Pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Myrtle Beach retires Sunday

Need knows Bobby Wilkes.

People who know the senior minister at First Presbyterian Church said when Wilkes sees need, he fills it.

Sunday, on Christmas morning, he will preach his last sermon as pastor, after spending the last 28 years of his calling at the Myrtle Beach sanctuary.

His absence will not be overlooked.

“He is a godly man who will be missed,” said Myrtle Beach City Councilman Wayne Gray, who joined the church in 1984. “He served the Lord well.”

Folks have fought back tears, knowing this day was coming, because Wilkes is a man who puts his faith into action.

“He is the epitome of love,” said Myrtle Beach City Councilwoman Susan Grissom Means, a member of First Presbyterian since she was 9.

He is a preacher man who doesn’t mind putting his hands to task and his heart on his sleeve.

Wilkes wants people to know he cares, and they definitely know he does.

“Everybody likes him,” said Louis Heyward, a sexton at First Presbyterian. “Bobby is real nice. When he came to this church, God came with him.”

The sermon he will preach today is titled “God with us: Light in darkness, strength in weakness.”

Head interim pastor Lewis Johnson will take Wilkes’s helm until a new pastor is chosen.

Meanwhile, congregants and employees are praising Wilkes as a man who does his best to imitate Jesus.

They believe he has been a good shepherd since he came into most of their lives in 1983, when he began his service as a pastor at First Presbyterian.

Marian Shelton first met him at 13 when he arrived at Georgetown Presbyterian Church.

An Orangeburg native, Wilkes was fresh from serving as pastor at Denmark Presbyterian Church. He stayed there for three years before moving on to Georgetown, where he would serve for 10 years.

“We all thought he was cute,” said Shelton, of meeting Wilkes as a teenager. “Everybody still does. He is a Southern gentleman. He charms everybody.”

Shelton, director of children’s ministries at First Presbyterian, said Wilkes has been a steadfast pastor and friend through major highs and lows in her life.

“From the time I was a teenager, he has been there,” Shelton said. “Through the loss of my father and brother to cancer and my divorce and the shattered dreams that come with the dissolution of a marriage to me having my child, Bobby has walked beside me and had words to fit for every occasion and assured me wherever I was God was with me.”

In the beginning, Wilkes didn’t know he would become a preacher.

“I grew up in a little Presbyterian church in Orangeburg,” Wilkes said. “One of the catechism questions was, ‘What is your purpose in life?’ I felt God would want me to do something dealing with people, maybe teach or coach, maybe go to medical school or law school.”

His life’s purpose became clearer while attending Erskine College, where he was on a full basketball scholarship. He was a point guard, and Wilkes began realizing God was pointing him to travel down a seminary road, which he did.

Once he finished seminary and began serving as a minister, he came to have a better understanding of himself and what he needed to do as a servant.

“As I began to read and to understand the Bible, it occurred to me that when we see a need in a person’s life or if we see a need in the community, it is a call from God for us to address that need,” Wilkes said. “We don’t need not to try and do something because that is to sort of turn away from what God wants us to be doing – to minister, take care and respond to the person right in front of us.”

People who know him said Wilkes doesn’t turn his back on you, but he looks you dead in the eyes and asks what is it you need.

“A lot of people see and don’t see,” said Heyward, a sexton at the church for 38 years. “But Bobby can see. He doesn’t walk away when he sees need. He sees it. He helps.”

Their friend and pastor – on and off the court of life – is about to exit their coliseum.

However, Wilkes is still hankering to shoot some hoops for God.

“I am going to retire from one job and find some other good things to do,” he said.

“I’m 67 now, and I’ve got six little grandchildren. I am still looking forward to being a member of this community, a granddaddy and a good citizen who finds good places to be of service.”