Clinton Baptist Association honors late Rev. Tom Byrge
REV. TOM BYRGE
The former director of missions for the Clinton Baptist Association was honored Tuesday, Oct. 22, during that organization’s annual meeting at Laurel Branch Baptist Church in the minister’s hometown of Briceville.
“We dedicated the meeting to him as a recognition,” said Clinton Baptist Association Executive Director Keith Pierce, who initially joined the organization by following in Byrge’s footsteps as director of missions upon the latter’s 2019 retirement.
In remarks shared prior to the event, Pierce said he met Byrge soon after he had assumed the role, and the pastor “drove me around several communities where churches of our association are located. He talked to me about churches in other parts of Anderson County but drove me to Briceville and showed me where he grew up.
“It was obvious that Briceville was where his heart was,” Pierce added. “That is why we [held] our annual meeting in Briceville this year and [dedicated it] to Brother Tom.
“After I had been the director of missions for about two years I had come to realize what a stabilizing force Brother Tom had been for the Clinton Baptist Association,” he said.
Pierce said Byrge and his wife, Minnie, eventually moved to Mississippi for health reasons, to live with their daughter, Millie, and her husband, Richard Arender, in Vancleave.
“But the legacy [he] left of faith, family, and country, is an example all of us should strive to replicate,” he said.
Byrge helped start Graceland Baptist Church in Vancleave, served as senior pastor at Clinch River Baptist Church in Lake City, and also served interim pastorates at Edgemoor Baptist Church and Black Oak Baptist Church.
He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1957-1979, retiring as a chief master sergeant.
In his obituary, Byrge’s family shared that “Papaw” was his favorite title, and he “led his family by living the way that God called him to live. He taught them all how to love God, love family, love others and spread the word of God so that all may know Him and have a relationship with Him.”
He was married for 65 years to Minnie Bell Braden, who survived him, along with son, Thomas Byrge Jr. and his wife, Tessa; eight grandchildren (one of whom, the Rev. Darryl Arender, followed the pastoral call); and 17 great-grandchildren.
Arander shared some thoughts as well.
He said that what best defined his grandfather “was not his career” or the fact that he was “a great father, a great husband, a great grandfather, a great brother, uncle, friend [and] pastor.
“There was only one thing that defined him,” Arander said. “He found his worth, his calling, his desires, his passions when he met Jesus Christ.
“What defined him was Jesus.”