The Rev. France Davis celebrates 40 years of service


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SALT LAKE CITY — The congregation of Calvary Baptist Church will begin a 40-day celebration to honor Pastor France Davis Wednesday. The Rev. Davis has built bridges and relationships in our state with people of faith, with business leaders and with politicians.

He still looks back and smiles at how he even came to be at Calvary Baptist Church. The music embraces you, he said. Born in a small town in rural Georgia to parents of faith, he came west for military service and then to study the ministry. But the University of Utah called him to teach.

"I was the radical from Berkeley," Rev. Davis remembers. "That was a defining time, getting to Utah. Never heard of, never imagined that Utah would be a place that I would be, and then, once I got here, to be invited by the congregation in 1974 to become its pastor."

Eva Mae Sexton has been a member of the congregation for 70 years. She says that back in the ’70s, some ministers were hesitant, but France Davis was not.

"I could never see Reverend Davis walking up, when we were trying to get equal rights or something like that, going up and saying that he, as a minister, would have no part of it."

That's because as a young man, he marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Not only do I think about him but I am reminded that we are more close to that beloved community that he talked about than we have ever been before," he said.

The younger members of his congregation say he is the one they look to … he leads by example. He helps people whether he knows them or not.

"Everybody has worth and value, nobody is nobody, everybody is somebody," he says.

Gabriel Dorado and his wife have been at Calvary Baptist for seven years, now serving as a deacon and deaconess because the Rev. Davis inspires them. "The way he treats people, the way he talks to people, the way he preaches the gospel," Dorado said.


Everybody has worth and value, nobody is nobody, everybody is somebody.

–Reverend France Davis


Joei Robertson grew up at Calvary Baptist Church. "If you can't fly, then run, if you can't run, then walk, if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, keep moving forward. And I always keep that in my mind as something he's always said to me."

The young people are his greatest concern. He sponsors scholarships and educational programs, but drugs and bullying have taken their toll. "Over the last two years, for example, I've had more suicides of young people than I've had in the 40 years before that. And so, we're trying to help them know that life is worth living." He will not give up, he says, and those who know him say that the boy from Georgia has grown in wisdom and left his mark here.

Ronald Coleman, who has been a friend and neighbor for 30 years, says the Rev. Davis has been "an amazing contributor to the cultural and religious life of the state of Utah. So I see him as a special gift to the state of Utah and its people."

The Rev. Davis has taught at the University of Utah for 42 years but will be retiring this year.

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