Editor reflects on James O. Maxwell’s life and legacy
TERRELL, TEXAS — I loved James O. Maxwell.
The influential preacher, educator and author — who died Jan. 14 at age 86 — was such a kind, sweet and humble man.
As mentioned in our main story on Maxwell’s passing, he was a dear friend of this newspaper. He helped us reach thousands of new subscribers, particularly among our Black brothers and sisters.
“The Christian Chronicle is the best and most productive journal of churches of Christ today,” he wrote in a 2013 recommendation letter.
I first met Maxwell, longtime vice president of institutional advancement at Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, in 2010.
I ran into him at the National Lectureship — the largest annual gathering of predominantly African American Churches of Christ — in Philadelphia that year.
“Oh, you’re Bobby Ross,” brother Maxwell said. “You look younger than your picture.”
I had already heard wonderful things about Maxwell from my wife, Tamie, a fellow journalist.
She traveled to Dallas in 2006 to do a feature on the Southern Hills Church of Christ, the congregation where Maxwell preached. The headline noted that he served with the “heart of a leader” and the “spirit of a servant.”
In 2011, I was blessed to travel to Seattle to write about the Holgate Street Church of Christ, where James A. Maxwell — the elder Maxwell’s oldest child — was the minister at the time. While I was in the Pacific Northwest, the younger Maxwell took me to a Mariners-Texas Rangers game. We sat in the right-field bleachers and had a terrific time.
Later that year, James O. Maxwell invited me to speak at the Southwestern lectureship.
James O. Maxwell
After hearing a remarkable lineup of exceptional preachers, the audience was in for a real letdown when I stepped to the microphone.
But I was humbled and honored that Maxwell asked me to talk about “Multicultural Church Membership and Fellowship.”
“You sounded nervous, but you did OK,” my son Keaton, then 14, told me afterward.
Actually, I was a whole lot nervous. I’m a writer, not a preacher.
But undeterred, Maxwell asked me to speak again a few years later — that time to deliver the Sunday evening sermon at the Roswell Church of Christ in Kansas City, Mo.
Maxwell served that congregation for several years — commuting back and forth from Dallas on the weekends — after “retiring” from the Southern Hills church.
At Maxwell’s invitation, I made at least two trips to Roswell to report on the congregation’s work to open a resource center for former inmates and drug addicts.
James O. Maxwell, far right, joins Roswell Church of Christ members and leaders outside a one-time dry cleaners in 2015. The Kansas City, Kan., church transformed the cleaners into a resource center for former inmates and drug addicts.
Each time, Maxwell and elder Randy George made sure to treat me to dinner Saturday night.
What was on the menu? Kansas City barbecue, of course. And Maxwell insisted on ordering a full platter. I did not go home hungry.
I appreciated Maxwell’s hospitality as well as his sense of humor.
I wrote a column in 2015 on funny things that preachers witness from the pulpit.
Maxwell recalled a sermon on trusting in God that he preached at the Lawrence and Marder Church of Christ in Dallas.
One woman in the crowd became quite emotional.
“Oh, you better hush your mouth!” the sister proclaimed. “Hush your mouth! You better hush!”
The message touched another sister, and she, too, started shouting.
Maxwell’s son Shawn, then about 6 years old, listened to the outbursts and nudged his mother, Betty.
“Mama, why won’t Daddy hush?” the boy asked.
Decades later, the memory still made Maxwell chuckle with delight.
I last saw Maxwell in 2019 when Chronicle correspondent Hamil Harris and I traveled to Terrell to cover the funeral of Jack Evans Sr., Southwestern’s longtime president.
Hours before a celebration of Jack Evans Sr.’s life in 2019, longtime Southwestern vice president James O. Maxwell visits a special room at the college that pays tribute to pioneer African American preachers.
Even though Maxwell was mourning his colleague and friend, he took time to visit with Harris and me.
After we talked for about half an hour, Maxwell guided us on a tour of a special room at Southwestern that featured photographs and biographical sketches of about 50 pioneering African American preachers, including Evans and, yes, Maxwell himself.
Like countless others, I loved brother Maxwell. And I’ll definitely miss him.
I praise God for his life and legacy — and his friendship.
BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at [email protected].
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