Victor J. Caldwell

Most people at his age have long since kicked back and retired, Dr. Virgil J. Caldwell said.

So, at 78 years old and with 40 years at his job under his belt, the longtime pastor of New Monumental Missionary Baptist Church is going to join them in December.

“I’ve been God’s instrument in holding together this church,” Dr. Caldwell said. “We have had no major conflicts — some disagreements maybe, but no major conflicts. I prayed about it, and I’ve gone as far as I can go. Now we can get some younger person in here and keep the church moving forward.”

It’s not as if he has simply kept the pilot light on for four decades, though.

“They have been years of activity,” said the Rev. M.T. Billingsley, pastor of Greater Tucker Baptist Church. “He hasn’t been still. He has been here for the people.”

While shepherding the church, Dr. Caldwell increased its size and led it out of downtown and into a community where many of its members now live.

Within the community, he has been a solid supporter of civil-rights activities and was at the forefront of the battle to change the name of Ninth Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in honor of the slain civil-rights leader.

With his creativity, Dr. Caldwell has recorded saxophone albums, played in gospel orchestras, written 19 plays (his latest one, “The Handwriting on the Ground,” will be performed by church members in the fall) and published almost a dozen books (his ninth, 10th and 11th sermon collections are in the process of being completed).

Not bad for a man who didn’t want to preach to begin with and later had no intention of leaving his teaching career and his rural pastorate in Brownsville, Tenn., to come to Chattanooga.

“It was 100 percent God’s will that I come to the church, the way it happened,” Dr. Caldwell said.

In 1967, he said, he received a call from two New Monumental Church officers asking him to consider becoming their pastor. He would come down and speak to their congregation, he said, but he had no interest in becoming their pastor.

That December, Dr. Caldwell did preach at New Monumental Baptist, but a driving rain severely limited the crowd.

“There were maybe 12 people there,” he said.

Dr. Caldwell returned to West Tennessee and for all practical purposes forgot about New Monumental, he said. But the church didn’t forget about him. In April 1968, he received a call from congregational officials, who told him they had called him as their pastor.

“It was the biggest surprise of my life,” he said.

Still, Dr. Caldwell said, he resisted the call but soon began to have trouble with his voice during sermons.

“It got to where I couldn’t finish a sermon,” he said. “Sunday after Sunday, the Lord wouldn’t let me stay there.”

Eventually, Dr. Caldwell said, he relented and, dropping his teaching career, agreed to become the church’s full-time pastor.

“I’ve had no regrets whatsoever,” he said. “I know it was the Lord’s will.”

Dr. Caldwell said his downtown pastorate — now in the suburbs — allowed him to do more than he if had remained in Brownsville.

He said he has been privileged to preach a number of revivals, to serve as president of his denomination’s state regional convention and of its Baptist Missionary and Educational Congress, and to maintain writing and music sidelights.

“He’s a great humanitarian,” Mr. Billingsley said. “I’ve never known him to say no to anybody.”

The M.L. King Boulevard issue sprang from a regular meal Dr. Caldwell shared with Mr. Billingsley and the late Rev. Robert Richards of Olivet Baptist in which he suggested the name of Ninth Street, then the home of a slew of black-owned establishments, be changed.

He said he would prepare a petition detailing the possible name change if the two other ministers would go with him to present it to the then-City Commission. Before the governmental body, he said, commissioners sounded favorable, but an industrialist’s belated opposition cooled interest in the change.

For six months, Dr. Caldwell said, he appeared before the City Commission and read the petition. Away from the meeting, he said, “we made signs, and I climbed on poles. I was trying to get arrested. I had never been arrested in my life, and now I was trying but couldn’t get arrested.”

Eventually, he said, “they saw we were not going to back down,” and commissioners voted to change the name.

John P. Franklin, who tried to hire Dr. Caldwell for a teaching position when he first came to Chattanooga, was on the City Commission when the street name change came up.

“He is a superb individual who was very thoughtful and very much involved and knowledge about situations and the proper way to go about doing things,” he said. “He always gave conscientious and substantive support to causes he believed in.”

Today, as Dr. Caldwell looks back on 40 years of ministry at New Monumental, and nearly 50 years of ministry in all, he has much to celebrate. But among his greatest pleasures, he said, is seeing the spiritual growth of other people.

Specifically, he said, is gratified to have played a part in the people born during his tenure at the church growing up to be active in the congregation.

It’s important, Dr. Caldwell said, “not just to have them on the roll but to have them be true disciples of Christ.”

With retirement in site, the longtime pastor, a father of four and grandfather of nine, said he does not have specific plans. But one thing is for sure. He doesn’t plan on returning to his native West Tennessee.

“When you’ve been somewhere for 40 years,” he said, “that’s home.”

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