HOLTS SUMMIT – Brother Frank Whitney stood up, took a deep breath, and walked toward the pulpit. Bible in hand, he double-checked his notes for the Sunday evening sermon. Tonight’s topic: faith the size of a mustard seed. The crowd wasn’t any larger than usual; about 30 people. It was just another Sunday evening service, except for one detail: The preacher, Brother Whitney, was 12 years old.
Whitney was born in 1956 in Decatur, Ill. When he was 2 years old, his family moved to Oak Ridge, Tenn. There, at age 7, Whitney gave his life to Christ. “It was a Wednesday, and I had been going to church all my life,” he remembers. “We had an evangelist that night. For the first time, I heard – I really heard – that if you’ve never invited Jesus into your heart, confessed your sin to him, then you’re going to be separated from God.”
Frank Whitney
The evangelist preached passionately. “He had a loud voice and veins sticking out of his neck,” Whitney remembers.
Seven-year-old Frank couldn’t tear his attention away – so much that he was visibly upset as his mother put him to bed. “Mom, that man said if I have never invited Jesus into my heart, then I’m going to be eternally separated from Jesus,” young Frank said. “I don’t want that.”
Whitney’s mother packed him and his footie pajamas into the car and drove to the pastor’s office. “Right there on the pastor’s lap, he talked to me about what I needed to do. I prayed and received Christ,” Whitney says. “And I have never looked back. From that time in my childhood, I’ve never thought I was lost again.”
A few years later, at the ripe age of 11, Whitney felt God’s call to preach. Hearing a missionary story about a dentist whom God led overseas, Whitney knew God wanted him to preach. “I remember the key verse: Romans 1:15-16, which has been my life verse,” Whitney says. The verses read, “So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:15-15, KJV).
After his first sermon at age 12, Whitney continued to preach and branched out into youth ministry at age 15. During that same year, at a revival in Pittsville, Ill., Whitney met Dean Spencer, a local evangelist. The two became lifetime friends as they joined forces to sing and preach revivals throughout Illinois. Much like his salvation, a revival bolstered Whitney’s ministry and Christian walk.
At age 17, Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Roodhouse, Ill., called Whitney to be their pastor. After 14 months of ministry there, Whitney graduated high school and attended Oklahoma Baptist University.
While in college, he pastored First Baptist Church in McLoud, Okla., then Calvary Baptist in Holdenville. After college, he led Romulus Baptist Church in Macomb, Okla., then Atwood Baptist in Atwood, Okla., then Bryan Road Baptist in Shawnee, Okla. He married his wife, Shelly, in 1982.
After 25 years of ministry in Oklahoma, God called Whitney to Lebanon Baptist Church in McGirk, Mo. Then, in 2003, Whitney got a call from Union Hill Baptist Church in Holts Summit, Mo., asking Whitney to be their pastor. He said no. They asked again; he still said no.
“They called back a third time and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come and preach for you, but no guarantees,” Whitney says. With that sermon, God began to lead Whitney toward the church. He pastored there until he retired in January 2020.
Whitney doesn’t have a specific reason for why God led him to so many churches. “I just followed wherever God led,” he says. Each church had its own struggles—division, low numbers, a power struggle, even a pastor in an inappropriate relationship. Some might have left these churches for dead, but God used Whitney to move mountains.
He’s retired from pastoring, but Whitney hasn’t stopped serving local churches. He started Faith Work Ministries, preaching revivals at rural churches across the Midwest. He’s finding new ways to bless rural churches, like member-focused revivals and clean sit-down comedy with a spiritual theme.
His revivals focus on the local church; in his thinking, the church is permanently in the community and can do more lasting, long-term spiritual work than a short revival service. “The revivals that I do truly revive the church,” Whitney says. “At evangelistic meetings (what we used to call ‘revivals’), a lot of people got saved, and that certainly can happen. But our target is to revive, to revitalize, the church.” Revive the church, and the church can build lasting, meaningful, gospel-centered relationships with the community.
Whitney isn’t worried about what’s next in his ministry. He’s still walking by faith and following God’s will. He’ll serve wherever the Lord puts him—even if it’s something new, like helping LifePointe Church in Sedalia, Mo., plant a new church in Holden.
“It’s been my honor and privilege for God to have called me to preach,” Whitney reflects. ‘I’m grateful for what God has allowed me to see and the miracles of this life that I have been able to watch.
“I want to live every day for him until I’m done on this earth.”
Twelve-year-old Frank wrapped up his sermon. To him, it felt like a full 30 minutes; it was actually more like seven. He didn’t know any better; he was just following the Lord’s lead. And from a sermon the size of a mustard seed, God moved mountains through Brother Frank Whitney’s ministry.