Proudly Presenting Robert I Williams
Retired Church of God Pastor
1959 WPU Graduate
Robert I. Williams studied music at Pacific Bible College (renamed Warner Pacific College in 1958) from 1956 to 1959. From there he enrolled and graduated from Northwest Schools in radio and TV Broadcasting. In Bend, Oregon, he worked in radio broadcasting, and served as a chaplain’s assistant in the United States Army, Germany from 1961-63 under the tutelage of Chaplain Harold D. Summers, former Alumni Director of Pacific Bible College. Following his military service, he met and married Carolyn Selby.
In 1964, he was called to the Bell Gardens Church of God in Southern California to become the Minister of Music and Youth. In 1968, he went back to college to complete his studies at Azusa Pacific College (University). In January 1970, during a nationwide revival, he felt God’s call to pastoral ministry.
Over the years, he has served as lead pastor in Yucaipa, California, Nampa, Idaho, Concord, North Carolina, Toppenish, Washington, Bandon, Oregon and Scio, Oregon. In addition to his years in Bell Gardens, he has served on pastoral staffs in Garden Grove, and San Dimas, California, Winchester, Kentucky and Clarkston, Washington.
Reconciliation has been a major part of Bob’s ministry. He chaired the Credentials and Advisory Committee in the Inland Empire District of Eastern Washington, Oregon, and Northern Idaho. In that role, he helped heal many fractured relationships between pastors and congregations, while giving God all of the credit.
Bob has also spent much of his life serving under-resourced people, through prison ministry, chaplaincy work, and outreach to the elderly. From 1978 to 1984, he pastored the First Church of God in Toppenish, Washington, an interracial mission church. Bob also specialized in evangelism, directing youth conferences, leading music and worship, and producing commercial radio broadcasts. He later served on the National Curriculum Committee for the Churches of God. He is best known for his piano artistry having played for camp meetings, conventions.
Bob has turned his own hardship into opportunities to bless others. He experienced partial hearing loss while in the Army. As he grew older, Bob eventually experienced complete deafness, requiring bilateral cochlear implants. Since then, he has helped many organizations, including Warner Pacific University, Corvallis High School, and Samaritan Medical Services, better serve the needs of people with hearing loss.
In the early twenty-first century, Bob served as the Oregon State Chapter Coordinator for the Hearing Loss Association of America. In 2006 he founded the Linn/Benton Chapter of Hearing Loss Association and served as its president over a period of twelve years. He remains active as a Bible teacher, pianist, preacher, and is the author of his first and only novel, “The Parables and Parables of Pastor Preechet.”
Bob is married to his wife, Carolyn, and they have three children, Deborah Landers, Kimberly Williams, and Teresa Jackson.
Bob’s family legacy at Warner Pacific includes daughters Deborah ’88 and Kimberly ’88; son-in-law Roger Landers ’91; brother Roy Williams ’66; sister Betty Jo Jacobson ’75; nephews Richard Williams ’87 and Daniel Williams ’04; and granddaughter Kaleigh Mason Smith ‘13.