It has been almost a year since Tyre Denney passed away. In some ways it seems like only yesterday. In other ways it seems like forever since we last saw his smiling face and listened to his voice. As I reflect back across the many years he was part of our lives, it is difficult to think of Tyre Denney as a memory. I'm sure many, like me, still feel his presence just about every day in one form or another. I suppose that presence also brings back memories that we may have forgotten from long ago or maybe from just a year or two ago. As we remember our Tyre as a father, grandfather or great-grandfather, husband, brother or uncle, pastor or just great friend, I think "history" should remember him as a "church builder". When I think of what he accomplished while on this earth, it is easy to remember the family he and Mom "built" and the warm memories of family reunions and having him as a Dad. But, he should also be remembered for his gift of building churches...not just the buildings that housed the church but the people that were the church. I cannot attempt to put a number on the many people who remember Tyre as their pastor or just their friend.
There are people I will never know who remember him from as far away as Kenya in Africa to Wyoming and Montana to Anderson and Franklin County, Kentucky and other places that I may never know. I found some old pictures of the first church that my Dad helped build. He was still a student at Samford University in Birmingham but we made the drive to Happy Home Baptist Church in Leeds, Alabama many times over a year or so before the church bought land with a two-bedroom house for us to live in while the new church building was built. He literally helped the men of the church build the new building on weekends or any other time they had a few hours to spend. And, he continued to take college classes and work part-time jobs to provide for his family. All this while learning to be a pastor of a growing church of believers. The attached pictures are the "before and after" views of the Happy Home Baptist Church in 1963 and 1964. The picture of Tyre is beside an addition that was made to the old church in 1963. He was very proud of that sign but did not want his name to have the same size letters as the others on the sign...he was that humble but his name was not readable from more than 20 feet away. The last picture was taken about 30 years after the new church was built.
He did this all over again at the second church he was called to lead as pastor, the Eden Westside Baptist Church in Pell City, Alabama. That church burned because of an electrical fire only a few weeks after we moved there in 1965. Tyre helped rebuild that church as the church body and his family continued to grow and while still a student at Samford. After graduating in 1966, my Dad continued his studies, at the age of 36 years old, at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky while still a pastor to the church at Eden Westside. He rode the L&N Railroad train from Birmingham to Louisville every Monday night, took graduate courses during the week and returned to his family and church every Friday night for the first year of his seminary study. As many of you know, Tyre moved our family in June of 1967 to Alton, Kentucky so that we all could be closer to Louisville but also so that he could lead the Alton Baptist Church in its own building program. He continued to help build churches in Wyoming, Montana and eastern Kentucky during summer mission trips for many years after he "retired" from being a full-time pastor. Today seems like a good time to remember and honor Tyre Denney's legacy as a "church builder". I will forever be in awe of what Tyre Denney was able to accomplish for the Lord in his lifetime and I will forever regret not telling him enough how proud I was that he was my Dad.
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