Seventy-five years ago, two churches became one, and a potent force for ministry was born in the Rena Lara area of Coahoma County. That ministry not only continues, but thrives.
On Sunday, Nov. 28, the Rena Lara Baptist Church will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the church’s founding, along with its homecoming Sunday. The church service will include plenty of music and singing, followed by a review of the great history of the church. For the people of the church, the long and successful ministry confirms the words of the Bible’s book of Isaiah, chapter 55, that God’s word shall not return void.
The history of the church reveals a great lesson on how people can succeed when devoted to a cause higher than themselves. The launch of the then-new church in 1946 followed an unlikely path, with two Baptist churches, three miles apart, meeting inside a Methodist church to dissolve their churches and jointly establish a new one.
The seeds for the church were first planted in 1937, when people of the Rena Lara community began gathering at times for worship. They discussed the possibility of establishing a church, but it had not yet been done. Later in that same year, Rev. Herschel J. Logan of the Duncan Baptist Church and two of his deacons joined with the people of Rena Lara to conduct worship regularly scheduled services.
Six years later, another church was established six miles southward from the Rena Lara Baptist Church. The Hillhouse Baptist Church was organized in 1943, although people had been meeting and worshipping for years before.
Then, within a year, three events happened that suddenly made a merger of the two churches a wise course of action. In 1945, Rev. Local left Rena Lara Baptist Church to serve a church in another part of Mississippi. Without a regular pastor, the attendance at Rena Lara began to wane. At almost the same time, Hillhouse Pastor Rev. Harold Clower left that church. Similarly, the Hillhouse also began to decrease with a regular pastor.
The unlikely events of both churches losing their pastors at almost the same time did not go unnoticed. Later, in May of 1946, Clarksdale’s Clyde Reynolds undertook to serve both churches as a lay pastor. After these three events, the churches ultimately decided to merge into one larger church.
So, on an October night in 1946, the two congregations gathered in the Hillhouse Methodist Church, where Hillhouse Baptist had been meeting. Each church unanimously voted to dissolve its congregation and merge with the other. The new church was then named Reynolds Memorial Baptist Church in honor of Clyde Reynolds.
But the unlikely events were not over. The second World War had just ended in the previous year, and the world was still transitioning from a wartime economy. That included Camp McCain in Grenada. A newspaper ad offered to sell a church chapel that was currently sitting on Camp McCain land. The people of the church purchased the church, traveled to Grenada, disassembled the church, moved it to land donated by a member, and reassembled it on land generously donated by Adrain and Leah Schoolar.
So the unusual path to merge, create a church, and reassemble a military church on donated land makes both a great story and a powerful testament to faith and love.
The anniversary service at Rena Lara Baptist Church will begin at 11.
