The preacher sat in the blue booth, lips pouted, arms crossed. His shirt was covered in Rocky Road ice cream, his shorts in cheese pizza sauce.
It was a quarter past 5 on a Saturday in Fort Lauderdale. Nearly three hours had passed since Terry Durham arrived at a suburban skating rink, and the 8-year-old didn't want to leave. "I want to skate with my friend," Terry said. "You can't stay out late," said his grandmother, Sharon Monroe. Terry slouched in his seat. Tears welled in his brown eyes.
For any minister spreading the word of God, fun has its limits. But when the minister has an 8 p.m. bedtime, even the most innocent of pleasures are cut short.
Under the direction of his grandmother, Terry has been preaching in front of congregations since he was 4. But his calling, Sharon Monroe believes, came years before that.
"From the womb," says Monroe, a pastor herself.
"That gift," says May Clark, another minister who has often heard Terry preach. "It just touches your heart to be so young and he's already a little man of God. He knows his calling."
Congregations from Lakeland and Orlando to Tallahassee and Philadelphia have invited him to preach. Recently, NBC's Today show featured him, as did his hometown newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
But the attention, Terry says, has its downside. "Every time a reporter comes, I have to get a haircut."
* * * * *
Terry says he can't remember the topic of his first sermon, just the moment that he was called to the ministry. One night, he was asleep on the top bunk in his room, dreaming. He said he heard God's voice.
"He said if I am ashamed of him, he would be ashamed of me."
Around the same time, Monroe - an associate pastor at another Fort Lauderdale church - founded her own congregation.
Family photo albums show Terry in the pulpit of his grandmother's church, the nondenominational True Gospel Deliverance Ministry. He was so short, he had to stand on top of a table while his grandmother held him steady.
She ordained Terry, in a ceremony at her church, when he was 6.
Terry has a twin brother named Todd. The boys and their father, Todd Sr., live with Monroe, who has immersed the entire family in her faith. When Terry's preaching, his brother accompanies on drums.
"Him and his little brother stay on fire for God, stay on fire for the Lord," Monroe said. "I like that."
* * * * *
On that Sunday morning, Terry slid one leg, then another into a pair of oversized slacks.
"What topic are you going to preach from?" Monroe asked, buttoning up his pastel blue dress shirt.
Terry already had an idea. Now he just needed a specific text. He opened his Learn-to-Read Bible. It was more childlike than holy. Colorful illustrations showed a man in a white robe ascending into heaven, a ray of light beaming around him.
Monroe bookmarked the pages so he wouldn't have to rustle through them at church. The precise words would come to him when he needed them, she said.
"You got to let the holy ghost have his way," she told him.
* * * * *
At the Ambassador Reverend Chief Divine Ministry Outreach - a small nondenominational church with a few dozen members - Terry rose from his chair.
"Give God a handclap of praise," he said. The applause was audible, but not thunderous.
"Oh you can do better than that," Terry shouted. "I didn't say give me a handclap of praise. I said give God a handclap of praise."
He began as he always does, reciting the Lord's Prayer, singing I Know I've Been Changed and reading a scripture from his children's Bible. That Sunday's word was adapted from Matthew 28:19-20.
Terry read like the 8-year-old he was, using his finger as a guide. He read every word verbatim, even the instructions the book gives parents. There was an unsteady pause as he made out the words on the page.
"Jesus . . . said . . . Tell . . . people . . . about . . . me . . . My . . . Holy . . . Spirit . . . will . . . help . . . you . . . And . . . then . . . Jesus . . . left."
Terry's sermon - the climax of the service - came next. Microphone in hand, he stepped off the pulpit into the aisle and began to speak in a rhythmic voice, as if he was singing. He had no notes, no outline to guide him. He breathed between every phrase like he was gasping for air. His voice reached a crescendo. He was stomping his feet and dancing.
The congregation clapped and shouted amen. When the service was over, the members waited in line to feel his touch. "God bless you in the name of Jesus," he said as he laid hands on the foreheads of grandmothers, grown men and peers.
Finished, Terry sipped his milk, leaving a creamy mustache across the top of his upper lip.
