HIGH POINT – It was an unlikely place for a religious quotation to be displayed, but the sign he found at a salvage yard in Reidsville years ago made an impression on the Rev. Howard Pittman.

“It said, ‘The devil makes trash out of people, but God recycles,” recalled Pittman, the longtime pastor of Lakeview Free Will Baptist Church in north High Point. “I came back and put that on the sign.”

For years, Pittman has been adorning the marquee of the Johnson Street church with pearls of wit and wisdom like this. It’s just one way Pittman has tried to keep the church connected to the community. At the end of this month, 43 years after coming to High Point and starting the church out of an Avery Avenue house he rented, Pittman, 71, will retire.

“The church right now is in the best shape its been since I came here, and that’s the way I wanted to leave it,” he said.

Fresh out of Bible college in June 1966, Pittman drove his wife and children to High Point with “everything we had in the world in a 4-by-7 U-Haul trailer. ... We decided we’d like to come to the middle part of the state. We were just thinking about it, praying about it, and High Point popped into our minds. We had never been to High Point in our life. We didn’t know a soul here.”

Pittman grew up in the Free Will Baptist Church on the N.C. coast and wound up moving his fledgling church here several times before settling in its current site in the early 1970s.

“His contribution has been longevity, steadfastness – starting basically with no outside support except from a couple of small churches,” said David Peele, a Lakeview Free Will member who’s known Pittman for about 40 years. “The church doesn’t have any outstanding debt, has a good reputation in the community and is hopefully poised to move forward.”

Peele said Pittman’s willingness to accept only a modest income for his ministry was a key in helping the church succeed. Pittman helped make ends meet by working as a paint contractor for 35 years.

“Through that, I met a lot of people,” he said. “For a church of this size, I probably preached more funerals in High Point than most pastors have. I preach a lot of funerals for people not affiliated with our church.”

pkimbrough@hpe.com | 888-3531