Bob Warren is remembered across the region not only for his career as a professional basketball player after graduating from South Marshall High School and going on to Vanderbilt but also his Christian ministry organization, The Hill, located in Hardin. Marshall Countian Jhonda Johnston's new book The Argument tells Warren's personal story, collected before his passing last year. On Sounds Good, Kate Lochte meets Johnston with The Hill administrator Brent Armstrong.
Bob Warren passed away on August 25, 2014 but his legacy lives on through his professional basketball player (forward in Vanderbilt and numerous teams with the ABA) and as founder of the Christian ministry organization The Hill B.A.S.I.C. Training, which holds Bible studies, retreats, conferences and camps.
In the late 1970s, after eight years playing professional basketball, Warren returned to Hardin and bought a farm where he started hosting bible studies with college students. he was active in discipling men and was "a great example of allowing Jesus to live through an individual" says The Hill administrator Brent Armstrong, crediting the lives Warren touched through his ministry.
Armstrong says he met Warren at Murray State in 1978. He then moved away, married and had kids and got a job in the Postal Service. He transferred back to Murray in 1992 and eventually moved to Hardin in 1993 and retired in 2012. He was asked by Warren to work as an administrator in the ministry.
Growing up in Hardin, for Johnda Johnston, Bob Warren was a hero. As a basketball player, he was a hometown hero in her youth. She also shared a common interest in going to Vanderbilt. Her book got started when she attended a retreat on The Hill and heart Warren speak on Foreknowledge and Predestination, one of his books. She had edited four of his books and most of what he'd written over his career, but this particular speech featured many personal stories about how he'd gotten to his present place in life. She wanted to write this part of his story down.
One of the takeaways from this book is the concept of "reasoning with God" Johnston says, and she felt after meeting with Warren that she got to understand what he meant by that. The idea was, she says, that God is approachable and that one shouldn't be scared or merely listen without thinking for oneself. She says it's important to read and establish your own thoughts, to reason with God as if you'd reason with someone at work.
