A few years ago, needing a minister to fill in for me at times for the recovery class which meets on Tuesday nights here in Decatur, I learned of Rev. Larry D. Reed when he spoke at See You at the Pole at NCHS. When I asked him, he very graciously agreed and has led the class for me many times since then.
We heard him preach at a revival a couple summers ago. He is definitely a “Preacher!” with a capital P and an exclamation mark! Then, as we tried to get to another revival at his
own church, we got lost and he had to come rescue us! We had a great time and were blessed spiritually in both those services.
Larry Dale Reed, Sr. was born to L. D. and Bessie Jean Reed of Forest, in October, 1968. After graduating from Forest High School, Larry went on to graduate from Alcorn State University in May 1992 with a degree in Business Administration.
The day after graduation, he and his girlfriend, Abbie Harrison from Decatur, moved to a suburb of Atlanta. Young Larry was wanting “something more than what I had seen—gardens, cows and chickens—searching, hoping for something better.”
Everything didn’t turn out as he hoped, in Georgia, but one thing did. On June 8, 1992, not long after his college graduation, boyfriend and girlfriend became man and wife. This year they celebrated 25 years together.
They began attending a church in Georgia, where convicted of his sin, he grieved. He says, “I got tired of the preacher talking about me, even though he didn’t know me. I went to the front and gave the preacher my hand. I got baptized but then quit going to church. I wasn’t through with sin.”
Meeting a successful-looking young black man, Larry asked, “Where can a hard-working black man like me get a job?” With a business card in hand, he soon began work with Sears, which led to entrance into their credit card operations center management training program. Six years after his graduation — three in Atlanta, three in New Orleans — he came back to Mississippi, as he said —“broken.”
He didn’t know it, but the Lord had brought him back to fulfill his purpose. As a child, a woman approached his mother to tell her, “That boy is going to be a preacher.” Brother Larry said he never forgot her words spoken in the town square in the city of Forest.
His mother reminded him also that he taught Sun-day School to children his age when he was a child. Though he has no memory of it.
God began to draw him unto Himself. In 1998, the same year their son Larry, Jr. was born, he and his family moved from Slidell, La., to Decatur, and he got a job in Jackson, 75 miles one way.
“God was riding in my little red truck with me. Working on me. I still didn’t want to give up my sin.”
Before long he had begun going to church again, moving on up to be considered for deacon.
In January 2001, on Hwy. 49, near Tutwiler, with cotton fields all around, he felt a great sense of loss and being “lost.” He was lost, both spiritually and in reality, as he was trying to find a church to give a presentation as an agent of Consumer Credit Counseling Service. Having no cell phone service, he got out of the truck and prayed, “If you get me to where I’m supposed to be, I’ll be a better person.” God took him to the place, and he says he finally surrendered.
He started having dreams and visions of himself preaching in the pulpit. But his problem was that he told God, “I don’t even read the Bible.” God took sleep from him a
nd God would tell him to get up and read! “He began to take control of my being.” The company he worked for closed down in 2003. God said, “I want more. I want you. I can take care of you. Trust Me. Serve Me.
“He got me deeper in the scriptures, every day awakening me with an assignment in the Word, and I became a different man.” In May 2001 he was scheduled to be ordained as a deacon. Though his pastor was positive he had bought the right kind of certificate for deacon ordination, the one he had in his hand said, ”Ordained to Gospel Ministry.” The pastor was perplexed and saying he would get the right certificate later.
“I knew already I was called to preach, but I kept quiet.” He was ordained as a deacon, but by July, two months later, he was on the church grounds, crying, “Preacher, you gotta let me preach today!” And that he did! And he has been preaching ever since in the church, in jail cells, in the schools, under tents, in Walmart, on the phone, on Facebook, along the hedges and highways as his Lord makes available.
Sweet Anna Grace was born in 2005, during the time — 2004-2008 —that he pastored Ebenezer Baptist Church in Meridian. This March he will have been at Midway Baptist Church seven years. In actuality, he pastors more than just that church, as he is “followed” by many more on Facebook!
Revelation 3:8 is one of his favorite verses: “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name.”
