Six-year-old preacher on fire for the Lord - Makes impact at Seventh-day Adventist convention
Published:Sunday | January 31, 2021 | 8:53 AMYasmine Peru - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Calliel Campbell has been jotting down sermon notes ever since he mastered the art of reading. The youngster was given his first opportunity to preach for his congregation at the Pondside Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hanover last August, and his mother recalls that her son did a good job. But it was his thought-provoking, wake-you-up-out-of-your-slumber sermonette, combined with his masterful delivery, at a recent Seventh-day Adventist conference that has the church community abuzz over the little six-year-old.
Shouts of “hallelujah” and “praise the Lord” rang out loud, long and strong in both the virtual and the real spaces, less than a minute into his sermon, titled ‘I Will Go’, which urged “each one to reach one in 2021”. An on-fire Calliel, like a man in a child’s body, quoted from the Scriptures and brilliantly used public speaking techniques to take the audience along with him, at every level of his sermon, until he very nearly had them out of their seats.
His passionate, “I say unto you, the harvest is truly plenteous, but the labourers are few,” followed by an expression-filled “Mercy!” pierced every heart. He continued with fervour, “What we need is some Ezekiels in the house today who will resurrect some dry bones … and when we have done all for the Master we can say like Paul I have fought the good fight ... I want to work for Jesus. I will go. Will you go with me?”
“That little child has allowed God to use him to touch me. He surely got my attention and brought me to tears,” Patricia Bennett stated in the live chat that Sabbath morning two weeks ago. And she spoke for many of the over 6,000 viewers who tuned in on YouTube for the West Jamaica Conference livestreamed St James and Hanover convention.
GOODNESS OF GOD
Calliel’s mother, Clover Bucknor, said she has been receiving quite a bit of commendation, but, without any pretence, she refuses to accept any of the praise. “It is just the goodness of God. It is a direct blessing,” the mother of three told Family and Religion.
“Calliel started reading early, from he was three. So when we have family worship, he would write down things and tell us that he wanted to use them to make a sermon. He preached at church on Youth Day in August. At church, they know that he can pray, he will pray from now till next year, but that was his first sermon. A lot of people encouraged him, and then he was selected to give a sermonette at the conference, first in October last year and again in January,” Bucknor explained.
Bucknor did her part by writing the three-minute long sermon, but her son didn’t even get a chance to rehearse. “He kept on telling me that he would be fine when he got up there. It was on the way to the conference that I insisted that he read it over, and we went through it and he had his own suggestions. But I told him that he only had three minutes, so he couldn’t add in anything else,” she recalled.
But Calliel still managed to slip in a bit of his own text, despite reading fluently from what was prepared. And, like he predicted, he did just fine. “I feel happy, Miss. A lot of people told me it was good,” the polite grade two student at Harrison Preparatory School told Family and Religion. “I was excited, but I wasn’t nervous. I can’t explain,” he added.
Calliel, who was baptised last May, is really like any other six-year-old. “I like to play football and basketball, and I also like mathematics,” he said. The youngster represents his school at both sporting activities and he also sings with a group at his Pondside SDA Church.
“I want to be a pastor and the president,” he said boldly when asked his career choice. His role model is current West Jamaica Conference president and speaker for the ‘Word of Hope’ telecast, Glen Samuels. Not surprisingly, Calliel has been favourably compared to that passionate, always-on-fire, man of God. “Pastor Samuels met with Calliel and gave him great words of encouragement,” Bucknor disclosed.
Among the books that Calliel likes to read is the Bible and when quizzed about his favourite Bible verse, he was only too eager to share it: “John 3 verse 16, ‘ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’.”