Record-setting service

When Liberty Baptist Church in Crossville recently presented Curtis Reeves with an engraved watch to honor him for 65 consecutive years of service at the church, it couldn’t have been a more appropriate gift — he’s seen a lot of time pass at Liberty Baptist.
   
Reeves, 86, has seen the coming and going of 12 U.S. presidents and more than 20 Liberty Baptist pastors since first stepping in as the church’s volunteer song leader and choir director in the late 1930s. 
   
He sang “Rock of Ages” with Liberty’s congregation after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941 and was still singing the old hymn when the World Trade Center towers fell 60 years later.
   
Ray Burdeshaw, director of worship leadership/church music for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said Reeves’ tenure is a record in the state and possibly even in the Southern Baptist Convention.
   
“Evidently [his long commitment] has been marvelous for the church. He’s quite an inspiration to a lot of people and he’s still going strong,” Burdeshaw said.
   
Reeves has watched generations grow up while serving at Liberty. He’s also gone through “I don’t know how many” editions of The Baptist Hymnal.
   
Church music has changed a lot in the last 65 years, but Reeves doesn’t seem to mind. One thing that hasn’t changed is his commitment to scarcely ever missing a Sunday or Wednesday service — despite the fact that he’s never been paid a penny for his work.
   
“In the dictionary beside ‘faithful’ and ‘committed,’ there ought to be his picture,” said Roger White, pastor of Liberty Baptist. “His faithfulness has a great impact. It is an example to the younger generations that commitment goes further than just words.”
   
It’s an example that has apparently taken hold in the lives of Reeves’ children and grandchildren. 
   
His daughter, Regina Randall, plays the organ for First Baptist Church, Glencoe. 
   
His son, Randall, has served as minister of music at First Baptist Church, Saks, in Anniston for nearly 12 years — 30 years total in music ministry. 
   
Randall’s sons, Kevin and Stephen, also serve in music capacities in Baptist churches.
   
“His time at Liberty has impacted me greatly, because I saw how his life and ministry affected the lives of so many people,” Randall said. “By the grace of God and by my dad’s influence, a foundation was laid for everything I do now.”
   
Randall accepted Christ at age 9 during a revival service on his father’s birthday — Aug. 10. 
   
His dad baptized him in a pond near the church with the many others who came to know Christ that week. His ministry began at Liberty Baptist, much as his father’s did decades ago.
   
The elder Reeves was saved and baptized in 1935 in one of the greatest revivals Liberty had ever known — 94 conversions. “I wasn’t a Christian but I had been asked to lead the choir even though I was just a kid (16 years old). During the service, I felt God calling me, so I stepped down with the others at the altar and accepted Christ,” Reeves said.
   
Liberty Baptist Church hasn’t been the same since. He led the choir off and on for a while, becoming the official song leader and choir director on a volunteer basis in 1939.
   
Reeves and his wife of 63 years, Wynell, have made the 50-mile round-trip drive from Gadsden to Crossville and back for every service for years now. 
   
And while they were serving the church, the two worked together at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Gadsden some 40 years, saving their vacation time for revivals and singing for funerals.
   
“I kid her because people ask her how she put up with me that long. She said it wasn’t easy,” Reeves said, laughing. 
   
“The Lord has really blessed us. We never could have done it without his help.”
   
Randall said his father is a minister in the truest sense of the word. 
   
“He ministered to so many people, and he never would have taken anything if they’d have offered it to him,” he said. “The Lord is all over his ministry, and he is still so enthusiastic about it. 
   
“It’s something you just can’t put into words.”