Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest
James S. Currie, Executive Secretary
He turned 81 years old this year and he still teaches at Texas State University as professor of Mexican cultural history. In recent years he has published one mystery novel and has written two more. In addition, he serves as pastor of one of the oldest Mexican-American Presbyterian churches in the state – Memorial Presbyterian Church in San Marcos, Texas (some claim that it is THE oldest). Mike Miller has a distinguished ministry in the Presbyterian Church, most notably, but certainly not limited to being campus minister at Texas A & M University in College Station for 14 years. While I’ll come back to that, there are other aspects to his ministry that may go unnoticed.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, because his father was a professional golfer, Mike attended ten elementary schools before his family finally settled in Tyler, Texas (he spent one full year at an elementary school in El Paso). He earned four academic degrees – Baylor University (B.A.), the University of Texas at Austin (M.A.), Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Texas A & M University (Ph.D.).
In 1970 he was ordained at Central Presbyterian Church in Waco. His first call was to the Presbyterian church in Alpine, Texas where he stayed for three years. Because he wanted visitation hours at the local jail posted so he could meet with some immigrants who were incarcerated there, he incurred the wrath of the local sheriff. Not only did Mike and his wife receive death threats, but he himself was jailed for a couple of days.
After a brief stint in Fulton, Missouri, Mike was called to start a campus ministry program at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas. While creating an effective program there, he also taught both at Odessa College and the University of Texas-Permian Basin. So effective was that ministry that Mike was then called to serve as the director of the United campus ministry at Texas A&M where he stayed for 14 years (1979-1993).
When he left A&M in 1993 to teach at Austin Seminary as the Associate Synod Executive for Higher Education, tributes from students and former students were both many and moving. Such descriptions abound such as “creative”, “wise and kind”, “theological integrity”, “letting students lead”, “free peanut butter suppers”, “welcoming”, “encouraging”, “Friday night Bible studies”, “retreats”, “being there in good times and hard times”, “uncommon grace, love, and acceptance”, “mission trips to Mexico”,“ecumenical outreach”.
While Mike’s passionate commitment to the students encompassed far more than strategies to get them there, Dan Milford also recalls that two of the subtle (or not so subtle) “keys” to that campus ministry were (1) serve food and they will come, and (2) get the girls and the guys will follow. According to Mike, Bruce Fisher, pastor at the A&M Presbyterian Church (later part of a merger that became Covenant Presbyterian Church), graciously made the education wing of that church available to the campus ministry program, another key to that ministry’s effectiveness.
Out of this ministry at A&M came many who themselves entered ordained ministry, many of whom are in the Presbyterian Church – Dan Milford, Doug Dalglish, Ann Marie Quigley-Swanson, to name only three.
Mike served as Presbyterian campus minister at Texas State University in San Marcos from 2012-2018 and continues as a faculty member today. In 1998 his doctoral dissertation was published under the title Red, White, and Green: The Maturing of Mexicanidad, 1940-1946. In 2018 at the annual meeting of the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest he delivered a paper on the life and ministry of Melinda Rankin, a 19th century Presbyterian missionary from New Hampshire who lived and worked in Mexico. She also established the first bilingual school in Texas, the Rio Grande Female Institute.
Mike’s wife, Ellen, died in 2023. They were married for 57 years. They have two children and three grandchildren.
Acts 5:14-15 reads: “Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.” In all our lives there are many who have cast long shadows over us and contributed to who we are. The more we think about it, the longer the list becomes. But surely the shadow cast by the ministry Mike Miller is long indeed – whether in trying to visit immigrants in a jail in Alpine, Texas or teaching and mentoring students in Odessa, College Station, and San Marcos or in preaching and pastoring at Memorial Presbyterian Church. And that ministry continues.
As we make history today, may we do so with a keen sense of gratitude for all those who have shaped and influenced us in following him whose call we all try to follow.
The Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest exists to “stimulate and encourage interest in the collection, preservation, and presentation of the Presbyterian and Reformed heritage” in the Southwest. If you are not a participating member of the Society and would like to become one, the annual dues are $20 per individual and $25 per couple. Annual institutional and church membership dues are $100. Checks may be made out to PHSSW and sent to:
PHSSW – 5525 Traviston Ct., Austin, TX 78738.
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