To the Editor,
Michelle Burris passed away Wednesday night, Dec. 27, 2023 at Texoma Medical Center in Denison.
She was a wonderful, sweet woman who was loved by many people.
I came back to Collinsville in November 2008 to pastor Collinsville Bible Baptist Church. The congregation had dwindled to fewer than a dozen people at each service. This continued until the summer of 2009.
One night that summer, Michelle, who had seen small signs pointing to the church, came to visit the church service. When the invitation was given, she came forward in tears, telling the pastor that her life was a mess, and that she knew she needed to get saved and get right with God.
I led her in a sinner’s prayer and the next Sunday I baptized her. She immediately began working on others to get them to come to church, including her father, Jay Burris, stepmother Shelia Burris, brother Randy Burris, and others.
A few weeks after Michelle joined the church, one Sunday morning about 10 a.m., her brother Randy, who lives in Sadler, called me on my cell phone. He said, “I have seven or eight kids who want to go to Sunday School this morning, but I can’t get them all in my car.”
I had a big Cadillac and I quickly drove to Sadler and helped Randy bring the kids for Sunday School and church.
Randy’s son, Dylan, was a very popular blond headed kid and was able to get several to come to church with him each Sunday. I called Brother Keith Taylor, pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Denison, and asked him if he knew anyone who had a used church van for sale cheap. He said, “I’ll give you one if you will come and get it.”
The late Bob Rowe and I went and got it. For the next several years, I used the van to haul in kids for church from Sadler, Whitesboro and Collinsville.
Because Michelle had shown up that night and did what she did, it was the spark that resulted in the attendance at Collinsville Bible Baptist Church to more than triple, and to result in the conversions and baptisms of many within the next few years.