The Rev. James Bush jumps out of airplanes for fun.

“I went skydiving a couple of years ago, because I needed a challenge. It was great,” says Bush, 37, the new senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, 4300 W. Sixth St.

“It’s also a good sermon illustration. You put your feet out of the plane, go all the way out and look up. In looking up, you’re letting go.”

Bush viewed that eye-opening, high-flying experience as a metaphor for the task he faces as pastor.

“It’s helping people get to the point where they’re looking up, helping them to find the right posture for life,” he says. “In skydiving, it’s ‘look up and let go.’ I don’t think there’s a more positive message than trusting in Christ and having the abundant life he promised.”

Bush’s first worship service as First Southern Baptist’s senior pastor was Jan. 5.

He filled the pulpit vacated by the Rev. Tom Stallworth, who ministered at the Lawrence church for 8 1/2 years before leaving in February 2001 to accept a position as senior pastor of a Southern Baptist congregation in Florida.

The Rev. Tony Preston, a professor at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., served as interim pastor of First Southern Baptist until a permanent replacement for Stallworth could be found.

Before coming to Lawrence, Bush was senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Pinckneyville, a small town in southern Illinois. He served there about four and a half years, from 1998 through December 2002.

Prior to leading the church in Illinois, Bush served as pastor of Southern Baptist congregations in Florida, West Virginia and Tennessee.

Bush is a 1992 graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He was ordained that same year, at the age of 26, and has been in full-time ministry ever since.

A native of Clinton, N.J., Bush graduated in 1987 from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in speech.

“I went to college intending on