finds his way to Elm Street

By JAINE TREADWELL

Features Editor

Each person is only one heartbeat away from eternity.

"And, when that moment comes, you will either be promoted or demoted," said Bob Harrington, Chaplain of Bourbon Street. "Our only purpose here on earth is to get prepared for eternity. I want to know where I’ll be in the morning if I don’t wake up here. What about you?"ach person is only one heartbeat away from eternity.

"And, when that moment comes, you will either be promoted or demoted," said Bob Harrington, Chaplain of Bourbon Street. "Our only purpose here on earth is to get prepared for eternity. I want to know where I’ll be in the morning if I don’t wake up here. What about you?"

Harrington brought his fast talking, straight shootin’ style of evangelism to the Colley Senior Complex Tuesday and gave the seniors a lot to laugh about and a lot to think about.

Harrington climbed the ladder of "success" and plummeted down again. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps and he is back where the Lord called him to be.

"I preach in night clubs, beer joints, honky-tonks – anywhere church members go," he said,, laughing.

Harrington is known as the Chaplain of Bourbon Street because of his willingness to take his message of salvation outside church buildings. But his message is so powerful and so inspiring that he will speak 1,000 times this year and his "calls to preach" have earned him more than five million sky miles.

In the year 2001, he will spend time in the wide open spaces of the sparsely populated states of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas. Not many "traveling" preachers go there, but Harrington goes where he is led because he has experienced the change that comes into one’s life when they let Jesus come in.

"When I was growing up, I didn’t have a home. I had a house," he said. "My parents were religious people but they weren’t saved. We had a Bible on the coffee table and my mother always said not to put anything on top of the Bible. I thought if she didn’t want it covered up, why didn’t we open it up."

Harrington said the Bible is the number one selling book in the world, yet it is the least read book in the world.

"And it is the road map to life," he said.

Harrington used that road map to life to lead his mother and father to Christ and they served as ministers for 30 years "before they went to meet the Lord."

Harrington encouraged the seniors at the Colley Complex to use the Bible to map their journey and to make it a beautiful experience by thinking only good and positive thoughts.

"Everything good or bad starts in the head and it takes action from there," he said. We are what we dream about and we can bring it about with God’s help."

Life will not always be easy and the road may sometimes be hard but Harrington encouraged the seniors not be be discouraged when times are difficult and dark.

"A lot of God’s people get shot out of the saddle," he said, "but we have to keep going and He will be with us – always."