ST. LOUIS — Larry Lewis, 77, a native of Centralia and a member of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Board, recently passed a rare milestone – 60 years in ministry.
The distinction goes back to the fall of 1952, when Lewis was licensed to the gospel ministry by First Baptist Church, Centralia, as he was going off to be a student at a two-year institution named Hannibal-LaGrange College. His ministerial journey since that time has been quite adventuresome, taking him to nine churches as pastor and 11 more as interim pastor, including his present responsibilities guiding Calvary Baptist Church, Columbia, to a point where they can call their next pastor.
His more prominent roles down through the years have been on the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) level as president of the Home Mission Board (now the North American Mission Board) from 1987-1997 and in Missouri as president of Hannibal-LaGrange College from 1981-1987.
He said he fondly remembers being called to home missions in the 1960s which led to him helping plant churches in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
“Without those 14 years of experience as a missionary I would not have been elected president of the Home Mission Board,” Lewis said.
Active now on the top level of MBC leadership, Lewis is in the midst of a term with the Executive Board that runs through 2014. Missouri Baptists also know him as the seven-year pastor of Tower Grove Baptist Church, St. Louis, who saw the Lord grow the church to a membership of 3,000 as he faithfully served.
Lewis has always stayed true to Centralia. He graduated from the local high school in 1952 and was honored for his 60 years in ministry Oct. 6 with a ceremony in the First Centralia Fellowship Hall where he was given a plaque recognizing the accomplishment.
In the early 2000s, in one of his more interesting assignments, Lewis was pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in San Diego while also serving as national facilitator of denominational ministries for the Mission America Coalition.
He is the author of six books and has had more than 100 articles published in various magazines and journals.
He was married to his first wife, Betty Jo, for nearly 44 years before she died in 2008. The Betty Jo Lewis Scholarship at the now Hannibal-LaGrange University is named in her honor. Lewis remarried in 2011 and now serves the Lord alongside his wife, Creda.