Before Dr. James Lee Collins Jr. would agree to marry Will and Anne Katz of Atlanta, he sat them down for some premarital talks to ensure they understood what they were getting into.
The former senior pastor at Atlanta’s Peachtree Christian Church believed in helping couples to plan the marriage and not just the wedding.
He gave them personality tests and had them sign contracts on how to fight fair. Collins stressed that a godly marriage was selfless and not a 50-50 contract, and was stronger when each spouse gave 100 percent.
“That was a valuable lesson for us. It was eye-opening,” said Katz, who recently celebrated his 14th wedding anniversary with his wife. “He believed that strong marriages are the foundation of strong families, and that strong families are the foundation of a strong country. We know we are better as a couple and we have a stronger marriage because of what Dr. Collins taught us.”
During his 50-year ministry career, Collins performed more than 2,300 weddings, always starting with his famous counseling sessions.
He also will be remembered for his leadership in opening child care centers and a hospice care facility as well as his individual outreach to the sick and to bereaved families, said the Rev. Neal Ponder, retired associate minister of Peachtree Christian Church.
“Jim gave a personal touch,” said Ponder, who met Collins when they were students at Emory’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. “He had that pastoral heart. He was just a loving person, and people wanted to be a part of his ministry.”
Collins of Young Harris, Ga., died May 3 of blood and skin cancer. He was 77. Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. May 10 at Peachtree Christian Church and at 2 p.m. May 12 at Sharp Memorial United Methodist Church in Young Harris.
Born on Jan. 30, 1938, Collins was the second of three children. He grew up in East Point, where he was active in the youth ministry at East Point Christian Church and First Christian Church in Atlanta. His father, a World War II veteran, was a police officer who encouraged fitness and had him do push-ups daily. His mother – the church organist – taught piano and organ lessons.
As a teenager, he worked as a lifeguard and was cadet colonel of his ROTC battalion at Russell High School where he graduated first in the class of 1956. He became an Eagle Scout in 1952 and always credited the Boy Scouts and church youth activities for teaching him leadership skills, said his wife Sandra Bacon Collins of Young Harris.
“He was taught responsibility and the importance of being prepared,” she said. “When we traveled with a group, he always carried a backpack and he had almost anything anyone would need, whether it was a rubber band or an extra belt. He always carried a pocket knife.”
At first, Collins thought about becoming a doctor. But after receiving a biology degree from Emory University, he decided his heart wasn’t in it. So he earned a divinity degree from Candler School of Theology and got his first job as a pastor in Loganville.
He later completed a two-year course in clinical pastoral education at Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta and earned his doctor of ministry degree from Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky.
While preaching at a church in Brunswick, Ga., he met schoolteacher Sandra Bacon on a blind date in 1966. They got married the following year and had two children.
“I was very impressed with him,” Sandra said. “He was in great physical shape and good looking, a red head. All his life, he encouraged his family and the couples he counseled to stay fit. Before a sermon, he would drop and do 50 push-ups.”
Before taking the helm at Peachtree Christian in 1986, Collins was senior pastor at Christian (Disciples of Christ) churches in Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas.
While in Tennessee, he befriended renowned preacher Fred Craddock while serving as pastor of Craddock’s home church in Humboldt. His members at First Christian Church in Shelbyville, Ky., included Harlan Sanders, “Colonel Sanders” of Kentucky Fried Chicken, whose funeral he preached in 1980.
Under Collins’ leadership, the churches in Humboldt and Shelbyville opened the first and second Christian Childtown day care centers. While pastor at Peachtree, he was instrumental in opening a third Christian Childtown at the church and Peachtree Christian Hospice Care in Duluth.
After 21 years as senior pastor at Peachtree Christian, he retired in 2007, and he and his wife moved to Young Harris. He continued to counsel and marry couples and wrote “Always a Wedding,” a guidebook on beginning, renewing and rescuing marriage.
Collins loved traveling and handed out crosses to everyone he met. Before he died, he gave crosses to his hospice nurses.
“He did not let his disease diminish his faith in any way,” said his daughter Leslie Collins Sainovich of Dacula. “He was a gentle, kind and humble man of God. He was totally genuine through and through.”
In addition to his wife Sandra and daughter Leslie, Collins is survived by his daughter LeAnne Sandra Collins of Ellijay, his sister Mary Helen Williams of Decatur, his brother Thomas F. Collins of Athens and two grandchildren.
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