 During his graduate and post-graduate years, including a Ph.D. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Criswell was the pastor of Baptist churches in Mount Washington in Bullitt County near Louisville and Oakland in Warren County near Bowling Green, Kentucky.After completing his degrees, Criswell in 1937 accepted the pastorate of the First Baptist Church of Chickasha in Grady County in central Oklahoma.In 1941, he moved to First Baptist Church of Muskogee in eastern Oklahoma.