Terry Walters

     Terry Walters is a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and retired church pastor. He has written a variety of works from blogs to books, letters to lyrics, plays to poems, and sermons to studies to scripts, Most of his writings have been for personal pleasure and church use, but in 2014 he fulfilled a lifelong dream by becoming a published author.

     

     Terry was born Oct. 22, 1954 in Decatur, IL and was raised just north of there in the small town of Forsyth.  He graduated with honors from Maroa-Forsyth High School in 1972 but chose not to go to college at the time.  In January of 1976, Terry married Cheryl Bolte of Nokomis, IL and immediately entered the Music & Youth Ministry, serving several churches in northeast Arkansas and Memphis, TN.  In 1986 he began to serve as pastor and got a B.A. in Christian Ministries at Williams Baptist College of Walnut Ridge, AR, graduating summa cum laude.

     

     He and Cheryl served as church planters in South Bend, IN for awhile in the early 1990s, then returned to their home state of IL and eventually started Celebration Community Church in Pana in 2001.  They were both very active in the children's ministry as well and Terry began to write for their own unique program "Straight Street."  He wrote all the puppet scripts and some of the lessons.  That is where his first three books came from and several more are planned. Terry retired from pastoring in Feb., 2023 but still preched nearly every Sunday in churches where they have no pastor at the moment or he is simply away for the day.

Sadly, his first publisher went out of business. He converted his third book, which you can find for sale here on Amazon or at his own web site, where you can still purchase the first two.

Recently, Terry began to add to his blog site by writing some short stories. If you haven't been to the blog lately, you need to go there or to his web site: www.twasthenightjesuswasborn.com