Police chief comfortable in pulpit

Williamston police chief Tony Taylor warned the congregation about his "in your face" preaching style and then launched into a sermon about how it was God's will that he become Anderson County's first black police chief.

As he paced in front of the altar at Thompson Centennial United Methodist Church, Taylor said many people do not know that he is an ordained minister. He joked that the latter qualification, combined with his day job, allows him a certain talent.

"I can beat you up and cuff you and pray for you all at the same time," he said.

His humor punctuated a tough-love sermon that focused on success: its definition, how to attain it. And that to really seek it, one must not get distracted by it.

Taylor spoke at the Anderson church's annual Black History Month program and gave worshippers a how-to lesson in achieving their destiny.

"How many of you know you weren't born just to breathe oxygen and eat all the food on the earth but for a God-given purpose?" he asked.

The crowd of parishioners responded to Taylor with claps, shouts and hallelujahs, making his message more like a conversation than preaching.

"There are so many misnomers about what success is," he said, rattling off a list of things that masquerade as the good life such as fast cars, fancy clothing and big houses.

As an example, he cited King Solomon of the Old Testament who had a palace of treasure.

"But in the end he said vanity, vanity all is vanity," Taylor said.

Becoming the first black police chief in the county was not on his agenda, he assured his audience. It was on God's calendar.

"Success is what God has given to you, about what is in your heart," Taylor said.

As a 30-year veteran of law enforcement, Taylor has worked suicide cases where men and women who seemed to have had it all decided that everything was not enough.

The one thing many of them lacked, he said, was a relationship with God.

He said his request to be chief was declined five years ago and that he was told a black man would likely never get the position.

He could have whined that he didn't get the job because he was black, Taylor said, but he consoled himself knowing that if it was meant to be then God would make it happen.

On Jan. 7, it did. He was sworn in 32 years after beginning his first job in Williamston, as a dispatcher for the police department in 1981.

He offered a checklist for true success that included resisting society's attempts to derail you from God and realizing that success is not a thing but was once a person, Jesus Christ.

He advised people to stop trying to find success, "because in reality you already have it as a born-again believer."

One of the best ways to follow a divine compass, he added, is to surround yourself with Godly people.

Elaine Mattison, minister of music at the church, said Taylor's message was what people living hurried lives in 2013 need to hear.

Celebrating black history is especially important to older people like Mary Aiken, she said, because names such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., whom Taylor mentioned, are part of a rich history that helped shape them.

"I enjoyed every bit of it because he told the truth," said Aiken, a longtime attendee of the church.

The Claflin University choir from Orangeburg joined Taylor for the service. Choir director Isaiah McGee grew up in Anderson.

McGee credited the community that he said raised him for the discipline and the importance of having a spiritual life.

"It takes more than one person or an institution to raise a child," he said.

The Claflin choir moved to the front of the church to close the service with two songs. One was a cappella, one accompanied by piano. The members swayed in their maroon robes as worshippers tapped their feet on the hardwood floors.

Passers-by on sidewalks outside the church could surely hear the praises.

Somehow, babies slept through the gleeful proclamations and hearts seemed calm.