Bivocational pastor celebrates 30 years in Owens Cross Roads

As the head of Huntsville’s Criminal Intelligence unit, Richard Anderson cracked some of the department’s toughest cases during his 37-year career. 
   
But the bivocational pastor considers his 30 years as shepherd of New Salem Baptist Church, Owens Cross Roads, to be his greatest accomplishment.  
   
In a time when most Baptist pastors — particularly bivocational ones — change churches every few years, Harold Chandler, director of missions emeritus for Madison Baptist Association, agrees that Anderson’s service is something special.
   
“Richard has the longest tenure of any bivocational pastor in the Madison Association,” said Chandler, who has known Anderson since 1989. “You are talking about a rarity when a pastor has been at the same church for that many years.”
   
He is a likable person, Chandler said, and “when the leader is a ‘people’ person and loves people, it becomes mutual. That is what has kept him there for that long.” 
   
Those who have grown to love Anderson decided to honor him with a surprise 30th anniversary party a few months ago. His daughters, who still attend New Salem, and his two sons were on hand to honor their father. 
   
Chandler, along with current Madison Association Director of Missions John Long, presented Anderson and his wife, Betty, with a certificate and spoke briefly about Anderson’s service. 
   
The church also gave Anderson and his wife an offering collected from church members.
In the years since Anderson preached his first sermon to the 12 members present, the church has undergone extensive renovations and expansions, including the addition of several children’s Sunday School rooms, new kitchen facilities and a sanctuary as wide as the old one was long.
   
But Anderson remembers needing a baptistry more than anything — and he remembers the day the church finally got one.
   
“During the first 18 months I was there, we experienced a good amount of growth, and we had 17 people waiting to be baptized,” Anderson said. His plans were to commemorate the new baptistry by immersing them all on the same day.
   
“But, I tell you, I had never baptized anyone before, and my knees were knocking,” he said. “I kept saying to myself, ‘All you got to do is get them under the water.’”
   
The baptistry stayed in constant use during the late 1970s, when Anderson says his police department went through a revival of sorts.
   
“I was baptizing a lot of police officers from my precinct,” he said. 
   
“Guys like Randy Duck (still an active member of New Salem) were picking off their buddies right and left, leading them to the Lord.”
   
By the time Anderson retired from the force as a captain in 1995, 40 officers had committed their lives to Christ. Many of them still attend New Salem.
   
Anderson said he attributes his longevity to an ability to admit mistakes and his congregation’s ability to forgive. He will continue to lead New Salem, he said, until God tells him to stop.