Lanson Curtis Gilbert

Lanson Curtis Gilbert age 72 Born August 25, 1953 - went to Paradise on September 20, 2025, at 2:52 pm central time. He is survived by his two younger brothers, David Cyde Gilbert and Kent Treavis Gilbert both of Denver North Carolina.

Curtis spent 21 years in the army starting in1971… then in 1992 worked as a preacher in a small congregation in Deerfield, TN while using his GI bill to pay for a college degree in Bible. He started taking master’s degree classes at Freed Hardeman until he had used all of the GI bill he had worked so hard to earn. He preached for more than 25 years until he was forced to leave the pulpit in January 2021 after receiving a Parkinson’s diagnosis in late 2019.

As his wife I’ve heard many funeral services he preached during that 25+ years. Since we are not going to have a formal memorial service, I want to share my favorite funeral service he has used many times over the years. But since he could not write this one himself, you, the reader, are stuck with me, Sandi Lee Gilbert, his wife of 54 years, attempting to honor him with that sermon in place of the typical Obituary.

First, a few words from our children and a beloved brother in Christ:

Lanson Curtis Gilbert will always be my hero. He didn’t have an easy life and neither have I.

Everyone struggles with their own things. But my daddy has shown me how to live faithfully and to trust that all things will work together for good to them that love the Lord. I pray that I will be able to live with his legacy to help guide me home. Only by God’s Grace will I be able to navigate life now without my daddy here. Knowing that if I do and am faithful, I will be with him once again as we worship our God and our Savior Jesus Christ in eternity.

So, I thank the Lord and God the father for the gift that was my earthly father. And I thank Curtis Gilbert for being a Christian daddy to this girl, for his unwavering love, advice, and his example. I will forever love you and be grateful for you.

Your first born,

Tara Marie.

What to say about my daddy? There’s so much. I’ll try to narrow it down to a few of some of my most poignant memories.

I remember squirrel hunting in the mountains of North Carolina, fishing in several places across the country (he away baited my hook for me), camping – oh the camping we did! Lots and lots of traveling... We traveled across the country twice – once the ‘southern’ route and then the ‘northern’ route. He would always encourage us (mostly by pointing out to Johnathan) the sights to be seen while driving across country – “just look out your window!” I especially remember him finding where we would worship along the route by using the Churches of Christ directory. In Yellowstone, he approached a bison while teasing us not to be scared… then walking rapidly away when the Bison moved towards him. In California, he stood at the edge of the cliff looking out at the Pacific Ocean, jumping up and down trying to scare us (mostly mom) and then the edge gave way, and he slid down leaving behind two perfectly formed half-moon shapes from where his butt hit the edge! We laughed so hard. He loved jumping out of perfectly fine airplanes!! So much so, he did so professionally for the US Army, 82nd Airborne Division as well as recreationally on the weekends. He would allow us kids to sit on the parachute and “help” him repack it for his next jump. I remember going out to the jump zone at Ft. Bragg to watch him jump. He would wave his arms and kick his legs so we would know which one of those green men parachuting from the sky was him. He loved people. He loved to encourage people, show them God’s love and he especially loved to study Gods word with people. From an early age I remember him sitting at the table studying his bible, planning lessons for Bible classes or just doing personal study. I remember in middle school he was my Bible class teacher. I remember him using his GI Bill to pay for his college education when I was graduating high school and starting my college career. I remember him walking me down the aisle to Mark and not telling me it wasn’t too late to change my mind (He loved Mark from the first Date). I remember the look of awe on his face when he witnessed Averil’s birth, (He wasn’t allowed in the room when his own children were born). I remember him baptizing Azalee and Alicia knowing what that meant to him to be a brother in Christ with his granddaughters. I remember him riding all the roller coasters with my girls at Disney and Universal in Florida. I remember him telling me he knew from their first date that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with my mom. I remember him holding her hand in the car. I remember him bringing her a dead snake to the door and her screaming. I remember his absolute panic when mom passed out, and he thought he’d ‘lost her’. I remember rejoicing when he’d come home after a long stay in the field (building bridges just to blow them up). I remember the spankings, the talks, the hugs, the laughs, the tears, I remember when asked, “what are you going to preach about today?” His smile, then his response, “sin, I’m against it” and/or “I don’t know, but I got a whole book!” Anytime I told daddy he was looking good, he’d say, “I can’t help it, I was born this way.” There are so many I remembers’. These are just a tiny few. He is a giant among men to me, (Ten feet tall and bulletproof). IS. Not was.

Pennie

L. Curtis Gilbert, AKA Dad, Daddy, Husband, Hero, Superman, Sgt. Major, Preacher…

Holly Dunn produced a song in 1986 called “Daddy’s Hands”. I’ve never been much of a country music fan, but I have often thought about the lyrics to this song over the years and found them to be a good description of my Dad. Listen to it sometime and I expect you’ll picture him well, if you knew him at all. He was firm when he needed to be. He was gentle when needed too. No matter what, he ALWAYS loved.

I think this is what made him a good Husband. Without a doubt, my Dad loved my Mom.

I think this is what made him a good Dad. Without a doubt, he loved us kids… ALL of us. His grandkids held a large space in his heart. He loved kids in general. If there was a baby within reach, you could count on that kiddo being in my Dad’s arms or in his lap in a flash.

I think this is what made him a good Christian. He wasn’t just a preacher or a minister. He genuinely loved people. He loved people the way that Christ loves us.

I KNOW this is what made him such a good evangelist. People could feel the love of God radiating through him. I think he truly understood 1 Corinthians 13. (NKJV)

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I consider it a great honor when people tell me “You look like your Dad”. More than that, I consider it a great responsibility to follow in his footsteps as he followed Christ. 1 Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.

I am thankful for every day that our great God has blessed me to have him in my life here on this earth and I look forward to praising God together again one day in paradise. Until then, let’s all carry both his love AND Christ love on to others.

Johnathan Gray Gilbert

I was 10 years old when I was taken from my family and put into foster care…By the time I was 15 I had been in five different foster homes and was in my second group home. This current group home was in Union SC, and the house parents took us to the Union church of Christ were I first met Curtis and Sandi. I came to Christ while attending that church after a Wednesday night service and Curtis was the one who baptized me. After my sophomore year but before the beginning of my junior year of high school, right before my 16th birthday, the group home was going to close the Union campus and was planning to transition me into an independent living home. That would mean uprooting me yet again. When Curtis and Sandi found out about the move, knowing how much I wanted to graduate from the high school that I started in, they made the decision to become foster parents so I could stay at the same school. I had the opportunity to finally put down roots. Most foster kids will tell you they don’t get comfortable in one place because you never know when you might be moved.

I have Cerebral Palsy that causes me great difficulty walking. You know like that kid everyone stares at when in public. I wanted to get my driver’s license and asked if I could use one of their cars. Curtis said no that I needed to take the test in whatever car I would be driving every day. I worked after school detailing cars at the dealership that Sandi worked at and bought my own car. A tiny purple Hyundai Accent that just happened to be a stick shift. Meanwhile Curtis taught me, the kid with a handicap, to drive a stick shift in the church parking lot in a borrowed, old, beat up Nissan pickup truck. Looking back, I appreciated my car a lot more than I might have if they would’ve bought it for me or helped me pay for it. While it would have been easier in an automatic, I think Curtis knew I needed the experience of passing the test with my own stick shift car.

Not all my memories are great… we disagreed on several things while I lived with them: but Curtis led by example every day and showed me how to treat people the way I wanted to be treated.

He loved to scare the crap out of me all the time… (if he could, Curtis would say it was just too easy!) He had so many silly sayings like “fine as frog hair split four ways, sanded down and laid out in the sun to dry” Or “well, well, well, three holes in the ground” … then there was “that’s a might deep subject for such a shallow mind”. LOL. Or if you asked him a question and he didn’t know the answer he’ d say “I do not know, therefore I cannot say with any degree of accuracy what-so-ever.”

Curtis taught me so much about how to live my life for Christ. He taught me how to pray for people. He taught me the most important thing: how to love my wife because of his example of how he loved and respected Sandi every day.

In my mind he did his best to live out God’s greatest commandments in his daily life. Matthew 22:37-39

And he said to him, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Curtis wasn’t perfect, none of us are, but he did his best to live his life in a way that would glorify God. I hope that when it is my turn to meet the Lord people can say that I was half the man Curtis was. I will miss him more than these words can say.

Michael Boyd

Approximately fifteen years ago I was blessed to have the privilege to know Curtis on a gospel/medical campaign in Guyana. A few years later, me and my wife Corrine got to know his Christian wife, Sandy, at Good Hope Guyana. During that visit Curtis had the privilege to preach on his birthday which he said was his best birthday gift ever. Following that life-changing sermon he was greeted with a surprise birthday cake.

Curtis always put a smile on your face even in the most difficult times. I remember we visited Jacklow Church when he fell into the Pomeroon River, and regardless of the crocodile and the dangerous piranha that lurks around, Curtis stand in the river with the water above a his waist and, an orange size fruit in his hand, that he didn’t let go of, and ask, “ Is there anyone who needs to be baptized? I am ready to do so.” He turned all that fear into laughter.

Curtis traveled to Guyana for many years to support his wife Sandy, as they work together in spreading the gospel and doing egg hunt with many congregations in Guyana. As a result of the egg hunt, Curtis and Sandy became friends with many Guyanese children. Some will ask him, “Are you Santa Claus?” While many believe he is, until he explains.

You were an excellent preacher Curtis, I learnt a lot from you and God use you to change many people lives. You will always live on in our heart.

From your brother and sister in Good Hope Guyana.

Andrew

Sandi here again, now back to my favorite funeral sermon of Curtis’.

… THE DASH BETWEEN THE DATES …

Great emphases are placed on one’s birth date and one’s death date. The real emphasis should be and are the things that happen during ‘the dash’ that is placed between the dates.

What you have read today IS the dash between the dates of Lanson Curtis Gilbert from the perspective of his three children: Tara Marie Hale, Pennie Elaine Sanchez, Johnathan Gray Gilbert, foster son, Michael Boyd and Christian Brother, Andrew Rampadartha from the country Curtis loved, Guyana. I wish we could have heard from his 11 grandchildren’s perspective, but then there wouldn’t have been enough space.

Curtis always pointed out that that small, mostly overlooked, dash is the sum of our life. It doesn’t matter if your life was 7 hours, 7 years, or 72 years. What goes into that small little dash is the most important information in the world. It’s the dash, that will be comparted to God’s word on that final day. It’s the dash, that will show if we have lived a life in accordance with the Word we will all be judged by. He would be very disappointed in me if I didn’t ask: What information will your dash contain?

Curtis never liked the attention to be centered on him. He always wanted everything to be centered on Christ and to be to His Glory. He touched a lot of lives; however, we will not be having a formal memorial service at this time. If you would like to honor Curtis and something very dear to his heart you may make a donation to the Spring Hill Church of Christ Guyana Mission Fund. (PO Box 696 Spring Hill, TN 37174)

Just as Curtis served in life, he is serving in death. His brain and spinal cord were donated to the University of Florida The Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease Bank to help better understand and find cures for Parkinson’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.

In Curtis’ own unique way of saying goodbye… “I’m so glad you got to see me.”