Pastor marks 40 years of bivocational ministry at Alpine church

It was officially Larry Morris Day in Alpine June 5 as the members of Alpine Baptist Church celebrated their pastor’s 40-year anniversary. 
   
Church and community leaders presented Morris with numerous gifts including a church-family scrapbook and a proclamation from state Sen. Jim Pruitt’s office. 
   
Although many Alabama Baptist pastors lead churches while working in other professions, most are unlike Morris who has practiced law for the past 20 years, directed Cheaha Regional Mental Health in Sylacauga for 28 years and served on the Talladega County School Board for 27 years.
   
Church music director Patsy Hubbard, who has been a member for 68 years, said Morris is a wonderful pastor despite his busy schedule.
   
“He has been a good friend to our family and has always been very available for whatever we need,” Hubbard said, remembering when Morris drove local children to school in his car and later on a school bus.
   
“The best thing about him is that he is such an honest preacher,” she added. “He lets us know that he is not the example that we need to follow and that he is no better Christian than we are.” 
   
At only 22 years old, Morris became pastor at Alpine Baptist, Coosa River Baptist Association’s oldest church, after graduating from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. 
   
Prior to Alpine, Morris led a church in Philadelphia, Miss., for two years and served as interim pastor of Munford Baptist Church in  the Coosa River Association while completing his undergraduate degree at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Miss.
   
Morris later earned graduate degrees from the University of Montevallo in counseling and English. He also earned a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law, which allows him to represent many indigent people. “I like being an advocate for the down and out,” he said. “When people get themselves in trouble, it seems like everyone is against them. But if anybody should be for them, the church and Christians should be.”
   
Morris said Christ was a model of this behavior. “He reached people who were fallen, who were hurt and who were on the peripherals.”
   
Under Morris’ leadership, Alpine has grown significantly with membership doubling from 80 to nearly 200 members. Over the years, the church required additional facilities — an expanded educational wing, a fellowship hall and housing for the pastor, which is now used for meetings and other activities.
   
Morris is also credited with helping Alpine expand its ministry in the surrounding community.
   
“We have always given to foreign missions and the Cooperative Program, but now we are more locally minded in our benevolence,” Hubbard said. 
   
Alpine members provide propane fuel and medication for needy people, cooperate with a local Episcopal church to provide a Saturday meals-on-wheels program and give scholarships to their graduating seniors — this year, seven students received $1,000 scholarships.
   
“I think (ministry) is so important because it is an actual manifestation of the spirit of the gospel,” Morris said. “Unfortunately churches do a lot of moralizing about personal piety, but they miss the thing about showing the love of Jesus by helping people and loving people regardless of their financial status, race or past. I feel that very often we have an exclusion list in our churches, and that’s not what we are supposed to do.
   
“When I came to Alpine, I was a very narrow-minded person, and I’ve learned that the most important thing in the world is to love and be loved. Through this congregation, I have found happiness, hope, meaning and a whole lot of love.”
   
Morris feels that being a “country preacher” has centered his life and given him a sense of spirituality, belonging and stability. He also credits his wife, Ann, and family for working alongside him through the years.
   
“It’s been a real pleasure,” he said. “Sometimes it gets discouraging being the pastor of a small rural church, but the love that the people have shown me has made up for any discouragement that I might have had. They’ve changed me and let me be a human being, and I very much appreciate that.”
   
He added, “The people of Alpine should be honored because they are the ones who have responded and been a great blessing to me.”