Bro. Carroll Wayne "C.W." Lewis (93) of Effingham

Pastor Carroll Wayne (C. W.) Lewis, 93, of Effingham, IL, passed away on Friday, December 29, 2023 at StoneBridge Memory Care.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, January 4, 2024 at the United Methodist Church in Watson, with burial in Shouse Chapel Cemetery in rural Bible Grove. Visitation will be held from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Wednesday at the church and for one hour prior to the funeral service on Thursday. Arrangements are in the care of Bauer Funeral Home in Effingham.

C. W. was born to Zula (Wilkins) and Curtis Lewis on the family farm outside Ingraham, IL, on May 16, 1930. He attended the two-room elementary school in Ingraham and graduated from Clay City High School in 1947. It was at Clay City High School that he met his sweetheart, Elinor Heninger, and they were married on June 20, 1948, at the Clay City Methodist Church. This year they celebrated 75 years of marriage.

C. W. was called into the ministry as a young person, and he began pastoring Methodist churches in central Illinois just after he and Elinor were married. He graduated from Greenville College in 1954, then earned his MDiv from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta in 1960. After his ordination as a Methodist Elder in the Central Illinois Conference, he was appointed as pastor in Mt. Auburn, IL, but shortly afterward, joined the Congregational Christian denomination and was called as the pastor of a Christian Church in Chesapeake, VA. Over his 44 years of full-time ministry, he pastored Methodist and Congregational Christian and United Church of Christ churches in Illinois, Alabama, Virginia, Michigan, California, and North Carolina, retiring from the United Church of Atwood in Atwood, Illinois, in 1992. He and Elinor moved to Effingham, and the week after he retired, the District Superintendent of the Kaskaskia River District of the United Methodist Church asked if he would serve a 4-point charge, and he pastored there for 7 years.  Over the next 20 years, he served as interim/supply/visitation pastor at Christian, Presbyterian, Lutheran ECLA, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Churches in and around Effingham. Wherever he served, he was deeply loved and appreciated as a gifted and gracious preacher and pastor. After suffering a stroke and entering the difficult road of Alzheimer’s in 2019, he reluctantly “hung up his robe” as a minister of the gospel at 88 years of age, but he never lost his fervent love for his precious Savior Jesus Christ, and he remained a tremendous prayer warrior and an outstanding bass singer of the old hymns of the faith to the end.

C. W. enjoyed watching college basketball on TV, raising vegetables and flowers, reading mysteries, playing the guitar, cooking chili, singing and listening to Southern Gospel music, and visiting with friends and strangers.

He was preceded in death by his parents; sisters Ina (Johnnie) Brant, Velma (Ernie Lebel and Lynn) Grady, Lois (Dale) Galloway; and brother Elvin (Merle) Lewis.

He is survived by his wife Elinor; daughters Nancy Peebles of Centralia, IL, and Kathy Lewis, Effingham; grandson Lewis Peebles of Tacoma, Washington and granddaughter Suzanne Peebles of Centralia.

“Well done, Carroll Wayne Lewis, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”