Summerlin nears 1,000 times reading the Bible cover-to-cover

Feb. 15—MOULTRIE, Ga. — The Bible contains 66 books, 929 chapters and 31,102 verses — 783,137 words, if you're using the King James version.

Now multiply all that times 1,000 to know how much the Rev. Shelvie Summerlin will have read when he hits his goal later this year.

Summerlin, a minister who helped build Moultrie's Lakeside Assembly of God and pastored there twice, said he's read the Bible nearly every morning since starting a church project in 1962. He reads two to three hours a day now.

"I set out to lead my congregation through the Bible at least one time per year," he said. While the congregation eventually went on to other studies or other interests, Summerlin maintained the routine.

When he sat down with The Observer Feb. 2 he had finished the Bible cover-to-cover 941 times.

"I'm shooting for a thousand," he said, and he estimated he'd hit it in May.

As he was beginning his project he heard that evangelist George Muller had read the Bible 200 times.

"I started out with that goal and I hit it pretty quick and just kept going," he recalled.

He documented his readings in ledgers to support his count.

Summerlin said the reading doesn't get old. "It's like a new book every time you start," he said.

His favorite passage: Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

"That was the first chapter that I ever memorized," he said.

Summerlin, now 94 years old, hasn't served as a pastor in years but still routinely speaks in churches. Much of his Bible reading is spent looking for subjects for his sermons.

"You overlook those things unless you're looking for them," he said. "I call it looking for a nugget every day, and I've been able to find one."

From the military to the ministry

A native of Colquitt County, Summerlin said he joined the 7th Air Force right at the end of World War II. His eight years of military service included a tour in the South Pacific, during which he was part of the support unit for a nuclear weapon test.

He also had a role in a military recruitment film. He said the Air Force was looking for the "most photogenic airman" for the role and held a contest where airmen voted. At the time he was a mail clerk at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

"The mail clerk is better known than the general," Summerlin said. "It was through my notoriety that I won that."

Summerlin said he never saw the film himself, but he said a friend at another base did and recognized him in it.

While home on leave, Summerlin became engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Myrtle, and they married in June 1949.

Summerlin said his older brother Ralph "got religion" in the mid-1940s, and Summerlin eased into it after that. While serving in Macon in 1951, he pastored a local congregation and raised money to build a church.

After Macon, he and Myrtle were stationed in Newfoundland, where he was the personnel sergeant major for an Air Force wing. Although he was not a chaplain, he took on the chaplain's duties for seven squadrons in Newfoundland, Labrador and Iceland. Two of their children were born in Newfoundland.

Summerlin left the military in 1954 to join the ministry. He hoped to go to seminary, but it never came to be. Nonetheless he was ordained by the Assemblies of God and has pastored a number of churches.

While pastoring First Assembly of God in Adel, Summerlin became acquainted with Dr. Charles Travis, president of Logos College in Jacksonville, Fla. Summerlin realized he needed more education to lead his flock and went on to receive a Doctorate of Literature in Humane Letters from Logos. Later he received an honorary degree from North Florida Seminary as well.

Summerlin's brother Ralph, who died in 2015 at the age of 89, was also a minister. Summerlin said they were recognized by the Assemblies of God as the only two brothers to each pastor 50 years in the denomination.

The power of the purse

As far back as 1951 in Macon, Summerlin was involved in the building of churches, and he knew how hard it was to get financing.

"Banks almost without exception take a dim view of churches as collateral," he said. "No banker wants to foreclose on a church."

So in the early 1970s Summerlin and his wife established a corporation specifically to loan money to churches, Provident Church Ministries. It helped finance a number of churches, Summerlin said, but by 1978 they had a problem.

"We had a fellow running the outfit that didn't know what he was doing," he said.

When the issue was discovered, Summerlin took over as chairman of Provident. There was $2 in the corporation's bank account, he said. He has a $2 bill framed in his office to commemorate that low point.

Summerlin said it took seven years to turn the enterprise around.

A room in his office is decorated with photographs of the churches the company has financed. He said there are more than 300. The largest was the House of Prayer in Hinesville, Ga., which was 32,000 square feet. Two churches in Jacksonville are currently under construction.

"Where the money is needed is in these small, mission-type churches," he said.

To seek a loan, a church can call Summerlin at his office in Moultrie. You'll need someone to vouch for your character, but after that the loan process follows the same as a bank's.

Despite a banker's fears, churches have been very reliable at paying off their loans, he said.

"We've foreclosed on one church in 52 years," Summerlin said.

A haul of hammers

When Summerlin returned to Moultrie in the 1950s, he took up the trade of general contracting, and in 1968 or '69 he bought what is now A&S Rents from Jim Parks, then-president of Norman College. Among its assets was the largest millworks shop in the Southeast, able to handle 12-inch crown molding.

The company's three stores — one here, one in Tifton, one in Bainbridge — were eventually divided among Summerlin's three sons, then in March of 2022 they were all sold to River City Rentals of Tennessee. Summerlin's family continues to work in the businesses.

Crews from Summerlin's contracting business worked on many of the churches that Provident financed.

Over the years of construction work, Summerlin developed a passion for one of the tools of his trade: the hammer.

"Every trade has a hammer," he said. "I tried to get as many kinds as I could."

The result is a collection of something more than 3,000 hammers that hang on the walls of multiple rooms in his office building. At one time his collection was believed to be the second-largest hammer collection in the U.S., he said.

Summerlin has also been collecting Case knives since 1960 and has a wide assortment of them on display.

"The whole thing is, I've had a good time," he said. "There's a lot of work, but it's been a joy."