The pandemic situation did not take God by surprise, though it surely did a lot of us! I called Rev. Mark Vincent to ask for a quote concerning the virus, as I found it was going to be difficult to do a story on someone at this time. He recommended I go speak to Rev. Ryan Reed, Pastor of Midway Baptist Church of Decatur, Mississippi. Thank you, Bro. Mark!
Ryan Thomas Reed was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in January 1992, the middle child to Steve Reed from Chewalla, Tennessee, and Jeanne Ratciff Reed from McComb, Mississippi. His brothers, Joseph Reed and Casey Reed, both live in Selmer, Tennessee. Ryan’s father worked for a trucking company, the Watkins Motor Company, in Memphis, then in Jackson, Tennessee. Ryan’s mother worked for the county district attorney, then as the admissions officer of Western Mental Hospital. Both Ryan’s parents are still working.
Young Bro. Reed wasted no time telling me of what was the most important thing in his life. When I asked, he told me he graduated from McNairy Central High School in Selmer, but he moved on to tell me of his church attendance as a child, when his parents kept the children going to every service the church had. When he was about five or six years old, the church had an event for the children at a church member’s house. He heard a simple gospel message, found his mom and said, “Hey, I need to know Jesus.” After the pastor sat down with him to lead him to do that very thing, he was baptized and became as he termed it, “a church kid.”
Jordan Ruth Worsham Reed, Rev. Reed’s very young-looking wife, told me of her background. She was born in April 1994, the youngest of four daughters of Rev. Mark Worsham and Tammie Britton Worsham, who now reside in Benoit, Mississippi. During Jordan’s childhood, her father pastored several years in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, then a number of years in the Delta before cancer and other health issues forced him to retire. Her mother is a music teacher in the Greenville, Mississippi, schools.
Jordan graduated from an online high school, Alpha-Omega Academy, as she lived in Cleveland, Mississippi. Because of this situation, she had the freedom to visit her married sisters a good bit. The Powells lived in Corinth, while the Webbs lived in Selmer. Ryan and Jordan Reed met there through mutual friends, though they did not date in high school.
After the Reeds met in 2008, Ryan graduated from McNairy Central High School in 2010. Having felt called to become a pastor right before graduation, Ryan began attending Blue Mountain College near Tupelo. Blue Mountain College is where Jordan’s parents met and graduated. Her sisters Jennifer and Jessica also met their husbands there and graduated. (Jordan’s third sister Joy Beth Worsham works for a law firm in New Orleans.) Right before Jordan graduated high school in 2012, she and Ryan began dating. He graduated from Blue Mountain in 2013, but, speaking of getting married instead of continuing college, Jordan said, “It took a lot of tears and prayers, but I told my parents this is what I feel like the Lord is wanting for us.”
Ryan proposed in the summer of 2013, Jordan finished her sophomore year, and they were not yet married. Ryan, having finished his degree a semester early, was trying to figure out where he was supposed to go. He had just had a conversation with his Bible professor at Blue Mountain about this when the professor, Dr. Ronald Meeks, received a call from Mr. Larry Blackburn from the search committee of Midway Baptist Church. Dr. Meeks told Mr. Blackburn he usually didn’t give recommendations but, having just had this conversation with young Ryan, he thought it would be a good fit.
Ryan and Jordan came down to Decatur when he was 22 and she was 19, February, six years ago. Jordan said, “The Lord worked it out. I was very unsure.” The Reeds were married May 24, 2014, in Tupelo, and Midway Baptist Church took a busload of people up for the wedding! The young couple were so blessed by this gesture, as well as by the warm welcome on June 8 when they moved down here.
The Reeds have two connections with this area. Jordan’s paternal grandfather, Homer Worsham, was the first pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of Newton in the 1960s. Also, Ryan had attended a summer church camp here at the college in Decatur a couple years, as his cousin lived in Starkville and he remembered someone here gave permission to the church in Starkville to bring young people here for that purpose.
Jordan was attending Vacation Bible School at Calvary Baptist Church in Bogue Chitto at the age of ten, when she accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. Though she had no idea at the time, this set her on a path to becoming who she is now, a pastor’s wife in a small country church. Their first little one, Homer Knox, 4, named after her grandfather and the famous John Knox, was born November 18, 2015. Lottie Ruth, 1, named after Lottie Moon and Jordan, was born March 15, 2019. Jordan called the church “a fantastic church” and said Midway and its individual members “have just been so great in taking care of us.” God has provided in more ways than one.
Pastor Ryan Reed has finished his master’s degree, in M.Div. in Christian Thought, while pastoring here, and is now working toward his Ph.D. in Historical Theology, which he hopes to finish in 2022 or 2023. His emphasis at present is Rev. Carl F. H. Henry, a theologian, who, with the Rev. Billy Graham, was a main founder of neo-evangelicalism and who started the magazine “Christianity Today.”
Bro. Reed’s hopes at Midway are “chiefly to preach the Word, to see people saved and to grow a love for His Word. My goal is to speak the great truths of the Bible in such a way all can understand.” He then declared, “The grave is empty! Our heads don’t have to be.” He said his church loves the Word and love learning about it.
In 2019 Rev. Reed began teaching New Testament and Old Testament Survey classes in Laurel at Southeastern Baptist College, which he continued doing until the virus hit. He does online studies now to about thirty students. In March he became the Newton County Baptist Missions Strategist. He contacts pastors and churches to ascertain needs, to see that the Association meets those needs. He commented, “Interesting, that in the first month, we have the corona virus. We’re just trying to figure out how in the world can our church gather when we can’t. We’ve done videos and just encouraged folks to get together and have family worship times. My hope is that God creates a longing for His people to be together, that the first Sunday back will be a celebration. We hope it will impact the unchurched to come, too. We may have to bring in extra chairs!”
Live for Jesus! He’s coming soon!
You may contact me at lagnesrussell@gmail.com or 601-635-3282.
