The call

The boy with an old soul grows into a man to preach the word of God at his own church

BY JENNIFER BERRY HAWES

 

He was still in the womb when his mother heard the call. The Lord was summoning her unborn son to the ministry.

The call grew stronger and stronger until her baby boy turned 3 months old and she was praying in her church, when the urge grabbed her and she lifted him up high above her head.

In prayer, Charlotte Jewell gave her baby boy back to God.

Jewell is a minister herself, a Pentecostal one, so she believes strongly in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. She has heard a call from the Lord for a couple of her other four children to go into ministry. But nothing quite like the urgency of the call for her son, Aaron.

That boy is a man now. On July 1, he launched his own church with the blessings of a few hundred of the people he's preached for, ministered to and befriended over the years. The Trumpet of Truth Ministries International has opened in Mount Pleasant.

Aaron Mobley is 25 now, and he's been preaching since he barely could read, so the moment has been a long time coming.

From an early age

His mother says he is an old man in a young man's body. But for a long time, he was an old man stuck, even worse, in a little kid's body.

It made for, as she puts it, "a peculiar child."

She points to the time at church when the women were praying, their heads covered with doilies as a show of humility to God. Aaron was just crawling back then, so he tugged a Pamper out of his diaper bag, put it on his head and crawled to the altar with them.

And there was the time when he was in third grade and his teacher asked Jewell to come in for a conference. It turned out Aaron spent each recess sitting on the bench beside her singing spiritual hymns instead of playing.

And there were all the times he came home, as far back as middle school, and would go to his room to pray. And the times when his mom signed him up for Boy Scouts and sports, but he preferred to stay home to read. And the times when his brothers and sister raced outside to play, but Aaron stayed back and role-played imaginary church. He always was the pastor.

Aaron remembers back, too.

He remembers giving his first sermon when he was 6. He didn't know what he was going to say, but his mom talked him into going up there. He barely could read, so he nervously walked up front, rattled off some things he'd heard before and quickly sat down.

He remembers his mom pushing him to preach at a very young age and how he loved it, but he often felt that people came to see him just because they thought he looked cute up there.

He'd look out and see people grinning, not people absorbing God's word.

So he resisted the call. He wanted to go out and play, "to be normal." But he loved to read the Bible and to hear good preaching.

"The reality of the call in my life, well, I didn't have reality back then," he recalls. "I did it because my mom wanted me to do it."

He knew he was running away from something.

Then one day in 1989, he was riding in the car with his siblings and his mom at the wheel. It was raining hard and he was nervous in the backseat. His mom rear-ended someone. It was a minor wreck, but he remembers waiting in the car for the police. He feared for his mom. She was worried because she had borrowed the car from a family member. She was a single mom at the time, and he felt protective of her.

So he prayed to God. "If you let everything work out with this accident, I'll accept the call."

The police officer gave her a warning.

"I said, 'OK, I'm not going to be regular, I'm not going to be like everyone else,' " he recalls.

He began to preach at New Hope in Hanahan and then moved to Faith Tabernacle Church of Zion on Dorchester Road when he was 13.

Today, that boy is a man, a husband and a father. And he's champing to shake that image people have of the cute little boy preaching.

Today, "They aren't coming to see me because I'm cute!" he smiles, "I'm soooo happy about that."

Today, Aaron Mobley wants to spread the word of God like a man called to duty.

Growing a church

For the past year or so, Mobley taught Bible lessons at a Mount Pleasant library branch. He drew about 20 to 30 people from a variety of churches who wanted to take a more in-depth look at biblical studies. He designed it as a teaching satellite under the guidance of his mother and her church, Guiding Light Prophetic Ministries.

Then a Mount Pleasant church, Deliverance Tabernacle, opened its doors at 2762 Hamlin Beach Road so that Mobley could hold his worship services there temporarily.

Mobley ended the Bible study and now holds Trumpet of Truth services at 2:45 p.m. Sundays at the church.

Mobley sees a lack of nondenominational churches in the East Cooper area that emphasize diversity among people worshipping together, so he is hoping to fill that need.

"The Bible is a multicultural Gospel. You find Greeks and Hebrews. We're all God's children, so it's important that church be representative of who God is," Mobley explains.

He admires how churches such as Seacoast have offered more free-form, less liturgical styles of worship that can attract younger worshippers who don't want a service that looks like their parents' churches.

"A lot of times, we don't look at young people as if they could be used by God," Mobley says. "But God is raising up a generation that will be used by him."

Mobley also wants a highly charismatic church that pulls people in, that excites people through worship and instruments such as praise dancing. He sees the Bible as the infallible word of God and brings the charismatic energy that he grew up with.

"I want a place that God can be proud of."

Today, Mobley is the father of two children, a 5-year-old daughter, Yasmine Symone, and a 2-year-old son, Christian-Xander. His wife, Terrie, is the first lady of the church and a very active part of his ministry.

"A strong family unit in pastorship breeds strong family units in church," Mobley says.

Another way Mobley is reaching out is over the airwaves. He's on gospel radio station WJNI-FM, 106.3, Monday through Friday each week. He also operates a helpful Web site at www.theTrumpetofTruth.org.

It all makes his mother beam. For her, it's akin to giving birth and then seeing the doctor cut the cord, sending forth a new life.

She knows the sacrifice that a life in ministry requires. But she sees God working through her son, through the old man in a young man's body, and for them both, that is most important.

Reach Jennifer Berry Hawes at bhawes@postandcourier.com.