Jones Chapel pastor killed in car accident

Mount Olive Baptist Church in West Cullman Association lost its pastor and an “unsung hero” when Larry Joe Stallings was killed in a car accident the morning of Feb. 16.
   
According to the Cullman Times, Stallings, who was a native of Winston County, died as the result of injuries sustained when his car was crushed by a logging truck on U.S. Highway 278 West.
   
Stallings was traveling east on Highway 278 when a westbound logging truck swerved to miss a vehicle, lost control and rolled over onto Stallings’ car. He was airlifted by helicopter to the Huntsville Hospital Trauma Center, where he later died.
   
Stallings, the bivocational cattleman and pastor of Mount Olive for 20 years, was well known and loved in the community, according to Jack Collins, director of missions for West Cullman Baptist Association. Collins had known Stallings for many of his  years as pastor of the Jones Chapel church. 
   
“He was just one of those fellows that was an unsung hero,” Collins said. “He was very supportive to the association and people in the community looked up to him” as did those in his church. 
   
The close-knit congregation averages about 20 in Sunday attendance and thought of Stallings as family. “He’s always been there almost all my life,” said member Martha Bradford. “It’s just like losing a member of our immediate family.”
   
Stallings grew up as a member of nearby Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Cullman, but actually became a Christian at Mount Olive. 
   
“His grandmother had brought him with her,” said deacon James Yearwood. “[Stallings] loved to tell the story of how he was sitting there and got convicted and walked to the front of the church (to give his life to Christ.)”
   
When Stallings felt called to be a preacher, Mount Olive was the first church he served. He was there for a few years and then resigned when his wife became sick with multiple sclerosis. When he returned to the pastorate, it was as pastor of White Oak Baptist Church in Cullman. 
   
But after a few months, Mount Olive asked Stallings to return to fill its recently vacated pulpit. And there he stayed, serving the church and surrounding community until his death. “No matter whether someone was a church member or not, if somebody had a problem, he always tried to do everything he could to help,” Yearwood said. 
   
Although he did not have a seminary degree, Stallings was attending classes in Cullman’s extension of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School. “He was always studying to improve himself,” said Collins. 
   
Yearwood and Bradford both said the church is still in shock. Although they did not have a service the night of Feb. 16, the congregation still met. “We just felt like we needed to be together,” Bradford said.
   
And at press time, they had decided to still host the Gideon speaker scheduled for the Feb. 20 morning service. “That’s what [Larry Joe] would have wanted us to do,” said Yearwood.