By Brian Ojanpa
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO - The KEYC-TV
cameraman is going through his countdown:
``A minute 30...one
minute...40...10...''
The Rev. John Michel is ready. For him, the scenario is
second nature,
as familiar as a favorite psalm. It's the Thursday-night
taping of his Sunday program, which has aired
since JFK was a fledgling
president, since Roger Maris hit 61 homers, and since an obscure band
called the Beatles began performing in a Liverpool dive.
The
voice-over kicks in - From the studios of Channel 12, ``I Believe
in Miracles''... - and the 64-year-old Michel launches into show number 1,796.
The pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Mankato began his
televangelism at KEYC on Feb. 19, 1961. Only the polka-dance show
``Bandwagon'' has aired longer at the North Mankato station.
On
this night, Grace Baptist assistant pastor John Schofield has
brought his family to sing hymns on the show.
After the musical
interlude, Michel offers a homily. It's an anecdote recalling his college
days, when he worked as a bottled-gas deliveryman in Chicago.
There
was an accident one day. A tank ignited, but he was lucky. He escaped with
only singed eyebrows. He's leading into his message: One must respect
powerful material, and if it's handled properly, there's no need to fear
it.
``It's the same way with God,'' Michel intones. He summons a placid smile and holds it. Fade out, fade into another hymn.
- - -
Michel is
an anomaly - a clergyman who chose his church more than 40 years ago and
never saw the need to move on. He owes that to his upbringing on a farm
near Faribault.
``Dad was born a half-mile from where he died,'' Michel says.
He becomes emotional when he talks about his parents, who supported his desire to become a pastor even when he began having
doubts. In high
school, he says, it became clear to him that the ministry would be his
life's calling. But when he fainted while delivering his first sermon while
in high school, his faith in his quest was shaken. In retrospect, though, the
swoon may have been in keeping with his character. Longtime Grace Baptist
member Dave Hooge says Michel harbors a natural reserve that conflicts with
the outgoing persona a pastor must cultivate to be effective.
Michel admits the TV show and his preachings from the pulpit
are a push.
``I grew up a shy farm kid, but spreading God's good news
motivates me
to assert myself.''
Grace Baptist has about 250 members. It
also operates a K-12 school and recently added a spacious multi-purpose
wing to its facility on the north end of Mankato.
But in the
mid-1950s, the church's beginnings were far more humble. A chapel had been
started by several area men who wanted to establish a Sunday school for
north-end children. Michel, a junior at Mankato State College, became
involved in the neighborhood ministry. He served as a chapel aide for nine
months, then returned to Wheaton College in Illinois, which he had attended
his freshman and sophomore years.
Meanwhile, the chapel struggled.
Its likable pastor had been replaced by a man who was not. Hooge
describes him as straight-laced, legalistic and wholly opposed to
tobacco and strong drink.The sum of Grace's membership - five adults -
decided upon two things: This pastor had to go, and the college kid who had
made such a fine impression a couple years earlier had to be
obtained. Michel was serving a Baptist church in Austin in 1957 when he was
approached by the discouraged Mankato parishioners. We can pay you $60
a month to be our pastor, they said.
To be our pastor. That was all
Michel needed to hear. He and his wife, Marilyn, and their infant son came
to Mankato and moved into the chapel building, a 22-by-32-foot structure
decidedly short on amenities.
``We had no tub and no toilet for the
whole first year,'' Marilyn says.
``When we'd go to his folks', we'd get a
bath there, and when we'd go to mine, we'd get a bath at their
place.''
In winter, they eked out warmth from a space heater. Frosty walls
were common, and Marilyn contracted pneumonia each winter for three years.
``But at the time,'' Michel says, ``it didn't seem like a burden at all because we were so excited about what we were doing.''
Hooge says
Michel has maintained that comfort level with Spartan living.
``He can live
on almost nothing. There were times when he didn't know where the next dime
was coming from, but the Lord provided.''
In the late-1950s, Michel's
youthful enthusiasm was vital to building a congregation from the ground
up. He door-knocked for recruits, with success, and sought local financing
for a new building, with no success
at all. The congregation needed
$13,000, but Michel says banks balked at loaning money for a project in
an undeveloped part of town. Ultimately, though, the denial became moot
when Michel secured a loan
from a woman he'd known in Austin. The
church was on its way.
- - -
Michel has always had a passion for music.
``I Believe in Miracles'' broadcasts typically feature singing, with
Marilyn Michels at the piano and organ. Music, in fact, is what brought
them together. On Labor Day in 1954, Michel brought a group of kids from
his Faribault church to a youth rally at a Baptist church in Morristown. Marilyn, who lived in Minneapolis, had been visiting friends
in Mankato and was at the Morristown rally to provide musical accompaniment.
Michel came, saw and was conquered. Ditto for Marilyn, who
says that although music was their bond early on, her husband's spiritual
depth is what has given sustenance to their marriage.
``He's an awesome man,'' she says as matter-of-factly as if she were specifying the color of his slacks.
Last fall, the Michels had a second honeymoon of
sorts. They spent 81/2 weeks in Europe on the budget plan, staying with
friends and relatives, in low-cost hostels and, on one occasion, under the
Golden Arches. When they were in Stockholm, a large convention had usurped
all available lodging, and the Michels spent most of the night in a
McDonald's.
No big deal. For the admitted penny-pincher, who says he
began saving for college when he was 5 and indulged himself only once as a
child - he bought a $35 bicycle - the McDonald's stint was a mere
exercise in
make-do. He and Marilyn have traveled through Europe on a
shoestring three times.
But there's one place Michel still longs to
visit - Israel. He says spending three months in a kibbutz on the Sea of
Galilee would be a spiritual wellspring.
``It's one of the things I'd
like to do before I die.''
- - -
Michel winds down the Thursday-night
taping of his 39-year-old television program with a reading from the
Bible. He does 50 shows a year. Videotape is forgiving. If a mistake is made,
he can simply start over. But in its first six years the show aired
live - in sickness and in health.
Michel came to the studio one Sunday with a 104-degree fever and was so ill he did the entire show while sitting on a stool. But the demands of live TV aside, those were heady times to be a southern Minnesota TV preacher.
``In those days we had a captive audience because this was the only channel a lot of people could get.''
Michel has never asked for money on the air. When the show began, he drove to area Baptist churches and asked for donations to pay for
studio time. Six congregations gave $10 a month. Now, the show is
supported by
about 15 churches. The show airs Sunday mornings, which,
ironically, means that his church-attending parishioners don't see it. Then
again, there's no need to preach to the choir. He says his television
ministry is mostly comprised of elderly people without church affiliation.
The cameraman gives a hand cue to Michel that the half-hour
taping is nearly over - 10 seconds left. Michel peers into the lens and
signs off:
``Until next week, this is John Michel, and Marilyn,
saying goodbye and God bless you.''
Michel says he'll do the show as long as he can. The same goes for his pastorship. His friend Hooge suggested awhile ago that he cut back, but Michel was having none of it.
``It's in his blood,'' Hooge says.
For Michel, it's also something
more:
``To me, this is play.''