Even though he preaches and leads Sunday morning worship at Bethel Christian Center, Delbert Hawpe’s most noticeable messages can be found outside the church at 2710 S. Cherokee Road.

There, passers-by can find pithy sayings and paraphrased Bible verses on the church sign.

Hawpe, 61, said he changes the sign’s two messages — one on each side — each week.

“If you don’t change them, people don’t notice them,” he said. “A lot more people read that sign than come to our church. That’s what I want, to reach the unchurched. The messages are not for people in our church.”

Hawpe said he’s been putting up the interchangeable messages since becoming the nondenominational Full Gospel church’s pastor 15 years ago.

But he hasn’t always been one to pass on such messages.

“If I had any aspirations as a kid, it certainly wasn’t ministry,” I just wanted to be in construction work. I was in construction in Lawton and when I got out of the Army.

Growing up in a different era

Delbert Hawpe grew up not far from Lawton, near Elgin.

“It was great at the time; that was all I knew,” he said. “Dad was a farmer/rancher and he was also foreman for Comanche County.”

He recalled what he said was a great childhood.

“We knew everyone in town, out in the country as well,” he said. “We never had to lock the door or ask permission to hunt and fish on someone’s land. I thought the whole world was like that until I got grown.”

The youngest of five children, Hawpe recalled raising cotton on the 160-acre farm.

“We raised cotton and head feed,” he said. “Dad would pull us all out of school in late October to pull bolls of cotton.”