Marty Demarest has been preaching at the Methodist Church. I went to worship with them and found him full of joy and the Spirit of God, as they do. I couldn't wait to interview him. Marty said, "I am a lay preacher. I am exactly what Brother Van was: a layman called by God to bring the Word of God. I can preach at three churches on a Sunday, no problem. I love it. I absolutely love it. I drove 230 miles today. The Spirit of God sustains you if God calls you to the work.
Before this, Marty wrote for a living: "I am a writer. They're obscure little books. The Expert at the Card Table, and I've written extensively on historical card cheating and magic. I have had a long career writing about video games. That's been my bread and butter for years, and it's been a very successful and rewarding career in many ways. I have written for Disney, Viacom, and smaller companies like Montana Historical magazine."
"But a few years ago, I realized it's not answering my heart for some reason, and that's hard to explain because I had nothing to complain about, but it was not what I was seeking."
He turned down freelance projects. "I had lived that way for decades. It was my life, but I just started saying no to that in order for God to come in and tell him what he needed to do.
I discovered I had been called to rural ministry. I grew up in a small, rural church in Whitlash, Montana. I didn't know it at the time, but the pastor, Tammy Lindahl (she is a true saint ), started getting me to do music. I have played the piano since I was three.
He has been a part of the service since he was a kid. "Tammy just plucked me out, and I started playing the accordion and piano in church. Then, she would do ministry services at the Senior Center in Chester and along the high line, a little community center. And I would go with her, and we'd do worship." Sue King said, "You were answering your call to God right back then." "I realized I was because nobody made me do that. I just did that, and that nourished me. I played at that same little church in Whitlash. I played the piano all through high school every single summer. I went to school in Whitlash through seventh grade, then eighth grade through high school, and I went to high school in Shelby. No one ever made me go to church; I just went with my grandparents."
He lives in the Sweetgrass Hills now as well. "After I graduated high school, I went to college in New York City and studied music." He found he could make good spending money by singing. "Soloists, in choirs in all the big houses of worship, synagogues to cathedrals in New York City. He sang in a wide variety of churches. "I came to love worship from Jewish worship, Catholic worship, the Episcopalians (they )choked me with incense, and I loved every minute of it. I saw worship done in all different ways. I also saw that churches can be abusive to their pastors. They can make demands and think that God is going to provide everything, and they ask and ask. And I saw pastors
and rabbis and priests be depleted and burned out. And so, while I never turned away from God, I became disenchanted with the church. I simply drifted away."
I experienced an act of miraculous healing from God that showed me in my own life that there is no difference between God's power and God's love. God's power and God's love are the same thing. And I was healed in a very real, literal sense, and I didn't realize how much that changed me. That has been a gradual process over the last few years of understanding that God reached into me and did something for me, but God changed the furniture around a little bit, too. Thanks be to God, I have just been slowly coming to grips with that new arrangement within my life, and part of that was responding to a call to service in the church. When I found my way back to church, I went church shopping with a dear friend. Her name is Betty Ann Woolery from Joplin, and she attends about four churches. And she took me from one to the other, and I really clicked with the church in Chester, The United Methodist Church in Chester, with the congregation there, in particular, Pastor Sue King was a great mentor and teacher."
"I was a journalist and a broadcaster. I worked for National Public Radio and became a newspaper editor. I was in journalism, writing, and public speaking, and so I knew I had those gifts and skills. And I thought I could help the churches. Sue King was doing three churches." He thought he could help her. "I never preached a sermon in my life until maybe about eight months ago."
The Methodist faithful in Big Sandy love him and wish others would come. One said, "If they heard him once, they would come back every Sunday."
Marty said, "I will say that the church here in Big Sandy has been a blessing to me in giving me the chance to find my way, find my voice, and explore my calling. They fed me in every way. And so these small, rural churches are where you find the Spirit moving." He doesn't want to see the small rural churches close their doors. "I just don't want that to happen to little faithful rural churches, as long as God calls me to do this. I'll do this."
