Saturday, July 11, 1998

Chaplain of Bourbon Street visiting Aspermont Sunday

By LORETTA FULTON Senior Staff Writer

The Chaplain of Bourbon Street is coming to Main Street.

The Rev. Bob Harrington, anointed Chaplain of Bourbon Street by the mayor of New Orleans in 1962, is taking his Fresh AIR Tour off the city streets and into the small towns of America in a road show that began in January in East Texas.

Harrington and his entourage will be at First Baptist Church in Aspermont Sunday through Wednesday. Services will be at 11 a.m. Sunday and at 7 each evening.

Harrington, who learned sales pitches as a life insurance salesman before becoming a minister, credits that experience with his popular style today.

"The preacher should be the best salesperson in town," he said. "He gives you the best product and it's paid for."

The Chaplain's "product" and the preacher himself come with endorsements from such notables as former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, the late great coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and even missing atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

"Bob Harrington is the only so-called Christian minister I have invited to speak to our National Atheist Convention," O'Hair once said. "He did and he's good."

If America's First Atheist was so impressed, imagine how Harrington plays in Peoria - or Aspermont.

Harrington was in San Antonio last week and will go to Branson, Mo., and then to California after his meeting in Aspermont. The "AIR" in his Fresh AIR Tour stands for Awareness of God, Importance of God, and Responsibility we have to God.

If all Christians would preach those principles, the country would be better off, Harrington believes.

"We need to get the Christians out of the closet and let the redeemed of the Lord say so," he said.

The 70-year-old Harrington preaches with the vim and vigor of a man half his age, and he prides himself on "stirring up" congregations.

"They either get sad, mad, or glad, but nobody is ever neutral," he said.

Harrington doesn't seem to be in any danger of running out of fuel before his Fresh AIR Tour ends on July 4, 1999, at Billy Bob's honky-tonk in Fort Worth.

"It's a very infamous nightclub across the country," Harrington said. As many as 5,000 people may hear Harrington preach that night, but the owners, like the owners of other clubs where Harrington has preached, have nothing to fear, he said. Their business is in no danger of failing.

"This country produces a lot more sinners than it does saints," Harrington said.

A recipient of the Dale Carnegie International Good Human Relations Award, Harrington describes his buoyant style as "very bold and loving." He is a frequent guest on such TV shows as Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey.

Harrington says his eternal youth comes from the belief that what he is doing is what God called him to do.

"I'm young and vibrant and excited because the Lord in me has brought me to life," he said.

He's bringing that life to Aspermont and other small and large towns across America, hopefully leaving the folks there saying what others are saying: "If this guy can work on Bourbon Street, he can stir our town."