Pastor for 50 years

Rev. Dr. Morris W. Lee is leader at Third Baptist Church and in community

By LINDA M. LINONIS

religion@vindy.com

youngstown

The Rev. Dr. Morris W. Lee described his call to the ministry as an “insatiable urge” he couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t ignore.

“I wanted to do something worthwhile,” said the Rev. Dr. Lee, who is celebrating his 50th year as pastor of the 500-member Third Baptist Church, 1177 Park Hill Drive.

And he certainly has accomplished that goal. Dr. Lee has had positions of leadership in Baptist organizations and Mahoning Valley community groups and remains involved.

In a way, one might say his career choice was pre-ordained. “I grew up in the church,” he said. “My mother took me and saw to it I was involved in church.” At first, he was involved in music ministry, and once was an organist at a church. “I read the Bible often as a youngster,” he said, recalling his early years in Portsmouth, Va.

“My commitment gave me a life devoted to the church,” he said. As a child, he experienced sickness and his future was uncertain. But he fulfilled his calling by earning a master of divinity degree with cum laude honors from Virginia Union University, Richmond, Va.

Though he was determined to be a minister, he said he honestly didn’t realize pastors were paid. “I thought the Lord took care of them,” he said. “Money was never too important to me.” Now, he has the church use what would be his salary “for debts of the church” and “allotted causes.” He directed $7,000 to seven $1,000 scholarships given to high school graduates in June.

Dr. Lee was called to Third Baptist because of a connection he had with the Rev. Dr. S.S. Booker, his predecessor. The Rev. Dr. Booker had attended Virginia Union. At the time, Dr. Lee was pastor of Jerusalem Baptist Church in Doswell, Va., where he served from 1957-60. “Dr. Booker was ill and getting older. “He asked me to speak at the church,” Dr. Lee recalled. It was providence because the congregation also asked him to return to participate in a choir program in September 1960. The church offered him the pastorate, and Dr. Lee accepted. “I thought I would be here a couple of years,” he said, “but I’ve been here ever since by the grace of God.

“As a brand-new preacher in a new church, people extended much kindness to me,” he said. With a smile, Dr. Lee said he now likes to keep people guessing his age.

Third Baptist, which had been on Oak Hill, bought two acres on Park Hill, where the current church is located. The congregation had services elsewhere and funerals at Tabernacle Baptist. Under his leadership, the church has expanded, adding offices, baptismal area and Sunday School classrooms and now owns 12 acres. It also bought Mill Creek Community Center when the city put it up for sale. The church supports the Pincham Initiative Resource Center there, and his wife, Beverly, a retired teacher, volunteers in the after-school program.

Dr. Lee said the church had at one time sponsored a day camp for children and adult day care in the Willie Womack Center, named for a faithful woman of the church.

In the 1960s, he was president of Community Action Council, the forerunner to Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership, a community-services agency.

He headed the effort in Mahoning County to sign up those who were eligible for the new program of Medicare. “It was a challenge,” he said.

As a man and a minister, Dr. Lee has seen much turbulence and progress in the area of civil rights. He participated in many civil-rights marches and said he was an “avid fan” of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The church ought to be an agency of change,” he said. “But decency is not what it used to be.”

Dr. Lee addressed the violence that plagues the city. “It’s senseless,” he said. And though many look to the churches to be the impetus for change, Dr. Lee observed, “Here, you’re preaching to the choir.” He said the real challenge is how to reach those involved in violence. “I don’t like to be pessimistic,” the longtime minister said, admitting he does not have a solution.

He emphasized that change has to start in the nuclear family. “But we’ve seen the deterioration of the family and home.”

But, he said, the church continues to try to reach out through distributions of school supplies and food. “Maybe the benevolence of that will reach people,” he added.