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The good book and a right hook
By TIM GRANT, Times Staff Writer ODESSA -- Scott Collins is a minister who does not always turn the other cheek. As pastor of Northwest Community Church on Hutchison Road, the Rev. Collins gets his inspiration from the Bible. But he also has learned a thing or two from the school of hard knocks. "In this day and age, everybody should know how to defend themselves," Collins said. "There are some crazy people out there." Collins, 38, won the light-heavyweight division in the Toughman Contest Aug. 22 and Aug. 23 at the Ice Palace. One of the four fistfights he won lasted only 6 seconds. Collins knocked that opponent to the mat with only one punch, he said. Now he's headed to the regional Toughman Contest on Feb. 2 in Indiana. The winner there will go to Las Vegas and compete for a $50,000 grand prize. "I've got everything I need, but it would be nice to have $50,000," said Collins, who preached the following Sunday sporting black eyes. "I could pay some bills and help people out." The Toughman Contest invites ordinary men and women to fight in a boxing ring, wearing headgear and 16-ounce boxing gloves. As Collins weighed in, members of the congregation prayed for their pastor's safety, said Assistant Pastor Frank Kearns. "We didn't know he was going to win," Kearns said. "We just didn't want him to get hurt." Collins said he will train for the regional Toughman Contest with Clearwater resident Tony Tucker, a seasoned boxer who fought 12 rounds with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 1987. A resident of the Lake Magdalene area, Collins is divorced with three children. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he has lived in Tampa since age 2. He grew up in a family that did not attend church, and he earned a reputation for being in and out of trouble. He said it started when he was arrested for drunken driving at age 14. He had more run-ins with the law for drugs and fighting. "I'd go into bars and would end up in a fight," he said. "I always had an attitude then." Things changed when Collins finally accepted a friend's invitation to go to church. Collins, then 21, agreed only if the friend promised not to invite him again. Feeling uneasy and skeptical, Collins found a seat on the back row. But he was moved by the story of Jesus Christ. During the sermon, Collins said the preacher made a statement that changed his life. "He said Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord," Collins said. "I thought about it and asked myself, would someone go to the point of being tortured, humiliated and crucified just to prove their lies are real?" Collins became a Christian that day. The transformation in him was so dramatic that his mother, father, sister and several close friends became Christians, too. After graduating in 1990 from Trinity Bible College in New Port Richey, he was pastor of a small congregation in Seffner. He started a nondenominational church in 1993 called Sunlife Fellowship with about 60 members, who met at the Belle Witter Elementary School auditorium. A year later, his church merged with the existing Northwest Community Church, whose pastor had resigned. The church, which pays Collins a salary, has 175 members. Northwest Community, at 14913 Hutchison Road, held services at various movie theaters in Carrollwood until it could build a sanctuary. "We built it from the ground up," said Collins, who was the general contractor. "Which is really a great accomplishment when everybody has jobs." Even after Collins became a pastor, he said, he once had to defend himself. But in doing so, he was able to minister to a man and help change his life. About seven years ago, Collins said, a suicidal woman called him in the middle of the night needing help. He asked another church member to go with him to meet her at a convenience store in front of the Plantation of Carrollwood subdivision. The woman didn't show up, and as Collins and the church member were leaving, a group of men who were drinking began to taunt them. One of the men attacked Collins, and Collins fought back. "I ended up beating the tar out of this guy," Collins said. "Not bad. Just enough to teach him a lesson. I was really disturbed after that because I'm a preacher. I should have witnessed to him." As fate would have it, Collins said he bumped into the same man at a Village Inn restaurant days after the fight. Collins prayed with him, and the man became a member of his church. "He thanked me for pounding him," Collins said. "He said it was a good lesson for him because I was smaller than him and he underestimated me. He knew I could have killed him and that was a turning point in his life." -- Tim Grant can be reached at 269-5311 or at grant@sptimes.com.
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From today's Pasco Times Letters Jan Glidewell |
