MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — If you met 29-year-old Mark Reece, you’d be struck by his good looks, stylish clothes and urbane, educated manner.
If you learned that he’s a Baptist minister, you’d assume he’s an up-and-coming member of the staff of a big-city church.
And if he told you he’s the pastor of Piney Grove Baptist Church — which lists its address as Mount Airy, N.C., but really is in a rural area “off of old Highway 601” — you’d be surprised.
At that point, Reece might tell you to forget your stereotypes about rural versus urban churches.
Mark Reece conducts a river baptism at Stone Mountain State Park near Roaring Gap, N.C., about 50 miles west of Mount Airy.
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“I don’t think the lines between rural ministry and urban ministry are as concrete as they once were,” Reece says. “With the rise of social media and … the Internet, rural ministry doesn’t look very different from urban ministry. The church as a whole is in crisis. Whether in cities or rural areas, churches are having to reinvent, re-engineer themselves.”
Yet Reece is quick to say he’s grateful that his first pastorate is in the rural county where he grew up.
One reason, he said in an interview, is that “there’s no place like home.” But it took going away from home for him to realize that.
Reece grew up in Elkin, N.C., attending Welcome Valley Baptist Church, a small, independent old-fashioned Baptist church. He never thought about becoming a minister. He cites his childhood preacher, Bill Jenkins, as a major influence. But he knew he couldn’t be like him, that “I was never going to be the double-clutch impromptu preacher,” that if he preached, his sermons would never be “accompanied by spontaneity and sweat.”
Mark Reece
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Besides, in that church’s tradition, pastors didn’t “go to school to be a preacher” and often had no formal higher education. Reece’s parents wanted him to go to college; he thought he might pursue a career in medicine.
At the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, as a 19- or 20-year-old student, Reece had a couple of realizations, after “a series of life lessons I learned as an 18-year-old leaving home.”
One was that, much as he loves the beach, he loves the foothills of Surry County more. The other was that he was being called to the ministry.
Majoring in philosophy and religion with a minor in Middle East studies, Reece continued his education with a new purpose in mind. Mike Queen, who until he retired last year was the longtime pastor at First Baptist Church in Wilmington, helped guide him toward divinity school, and others in that congregation encouraged him.
In August 2005, Reece began his studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. The next spring, he began working as the minister of youth and education at Piney Grove.
He’d bought an 11-acre “hobby farm” in Surry County when he started at Wake Forest. He was home.
When pastor Kermit Gray retired after a few months, Reece continued at Piney Grove. He served with three interim pastors and participated in the church’s “significant journey with the Center for Congregational Health,” the Winston-Salem organization that helps struggling congregations.
After graduating from Wake Forest in 2008, Reece was called as pastor of Piney Grove in August 2009.
Reece at work Piney Grove Baptist Church's community garden.
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At Wake Forest, he valued his relationship with Bill Leonard, then the dean, and an authority on Christianity in Appalachia, who helped him gain insight into the tradition he had grown up in and how it related to his calling.
“Dr. Leonard’s fascination with and appreciation for Appalachian religious traditions helped me understand my background not as a liability but as a gift that I treasure more every single day that I spend doing ministry in a small Appalachian town,” he said.
In his three years as pastor, Reece and the congregation have tried to draw on the best in their traditions as they face today’s realities.
Farming as a way of life is gone in Surry County, he said, but its “legacy of caring and sharing” and its “spirit of cooperation” are alive. “Reinventing” the congregation has not been easy, but he is proud of what the church has accomplished in its efforts to “serve the people in the shadow of our steeple.”
One of several new ministries gives adults with special needs a Sunday school class and opportunities to socialize. A community garden provides food for the needy and lessons in gardening. In the “kids’ café” tutoring ministry, church members share their gift of reading with Latino elementary students who might otherwise fall behind. In worship, the church has reclaimed its heritage by offering river baptisms.
Ten years ago, Reece didn’t expect to be called to ministry, and he won’t predict where God might lead him in the future. For now, he said, “I am very much committed to the church that I am serving. It’s a gift to be able to pastor a church in my home county and serve the people who taught me so much.”
“When I see a neighboring Latino mother walking with her children to a tutoring session, a special-needs person serving as an usher in worship or a car that’ll barely crank leaving our garden with a trunk full of vegetables, I’m reminded of just how grateful I am for the spirit of Christ and authentic community that lives on among small-town people and in my small-town congregation,” he said.
Linda Brinson ([email protected]) is a Religious Herald contributing writer, based in Madison, N.C.