MORRIS CHAPEL, Tenn. (AP) -- "It is not good for man to be alone," said the Rev. James Rual Chalk, quoting his favorite book of the Bible to reply to a question Sunday.

And on this Sunday, he didn't just talk the talk. For the third time in his 100 years, Chalk walked that walk down the aisle, marrying longtime friend Evelyn Johnson, 68, before nearly 100 family members and friends at the House of Mercy.

"I told someone I'd known Brother Chalk since I was this high," said pastor Dennis Moffett, lowering his hand just below his hip. "Then one of his family asked him, 'Is there anyone he hasn't known since they were that high?"

Chalk had known Evelyn since 1982. Her husband died in 1999, and his second wife, Lois, passed a year ago after a long illness.

"I watched him often feeding Lois, showing her the love of God, because he is a man of God," Moffett said before administering the vows.

But over the summer, Chalk jokingly complained, "No woman would go out to dinner with me."

"I said I would," said Evelyn, who went to dinner with him once, then twice, a few times more and then ...

"I asked her if she knew anything about me that would make her not want to marry me," said Chalk, who combines with his new wife for a blended family of four children, 10 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Evelyn's answer: "There's nothing not to like about James."

"He said he didn't want to be alone, and wasn't going to be alone," Chalk's daughter, Diane Weaver, said. "But we didn't know what he had in mind."

Moffett said with a smile that "Brother Chalk came to me one day and said, 'What if I got married here?' I was in shock for a while, but what a joyous thing."

Chalk has been a fixture in the community, both as a preacher and a contractor.

"I've built 85 homes here," said Chalk, who still works on several rental properties he owns. "Bought one at auction last week, and when I get the deed Wednesday, that's where I'll be."

Pat Griffis, a close friend of the newlyweds, said, "This week, he was checking out the plumbing in my house -- the plumbing he put in there 50 years ago when it was built."

But she also said, "When my husband died, he was the one checking on me, making sure I kept going. Both of them are wonderful friends."

Evelyn said that "some of my friends asked why I would marry someone his age, and I said, 'They don't make them like that any more at this age."'

Chalk said his doctor confirmed that five years ago when he suffered a broken leg. "He told me that I had the skeleton of a 40-year-old," he said with a grin.

Chalk had preached in the same pulpit the week before on his 100th birthday and talked about his other favorite topic from Genesis.

"God created a garden, and it was good ... and what do we have growing in our garden?" he said.

He and Lois had planted seeds for 55 years with the Milledgeville Pentecostal Church, which he helped build, and several other churches in Sardis, Stringtown, Morris Chapel and Lexington.

With his first wife, Vida (who died in 1949), he helped build the Morris Chapel Baptist Church.

"This is his third chapter," said James Weaver, one of his grandsons.

What will he do with Evelyn?

"He told me he's taking me to the moon," she said with a laugh.

If they're headed to the moon, she's doing the driving.

"We've discouraged him from driving," Griffis said. "Ever since a few months ago -- when he got a speeding ticket."

LOL, can you believe it drving @ 100 years old and still getting caught for speed excess