If he who wins souls is wise, the Rev. Russell King is a spiritual sage in the truest sense of the word.
As the founder and pastor of Christ Cathedral Church, Iaeger, King is a soldier in an international Christian army that was formed around 2000 years ago.
Christ Cathedral pulled out all the stops to honor their amiable pastor during a recent three-day 50-Year Golden Jubilee Celebration, which recognized his half-century of service as an evangelist, pastor and shepherd of lost sheep.
During the celebration, King received congratulations and commendations from his family, his congregation, President Bush, Governor Joe Manchin, the McDowell County Commission and various Christian leaders. Iaeger Mayor Jim Stafford presented him a key to the city.
The accolades moved King to tears, but his own lips confirm what his living testimony shouts. The Rev. Russell King covets praises from above rather than adoration from below.
“I don’t deserve all this,” he wept as he thanked the church for the outpouring of love.
An articulate and animated speaker well versed in the Pentecostal/ Apostolic tradition, King’s messages flow from a font of biblical knowledge that has taken a lifetime of study to acquire.  Over the years, he has evangelized in 13 states and two foreign countries. Even after all these years, he asserts: “I don’t regret a mile of the journey.”
“Pastoring is a lot like driving a school bus,” King says. “You pick some up and you drop some off. I’ve been blessed over the years to see hundreds of people in the church. Some have moved. Some have passed away. Some have left by choice and that always hurts the most. 
“The best part, though, is a when a lost soul is converted to the Lord. That’s what motivates me. That’s the best part of pastoring.”
But that’s not to say that shepherding the sheep doesn’t have a down side.
“The hardest part is always trying to find the right words to comfort someone who is grieving,” King says. “I tell people that their loved one isn’t really lost when you carry the memory of that person in your heart.  They aren’t lost because we know where they are (in heaven). We have the promise that we will see that them again.
“I’ve been discouraged a lot myself. Coming home from church on Sundays I’ve thought about quitting hundreds of times, but something won’t let me. When you have the call of God on your life. You can’t get away from it.”
King’s call to the ministry came early. His late parents George and Lillian raised him and his six siblings in church. By the time he was in his teens, he had developed the deep yearning for a closer walk with God.
“At age two I had diphtheria, and they sent me home to die, but mom wouldn’t give up. They kept praying for me. At age 14, I had a real experience with God.  I can’t tell you the exact time that I got saved because we were always in church and I prayed a lot as a kid.  When I was around 16, I felt the calling.”
By the time he was 17, a “very nervous” King delivered his first sermon at the Church of the Living God in Johnny Cake.
When he wasn’t busy with church, King admits that he enjoyed outdoor activities, such as hunting, fishing and being a Boy Scout.
“I used to walk four-miles from Johnny Cake to Iaeger so I could participate in the Scouts,” he recalls.  “When the meeting was over, I’d turn around and walk back home. I guess you could say we were poor, but we didn’t know it. Everyone seemed to hold a lot in common back then.  We didn’t think that much about it.”

Along the way, King married Frances Haynes in 1960 and was ordained by the United Christian Ministerial Association, Cleveland, TN in 1964. He has worked as a carpenter and parts manager for a car dealer. Mostly though, he has spent his life studying and spouting the Word.
“People aren’t as accepting as they once were of preachers’ sermons. They have access to more information through the Internet and the media. They question more, so you have to study and depend on the anointing to be able to reach them.
“Most people seem to enjoy sermons on prophecy, but prophecy is something you can’t be overly dogmatic about. It’s something we understand more about as time goes on, but nobody has a perfect understanding of it.”
Never one to be idle for long, King and his father established Christ Cathedral in 1975 in the old Iaeger Theater.
“Dad purchased it and I remodeled it,” King says. “We held our first service there October 18, 1975. That first year we saw 176 people converted.
“In 1994, we moved into the new church (located on scenic hillside on Route 52 on the outskirts of Iaeger). Other than that first year, I’ve never really kept records of all the converts or weddings or funerals. It has been a bunch.”
Had he chosen another profession, King admits that he would have enjoyed serving in government.
“I think I would have liked to be in politics,” he smiles.  “I was president of the junior class in high school, elected by all but five votes. It bugged me that I didn’t get those five votes. I would have liked to know why.”
King doesn’t count his honorary doctorate as his greatest blessing or the fact that he is talented enough to have done most of the work on Christ Cathedral with his bare hands. He reserves that honor first for Jesus Christ and secondly for his wife, his son Eric, his daughter Theresa Tolliver, his three grandchildren and his congregants and friends.
“I’ve always loved trying to help mend broken people,” he says. “If I had to give anyone advice it would be first to find Christ. I’d also tell them to leave a lot of happy tracks because someone is following in them.”
Speaking of tracks, King says he expects to keep making them until his earthly life has ended or the King of Kings returns.
“I have no retirement plans,” he says. “I want to be remembered as someone who tried hard and did his best.”
Pointing upward, he continued, “I want people to say he was here, but he went that way.”
Until that time, King envisions a very special happy track for his church.