Nathan and Sandra Murray moved to their first pastorate in the rolling hills of North Carolina. Nathan soon realized that there were things about being a pastor he did not learn in college and seminary. Thankfully, mentors including some of the gentle folk of New Hope Church, will help him overcome and become a faithful and effective shepherd.

The life of J. B. Huckabee is one man's journey in the post-Civil War South to do all he could as a missionary pastor. My study of his life began when I learned that my great great grandfather was a pastor and missionary in the eighteen hundreds. No one can understand the life of a man without knowing the historical and cultural context in which he lived. The rapid Nineteenth Century growth of the United States, life on the southern frontier, the Georgia Gold rush, the Civil War and Reconstruction, several financial panics, the expansion of the railroads, the constant westward migration-all...