Teena Myers

Sonya McLean, Director of Women’s Ministry Unlimited, invited me to write about her fall conference speaker, Cissy Padgett, missionary and recording artist. Cissy welcomed me into her hotel room and taught me a new word derived from music and missionary. “My husband and I are ‘musicionaries’…musical missionaries, but he doesn’t travel with me often. He has to work to support my habit.” Cissy laughed. “Ministry,” she explained. “Few people will take a gospel tract from me, but rarely does someone turn down a free CD.”

Cissy’s father served as an Assemblies of God pastor until marital infidelity destroyed his ministry and marriage. When Cissy was eleven years old, her mother packed their belongings. They went to Florida and never returned.

“I walked away from my faith when I entered high school, but Mother didn’t give us an option about attending church. I made her life a misery,” said Cissy. “Through all the trouble my mother endured, she retained her faith in God. I heard more than one person say, ‘Betty, how can you hang onto the Lord? You were married to a minister and now you are raising your girls alone.’ I’ll never forget how my mother answered, ‘God is all I have to hold onto.’”

After Cissy married her high school sweetheart, she wanted to return to church, but her husband wasn’t interested. Bill was raised as a Baptist, so Cissy joined a Southern Baptist church hoping he would follow. He didn’t, but he never prevented Cissy from attending.

“The Baptist church was wonderful. I actively participated in its ministries, but my heart wasn’t right with God. My attempt to fill a void with religious activities didn’t work. I went to the altar so often one of the altar workers told me I must be saved or I wouldn’t be so concerned about my salvation. I was looking for a feeling, an emotion, something I could point to as evidence of my salvation.”

One night, Cissy dreamed Jesus had come to catch his church away to heaven and she was left behind. She attempted to follow using her arms as wings but tired easily and kept falling to the earth. Finally, she fell from the sky into a standing dead tree. “I’ve got you now,” the devil laughed and pulled her out of the tree. Terrified, Cissy awoke and a line from an old hymn came to mind: “There’s room at the Cross for you. Though millions have come, there’s still room for one. There’s room at the cross for you.”

“That is when I knew that the Lord was still calling me and there was still hope for me,” said Cissy.

Cissy and her sister, Brenda, were returning from a trip to St. Petersburg when her heart pounded with anxiety. “I knew the Lord was pursuing me, and I was tired. I couldn’t run anymore.” Cissy confessed her spiritual struggle to Brenda and asked to talk to Brenda’s pastor.

Pastor Vester Raburn had known Cissy’s family for many years. He listened patiently and then put his arm around her, and they knelt in front of his couch to pray. “I didn’t feel better after we prayed, but I just knew if I went to Pastor Raburn’s church on Wednesday night I would meet God.”

Cissy walked into the church and met her grandmother at the altar. Grandma read scriptures to Cissy, assured her Jesus loved her, and prayed Cissy would release her fears. “After Grandma prayed with me I felt better. Eventually, I accepted God’s forgiveness and Jesus’ love, but for me it was a process.

“I’m a fourth-generation Christian because my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother embraced faith, making it very natural to love the Lord.”

Cissy returned to the Assemblies of God church she had abandoned and began singing gospel music with her sisters. Their trio quickly grew to twenty-two members including a live band. They traveled from church to church spreading the gospel through music. “My husband often traveled with us loading and unloading the van. I remember seeing him sitting in the services clutching the pew in front of him so hard it would shake as he struggled with conviction.”

One night, Cissy and Bill were sitting in church when her youngest daughter began to cry. Cissy took her to the nursery. A woman in the nursery shared how her husband had walked away from God. She didn’t believe he would ever come back. Cissy felt the Lord quicken her heart. “I will never say that. My husband may not get saved tonight, or next week, but I know he will come to know Jesus as his Savior.” Cissy picked up her daughter and returned to the service. Bill squeezed Cissy’s hand when the minister called people to the altar. Thinking he wanted to leave, she picked up her baby and summoned her daughters. Bill motioned for them to sit down and stepped into the aisle. Instead of leaving, he went to the altar.

“My husband was a tough ole dude but God changed that. Today he is a church board member and can’t talk about the Lord without crying.”

One summer, Cissy’s family vacationed at a campground in North Carolina. People at the campground said, “If you think this is great you should see Glacier National Park in Montana.”

The following year, they visited Glacier National Park. “When we got to Montana, there was something that said ‘home.’ We returned several years in a row, and one day I said to my husband, ‘Why don’t we live where we love and vacation to see our family.’ Bill was a native-born Floridian. He wasn’t interested in moving to Montana.”

Several years later, Cissy attended a Teen Challenge meeting. A woman said she was terrified God would call her as a missionary to Africa. Cissy sprang to her feet and said, “God will never call you anywhere he has not first placed the desire to go.” In that moment, Cissy realized God had given her the desire to move to Montana.

“I truly believe God fulfills the desires of your heart, because he gave you the desire. I thought my desire to move to Montana was selfish. It never occurred to me that the desire came from God.”

God brought Bill into agreement with Cissy’s desire at a most inopportune time. Bill announced he had resigned his job after their eldest daughter announced her engagement, and Cissy couldn’t drive due to a recent surgery. Undeterred, they loaded up the kids and the dog and headed west. The house they rented had been sold when they arrived. A one-room cabin with a five-gallon hot water tank became their home for the next seven weeks.

They settled on attending Helena First Assembly of God, where a five-dollar challenge launched Cissy into her musical missionary work. Her pastor and mentor, Ken Ross, gave everyone in the congregation $5. He instructed them to invest the money for the kingdom of God, and he would collect the earnings in sixty days.

Cissy loved the idea. Her sisters were scheduled to visit, so she used her $5 to make posters announcing a gospel music concert. The offering received at the end of the concert multiplied her $5 investment into $1,400 for missions. Invitations to sing poured in and Cissy continued giving 100 percent of profits from the concerts to missions.

“One day Pastor Ken told me I needed to make a CD. I left his office thinking he was nuts, but he kept watering that seed until it took root. I really liked music produced by Lordsong, a gospel group formed by Kim Lord and her husband, so I contacted them to request their music. Her father answered the phone. When he learned I wanted to make a CD to support missions he offered to help. He found a producer and studio I could use, but I needed to raise $10,000 within six weeks. I don’t even remember how the money was raised. God blessed me and when the deadline arrived, I had the money.”

Pastor Ken’s $5 challenge did much more than raise money for missionary work. He launched a ministry. Cissy recorded her first CD, He’s Everything, in 2004. Since the release of her debut CD, she has traveled to five countries sharing the gospel through song and recorded five more CDs: Wonder (2005), Sweeter As the Days Go By (2007), Broken and Restored (2009), By the Way of the Cross (2010), and Just Can’t Keep From Singing (2011). She has also written two children’s books, Singing with Noah and First King of Rock. God took a little and made a lot.