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After 48 years of preaching, Pastor Huey Reynolds retired this month and became the Pastor of the United Methodist Church. He plans to work on his antique tractor.

Pastor Huey Reynolds was a Metropolitan Missionary in Birmingham and served as Pastor of the United Methodist Church in South Five Point Heights from 2000 to 2005.

In the fall of 2005, he traveled to the Balkans with Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Jonathan Miller, South Highland Presbyterian Pastor Ed Hurley, and other Christian pastors. They visited the mass graves, met with the priests of Bosnia, and took some intense adventures.

Reynolds said: "We let a Bosnian drive a bus into Serbia, and the guards got on the bus at midnight." "We survived."

When they returned, they compiled the "Ten Principles of Community Life."

Reynolds spent most of his five years as a Methodist pastor in rural and medium-sized towns in Alabama.

After this week, he will be sitting on a John Deere tractor on the Clay County Farm instead of standing behind the pulpit.

It feels like home.

Reynolds grew up in Wedowee and Lineville. He will return to that area and retire to a house by the lake.

His career as a minister started in that rural area.

In 1973, he was appointed as the United Methodist Church of Bethlehem and Marvin.

He said: "I am a high school student." "I study on the job."

From 1974 to 1975, he preached at Liberty Hill, Shady Grove, Liberty Church.

In 1976, he moved to the United Methodist Church, which is now a church in Chelsea Park, received a degree from Birmingham Southern College and a master's degree from Emory University's Kandler Theological Seminary.

In 1981, he returned to Vedovich to serve where his father had been a missionary.

"I was appointed the pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Wedowee for four years, and then Fairfax in the Chattahoochee Valley," he said.

It was once a textile town on the Chattahoochee River along Georgia.

"They flattened all these textile factories," he said.

From 1989 to 1996, he moved to the Edgemont United Methodist Church in Florence.

In 1996, he moved to the First United Methodist Church in Siracauga.

Then came his five years in Birmingham Heights.

He recalled that he was later assigned to the unfamiliar Latham United Methodist Church.

"Where is Latham?" he said. "It's not in my area of ​​concern. It's in Huntsville."

But he stayed there longer than anywhere else. "This is my longest career as a pastor, from 2005 to 2015."

No matter where he goes, Reynolds always maintains his agricultural attitude.

"Highland is very friendly to community gardens," he said. "We opened a farmers market in Latham in 2013."

In 2015, he moved to Decatur First United Methodist Church, where he had just completed six years of pastoral work. In the past year, he actually had to preach for months.

“We came back on August 16 with a long social distance,” he said. "In a shelter with 375 seats, we can accommodate up to 75 people."

As the congregation received about two-thirds of the vaccine, the church attendance rate gradually returned to normal.

These days, Reynolds has regained his roots.

"I got home and reopened the farm," he said. "It is ready to complete the work I started. I have 20 cows."

Once he observes them full-time, he plans to double the size of the herd. He will look after a garden.

Then there is the tractor.

His father and brother (now deceased) were tractor mechanics who were responsible for keeping antique tractors running. Reynolds wanted to start where they left off. "I have four tractors in need of repair," Reynolds said. "The things they taught me are enough to make them work. I can do most things, such as cleaning the carburetor. I will let others paint them."

He has a 1953 John Deere A. "Father repaired it from the garbage dump when he was 88 years old," he said.

He has a 1956 John Deere 420. "I took it back," he said. "It's raining while sitting on the side of the road."

His father helped him bring it back to life. "The first time he saw it, he let it run," he said.

He has a 1957 John Deere 420 with 30 horsepower and a green diesel 550 Oliver.

He also has a more modern tractor, a diesel Kubota.

Pastoral Methodist churches are sometimes similar to keeping tractors running. There is fit and stop.

Looking back on his career as a Methodist pastor, Reynolds remembered that walking around so frequently brought a lot of happiness and a lot of pain.

"It's difficult," he said. "This may bring losses to your family. Sometimes I want to know,'Did I sacrifice my family on the altar of the church? Sometimes I think I did it. But there is a resurrection."

Reynolds said his wife Sandra always handled it well.

"My wife celebrates this," he said. "She likes to be part of the nine or ten communities we have participated in."

When their two sons were young, they sometimes thought that their lives were ruined by these actions, but they always made new friends in the new school.

"I didn't want to move for a few years, but someone told me that I was going to move," he said. "There are other times when I feel,'I've been here long enough; it may be time to leave. No."

Reynolds thought of the applicable Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:7: "Seek the prosperity of the people you live in."

He said, roughly translated, it means "flower where you plant."

Generally speaking, being a pastor is difficult for the children of a preacher.

"My children saw the ugly side of the church," he said. "I didn't let them see it on purpose. I went home from the financial or trustee meeting and felt that we had no confidence at all. They would see this, otherwise people would criticize me and they would come in. They left. It took a long time to return to the church."

His last sermon at the First United Methodist Church in Decatur is scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. on June 20, followed by a farewell reception.

He will preach David and Goliath and tell the story told in chapter 17 of Samuel without extensive analysis.

"I just told it," he said.

The North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church announced the appointments and changes of clergy, and these appointments and changes will mainly take effect on July 1.

The Alabama-West Florida Conference also met this month and appointed clergymen.

One of the original seven Methodist churches in Alabama in Alabama and Tennessee will no longer be affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

The Methodist Church abandoned the State Line Church, which was one of the seven original Methodist Churches

Genesis United Methodist Church, formerly State Line Methodist Church, is closing.

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