Issue: Spring 2017 | Posted: June 1, 2017
Alan Chamness
Lest We Forget Award
Presented in recognition of longtime service and contributions to the Union University community.
The almost wall-to-wall photographs in Alan Chamness’ office are a roadmap of his 50 years in ministry, with close to 142 people having attended Union University under his guidance.
“I always teach kids that you have to have vehicles in ministry,” Chamness says. As minister of music and senior adults at First Baptist Church in Henderson, Kentucky, Chamness says, “My Toyota is music. It’s a universal language.”
Chamness graduated from Union in 1970 and Southern Seminary in 1973, focusing on studies in music. After graduating, he moved to Henderson and involved himself in the community there.
“I’m sold where I’m at,” Chamness says. “Bloom where you’re planted. I learned that at Union from the wonderful professors, teachers and staff.”
Blooming for Chamness means discipling, and for 35 years, he helped with the largest in-home Bible study in Henderson. He credits the one-on-one time he had with students as the most effective time of teaching.
“All my students who I sent to Union were faithful to that study,” Chamness says. “We have what we call a legacy church. You build one generation to build another, and I’ve enjoyed working with the third generation of my first youth group. I am surrounded by kids that have grown up in this ministry.”
When he was a teenager himself, Chamness felt called to the ministry, leading him to Union University.
“When I visited, I said, ‘This is it.’ I felt the presence of the Lord there, from the day I got there to the day I left,” Chamness says. “Union gave me a chance to grow and to really see what the kingdom was. We were constantly being challenged to do better, love better, live better in the name of the Lord.”
During his time at Union, a theology professor took him to visit Liberty Grove, a church without a pastor at the time. Chamness recalls working there for three years and saying, “It was easy to fall in love with the Lord again.”
Now, with music as his vehicle, Chamness preaches and sings at funerals and weddings, visits hospitals and nursing homes and teaches private voice and piano lessons. He directs his church’s adult choir and plays the piano for the praise team. And although he no longer serves as minister of youth, he continues to invest in the church’s and community’s young people.
“You can see where my heart is, with people,” Chamness says. “And that’s what Jesus calls on us to do. Go tell all, tell the whole world.”
