Some names are chosen because they sound good.
This one means something to me.
When I was in high school, I started working for Dennis Kelly at The Bible House in Searcy, Arkansas. I stayed connected to that place for about six years — from my senior year of high school through the summer after my senior year of college. When I went away to school, I came back on holidays and breaks.
It was more than a job.
It was one of the places where God quietly shaped me.
My first memory of Dennis was in the old Bible House building, surrounded by Kingsley imprinting machines and type stacked almost floor to ceiling. That room was full of tools, stories, orders, names, churches, and years of faithful work.
Dennis knew how to run a business, but he never made decisions based on money alone. He thought about people. He thought about churches. He thought about ministry.
That made an impression on me.
I watched him serve pastors, Sunday School teachers, churches, families, and customers with patience and care. He taught me that good business is not just about having something to sell. It is about knowing what people need, listening carefully, solving real problems, and building trust over time.
Dennis understood something that feels rare now: customers are not transactions. They are people.
And Dennis was lovable. He was a big teddy bear of a man — kind, funny, steady, and easy to love. But underneath that warmth was an extraordinary mind. He was a savant with details, machines, customer needs, church supplies, and practical problem-solving. I always thought he had a genius-level mind. He could see how things worked, what people needed, and how to connect the dots in a way most people simply could not.
He also taught me how to be efficient. Dennis had a way of doing things that made sense — not fancy, not overcomplicated, just practical. I think he would probably get a kick out of the fact that I used ChatGPT to help me gather these memories, organize them, and put words to this story. He might have raised an eyebrow at the technology, taken another drink of Diet Mountain Dew, and then said something like, “Well, if it helps you serve people better, use it.”
Dennis and June built that store together, starting in the early 1980s. For thirty years they ran it as a true mom-and-pop shop, side by side. Then a fire took nearly everything — the building, the inventory, decades of work. But it couldn't touch what mattered most: their relationship with God, their marriage, and the trust they'd built with their customers.
I was there for the fire.
I saw what it meant to lose something, then get back up and rebuild it from the ground up. I helped Dennis refurbish old imprinting machines. I worked in the store. I learned the different needs of customers. I worked at his home off Skyline Drive in Searcy, mowing his backyard and cleaning his basement on the side.
One hot Arkansas summer, I saved up money from that work for an engagement ring.
Looking back now, I can see how God used those years to prepare me for ministry. I did not know it all at the time, but I was learning how to care for people, how to listen, how to pay attention to details, and how to see the person behind the request.
Dennis was always good to me.
He told stories about his hometown of Ludington, Michigan, and eating cherries there. He told me how he met his wife, June, while he worked the cafeteria check-in line at Harding University. He drank Diet Mountain Dew like it was water. And over and over, he lived out the verse he loved:
“Let everything you do be done in love.”
That was Dennis.
Whether he was helping a customer, rebuilding after a fire, working on a machine, telling a story, or giving a young man a chance to work and learn, he carried a kindness and steadiness that stayed with me.
Years later, when I started building what would become Bible House Goods, I realized how much of that old Bible House spirit was still in me.
I wanted to build something rooted in Scripture.
Something useful for families, churches, teachers, pastors, and everyday believers.
Something simple, practical, and beautiful.
Something that helped people bring the Bible into the home, the classroom, the church, and ordinary life.
I am also grateful that the work connected to The Bible House continues today. The Bible House was purchased by Glen and Wanda Knabe in 2019, and their family-owned operation now serves churches and customers through Bible House Supply / The Bible Nook in Searcy. You can find their current work at BibleHouseSupply.com.
Bible House Goods is not a replacement for that work, nor is it trying to claim what Glen and Wanda continue to steward. It is my own small tribute to a man, a place, and a season of life where I learned that faithful work matters.
I learned that details matter.
I learned that people matter.
I learned that efficiency matters too — not so we can rush past people, but so we have more time and energy to serve them well.
I learned that ministry can happen through a Bible, a conversation, an order form, an imprinting machine, a shipping box, a backyard mower, or a basement that needs cleaning.
And I learned that whatever we build, sell, teach, print, ship, or create — it ought to be done in love.
That is the heart behind Bible House Goods.