Published: November 08, 2007 03:50 pm      

EVERYONE HAS A STORY: Greatest weakness becomes greatest strength: the story of the ministry of Dennis Daniels

Public speaking is said to be the thing people fear most. For someone born with a speech impediment, one would think public speaking would be an even greater fear. However, for Pastor Dennis Daniels, that's not the case, at least anymore.

"Speech was my greatest weakness," Daniels said. "Now I feel it's my greatest strength."

Born in Miami, FL, Daniels came into this world with a speech impediment. Nowadays, he makes his living speaking on a weekly basis as pastor of Grace Community Church in Crossville. How did this happen? Daniels attributes it to the greatest spiritual influence upon his life.

According to the pastor, while he was in fourth grade he attended a tent revival where a man prayed for him and he was healed, no longer having his speech impediment.

"I feel like I was a backwards, shy, goofy kid who could barely speak, and there's no denying God healed me," said Daniels. "It was at that time I kind of made a promise to God — if you'll heal me, I won't shy away from speaking for you."

That was the beginning for Daniels' journey into the ministry. At that time, he said he wasn't considering so much of speaking about God as a pastor but on a more personal level.

Before coming to Crossville, Daniels spent time as a pastor in Fort Myers, FL, Cleveland, TN, Knoxville, and traveled to various churches for five years acting as somewhat of an overseer solving various problems.

When things fell through with the church he originally moved to the area in order to pastor, Daniels and his wife Sharon founded Grace Community Church, formerly Grace Christian Fellowship.

At one point prior to founding Grace, Daniels said he became disillusioned with traditional churches and was ready to quit the ministry all together.

"I felt God was wanting me to do something else," he said.

It was then that he came across the book The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, author of the exceedingly popular The Purpose Driven Life. Daniels said he read the book six or seven times, and it eventually motivated him to travel to California to take training under Warren. He went on to implement the "purpose-driven" techniques at Grace, which is labeled "A Purpose-Driven Church" beneath the church's name on the building.

In explaining the intention of his church, Daniels said, "We don't want to be a religious church. We want to be a Christian church."

Like many men, Daniels explained his work is who he is.

Daniels said he wants to reach out to those not coming from a church background.

"We don't realize how foreign we are in our church culture," said Daniels. "We ask people to come into a strange building with strange people doing strange things and they're not sure where to go."

Though he's been involved in more traditional church movements, Daniels said the high-church persona has never intrigued him, saying he's always been more about what he calls "grassroots ministry — where the rubber meets the road."

He explained in a survey conducted on why people don't go to church, the most common answer given was that churches primarily wanted money. The second most common reason was that services were long and boring, and third, the songs weren't relevant.

To counteract those perceptions, and though Grace does teach its members to practice stewardship, Daniels said the church does not take an offering during its services. Also, in order to make the non-churched attendees feel more relaxed, services are kicked off by playing a James Taylor song or other commonly known music.

With speaking no longer containing the hindrances it had as a child, Daniels said it used to seem like it took months to prepare sermons. He said it has now gotten easier as it naturally flows out of his life. The motto of the services at Grace, he said, is "60 minutes that can change your life."

In addition to speaking at services, Daniels is involved with counseling, ranging in experiences from someone having a relative with drug problems to person showing suicidal behavior in the lobby. Daniels spoke highly of the suicide prevention programs he and the church are involved with. The ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) program allows people to be trained in suicide prevention through the church. Daniels also serves as a suicide prevention gatekeeper with the QPR Institute. In November, he said the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network will hold a conference consisting of three Tuesday sessions at Grace's facilities.

"Instead of just cursing the darkness, we think we need to turn on the light," said Daniels, in explaining the training in counseling he provides through his church.

Being a certified National Christian Counselors Association clinical pastoral counselor with advance certification, Daniels offers counseling certification through the N.C.C.A. in which enrolled students can become licensed counselors themselves. Through offering this program, Grace Community Church was named the 2003 N.C.C.A. Certified Academic Institution Center of the Year. Currently, the program offers more than 200 courses online.

Prior to the various academic degrees and all the levels of certification, Daniels said he thought he'd end up building houses like others in his family.

Early in life, Daniels' family moved to Auburndale, FL, located in the central portion of the state, where he would attend school from kindergarten through his senior year. He failed first grade and continued to struggle, especially on account of his speech impediment, which he said caused people to be able to barely understand him.

Following the time in fourth grade when he said he was healed of his speech problem, school still gave him trouble.

It was in fifth grade when he went to see which class he'd been assigned to that he discovered he didn't belong to any fifth grade class. He had been promoted to the sixth grade. He explained this was something done with students who had failed earlier but were doing well. Students were then monitored for six weeks to assess if the promotion suited them.

"God kind of gave me back what I lost," he said.

By seventh grade, he said he still struggled but credited a retired teacher who oversaw a program for students who were not good readers to sparking his motivation to read. Since Daniels was interested in joke books, he said the teacher encouraged him to read MAD Magazine and other joke books.

Following graduation, Daniels married Sharon at the age of 17. From there, Daniels became involved off and on with church work, doing things with youth groups while still thinking he'd end up building houses.

He soon became the pastor of a small church in Fort Myers, FL. After one year there, Daniels said he realized he needed some training and education to do ministry work. This led to him and his wife moving to Tennessee where he attended Tomlinson College, which eventually merged into Lee University, he explained.

Following his training and coming across Warren's techniques, Daniels and his wife would, as he put it, "build a church that would make people who don't ordinarily come to church feel comfortable and very casual."

Admittedly saying his work has become who he is, Daniels is also a family man. He and Sharon both hold two doctorate degrees. She is currently employed by Cumberland County Schools serving as director of gifted services for grades K-8. Also, Sharon serves as an online professor for Indian Wesleyan University. Like her husband, she is licensed for counseling in several areas.

Daniels gives credit to Sharon for home-schooling their two sons, Matt and Michael, both who have become quite successful in the business world appearing on the cover of magazines such as Business Tennessee and the Greater Knoxville Business Journal.

While students at the University of Tennessee, Matt and Michael held internships with Jim Clayton, owner of Clayton Homes. Matt went on to serve as president and CEO of Clayton's First State Bank in Henderson, TN, becoming the youngest president of a bank of more than $300 million in assets in the country, according to a December 2006 article in the Greater Knoxville Business Journal.

Eventually younger brother Michael became an intern for Clayton. He played an essential part in the selling of Clayton Homes to Warren Buffett, the world's most respected investor according to Business Tennessee.

Daniels said he was proud of both of his sons.

Residing in Lake Tansi, Daniels said he enjoys boating, fishing, riding motorcycles, and going on cruises.

He said he really likes Cumberland County, noting how the nice the people are. Saying the county is a great place to raise kids, he attributes it to what he considers a good school system.

In explaining his decision to originally enter the ministry, Daniels elaborated, "I believe God chooses you instead of you choosing him," pointing to himself as an example in that God would use a "backwards, shy, goofy kid" to speak in his name, and thus, making Daniels' greatest weakness become his greatest strength.