There’s an often used analogy about a person being like an onion – where once you start peeling, you uncover many layers.
NCS East member, Miller Allen, is one of those persons.
There’s a lot to know about Allen. For starters, he is an author with one book completed and has a couple more in the works. His writing started with poetry.
“My first poem, My First Choice Dream, was published in 1973. I wrote it after Art Linkletter’s daughter committed suicide. I printed up copies of the poem and would leave them in restaurants and with folks as my wife and I traveled around. The Winston-Salem Chronicle printed it in their very first edition and the black YMCA on Patterson Avenue had a copy,” shared Allen.
Allen went on to write 40 poems that year while working as a salesperson for Duke Power and raising his family. He has continued to write for years since about things that come to him about life – bits of wisdom he can share to help others with their own lives.
But that’s only one layer.
Allen’s desire to reach out and help others has manifested itself in many other ways. And because he has allowed God to lead him, he’s had many “God moments” throughout his 80 years. One that has stuck with him relates to a prayer council that he felt led to start at work.
“When I went to my boss about it, he was initially hesitant but eventually agreed to let me start it. In our small group, one supervisor shared that she had an employee with cancer that needed our prayers. While the cancer got worse – to the point that the employee was on life support – God told me not to give up. Our group kept praying, and the employee recovered and came back to work for nine years. It was truly a miracle – and showed us how prayer could be so powerful,” said Allen.
Another “layer” that Allen said may surprise many is that he has an outreach ministry called Gospel on Wheels. In 2002, Allen came up with the program where he could help others get on the right path. Allen loved talking to people and wanted an outreach ministry where they could pick up folks, have them be mentored and taught about real life…and get connected to Christ.
Currently, Allen’s outreach ministry is looking for funding for his bus and needs a director to handle the management aspects.
“When I retired, I had other opportunities that would have been very financially lucrative. But that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to give back to my community,” shared Allen.
He knows that eventually, God will provide what is needed to get his ministry off the ground. In the meantime, he stays busy with mentoring children, community clean-up, volunteering through his church…and NCS East.
Allen heard about NCS from one friend, but was too busy to pay much attention. Then he heard about it again from Guy Morgan, a fellow church member. So he decided to give a try. After coming to the first meeting, he was hooked.
“I think if you come one time, you’ll see how Christianity is supposed to work in the world – through God’s children who have had that experience with Christ and extend it to others. They encourage us with their testimony to have a zeal to do greater work for Christ.”
Allen says he is sharpened by the mission of NCS.
“My job is to pass on to others some of the things that I have done and continue to do until I die. I want to leave a legacy – make the place better than when I got there.”