so that he would know when he preached that sermon. On some occasions you will see that my mother, Juanita (Bolender) Gibbs added the date on his sermon notes. One of the reasons for this is that he would often preach a sermon more than once and this practice allowed him to see when it was preached last. Sometimes you will see that he preached a sermon that he liked four or five times.
There are three indexes to the sermons:
* Chronological: These are listed in chronological order as much as possible. Some sermons only had a year date on them. Others had a month with the year, while a few included the month, day, and year. Sermons without dates are not listed in this index. Obviously, the sermons he preached more than once will be listed more than once. I have ordered them thus:
o Year only date in alphabetical order of the sermon title.
o Month and year of the sermon in alphabetical order of the sermon title.
o Month, day, and year of the sermon.
* Alphabetical order of the sermons by sermon title.
* Scriptural order of the key verse for his sermons.
I chose to present Dad's sermons as he wrote them or typed them. There is something more personal about seeing his handwriting versus a transcription of it. Furthermore, transcription would have taken an inordinate amount of time to accomplish. Scanning these was also a formidable task, but I considered it worth the effort to preserve these documents for posterity.
I've tried to make the documents as readable as possible, but some of them will be a bit challenging due to the media he used, whether a pen, a pencil or a typewriter.
Please enjoy rummaging through this and remembering some of the things he said in the pulpit. I know you will probably not read everything, but the tables of contents should allow you to browse the contents and pick out something that might be helpful in your spiritual life.
Dad was a man who loved Jesus with all his heart and you will see that in what he preached over the years. Many evangelists and preachers during his time were quite loud and forceful. This was not Dad's style, and he refused to put on a show to fit in. He simply used the style that matched his temperament and the gifts God gave him.