Tex Sample

Tex Sample

4219 North Jarboe Court

Kansas City, Missouri 64116

Telephone: 816-682-6078

email: texsample34@gmail.com

Tex Sample is the Robert B. And Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at The Saint Paul School of Theology where he taught for 32 years. He holds a B.A. degree from Millsaps College, an M.Div. from the Boston University School of Theology, a Ph.D. from the Boston University Graduate School. and a D.D. from Coe College. In 1999 Boston University School of Theology gave him the “Distinguished Alumnus Award”.

Sample is a freelance lecturer and speaker in North America and overseas. He has published 13 books. His book, Blue Collar Ministry, was named a “Judson Classic” by the Judson Press, and his book U. S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches was the bestseller for Westminster/John Knox Press for over two years. He is also the author of articles in academic journals, magazines, and books. His most recent book is A Christian Justice for the Common Good, available from Abingdon Press and on amazon.com. He is presently working on a book on the white poor for Abingdon Press. Sample is also one of the participants featured in the video series entitled “Living the Questions,” a video series widely used across the United States and overseas.

Sample has been active throughout his career in both the church and in the community. While living in Phoenix, AZ (1999-2012), he was associated with the Asbury United Methodist Church, a congregation half gay and lesbian in membership, where he was volunteer minister to the community. In that capacity he was heavily engaged in the Valley Interfaith Project, a broad-based organizing effort associated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, where he helped establish a job training program, Arizona Career Pathways, for which he served as president of the board. He also worked with the Arizona Interfaith Movement, an interfaith group that includes 25 different faith traditions, where he served as the chair of the education committee.

The Samples moved back to Kansas City in November of 2012 in order to help care for a severely ill granddaughter. Since coming back to Kansas City, Sample has been involved with The Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (Gamaliel), a mass-based organizing effort, with Jobs with Justice, with the Human Dignity and Economic Justice Coalition, and with The Urban Summit. In 2015 he received the Invictus Award for Social Justice from the Liberty, Missouri, Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee at its celebration of MLK Day. In 2016 he received the Equality and Justice Award from the Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ in Kansas City.

For the past two-and-a-half years, Sample served as an interim pastor at the Trinity United Methodist Church, The Keystone and Revolution United Methodist Churches, and the Blue Ridge Boulevard UMC, all in Kansas City MO. When not doing interim pastorates, the Samples are active in the Grand Avenue Temple UMC where two-thirds of the participants are homeless.

An ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, Sample served on four occasions as a delegate to The General Conference of the UMC, the world meeting of his denomination, and on six occasions to the North Central Jurisdiction of the UMC, a regional meeting of his denomination.

Sample was born and grew up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and, as a young man drove a cab, worked in construction, and was a roustabout in the oilfield. A baseball fan to his dying day, he pitched and caught in high school, college, and city leagues, and continued to play both baseball and softball for a total 45 seasons.

Sample is married to Peggy Jo Sanford Sample, who is a water-media artist and a musician. They have three children, one of whom is deceased.

“Tex” is his real name, not a nickname. His father named him after Texanna Gillham, an African-American woman who lived near Shelbyville, Texas.

Published Books

Blue Collar Ministry: Facing Economic and Social Realities of Working People, Judson Press, 1984.

U. S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches: A Key to Reaching People in the 90s, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990.

Hard Living People and Mainstream Christians, Abingdon Press, 1993.

Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Ramus, and Minnie Pearl,

Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994.

White Soul: Country Music, the Church and Working Americans, Abingdon Press, 1996.

The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World: Electronic Culture and the Gathered People of God, Abingdon Press, 1998.

The Loyal Opposition: Struggling with the Church on Homosexuality, edited with Amy Delong, Abingdon Press, 2000.

Powerful Persuasion: Multimedia Witness in Christian Worship, Abingdon Press, 2005.

Blue Collar Resistance and of the Politics of Jesus: Doing Ministry with Working Class Whites, Abingdon Press, 2006.

Earthy Mysticism: Spirituality for Unspiritual People, Abingdon Press, 2008.

The Future of John Wesley’s Theology: Back to the Future with the Apostle Paul, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2012.

Human Nature, Interest, and Power: A Critique of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Social Thought, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013.

A Christian Justice for the Common Good, Abingdon Press, 2016.