Billy Jean Lawrence

“Born to Serve the Lord”

Elder Billy Lawrence was born April 14, 1932, in Mena, Arkansas. He passed away July 28, 2021 and he lived his life dedicated to serving the Lord, reading God’s Word, and loving His people.

Service:  3:30 P.M., Sunday, August 29, 2021 at Biggers Funeral Home Chapel with visitation to follow until 6:00 PM.

Committal with Military Honors:  2 P.M., Monday, August 30, 2021 at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, Dallas, Texas.

Born during The Great Depression, Billy was the eleventh child and baby of the family. Some of his earliest memories were of spending time with his beloved Mama in the garden learning to sing hymns. It is easy to see that those early memories were powerful in his life, because he never stopped gardening or singing until the Lord called him home.

Billy had a very sweet experience of grace at an early age. He remembered crying and begging his parents to let him be baptized because he loved Jesus. He finally was baptized at age five. In 1949, when he was 17, Brother Goodman, a dear older pastor and friend, met him out under some pecan trees with a challenge to accept the Lord’s call to be a preacher. “Brother Lawrence, you are in trouble, bad trouble. The Lord has called you to preach his everlasting gospel, and you are sure in your own mind that He could not be all wise and all-knowing and do a thing like that. But you need to acknowledge that call and promise God that you will not fight. This is not to say that at age 17 you will become a full-fledged preacher. You need to go home, finish your last year of school, and just do what you are called upon to do, and in God’s own time He will bring you into the ministry.”

Around that same time, Billy took on the responsibility of building his parents a home with running water and electricity. This required not only a lot of hard physical work milling timber from their own property for the boards, but also a good deal of money. So he joined the navy to pay for their new home. Billy became a Navy Corpsman and served five years during the Korean Conflict.

Promptly after his time in the military, Billy married Theata in 1955, and soon began regularly preaching. In 1957 he was ordained and called to pastor the church in Alpine, Arkansas. In 1962, Billy started Bethel Primitive Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was emphatic in expressing his love for the Primitive Baptist churches and his heart longed to see unity. Billy fervently labored to exalt Christ and the word of God as all sufficient.

Billy and Theata had five children: Jeanie, Sandy, Mark, Martha, and Daniel, all of which came to know the Lord under their daddy’s preaching and were baptized at Bethel in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Billy even baptized a new convert, at his request, in the bauxite pits in the winter. He broke the ice to enter the water. This brother came out of the water refusing a blanket, shouting God’s praises and saying that God’s fire had given him warmth.

In 1973, Billy accepted the call to pastor Brentwood Hills Primitive Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, after God spoke to him in three separate dreams telling him to move his family and ministry to Texas. Billy also travelled to preach, make disciples, and encourage pastors around the U.S. and in Honduras, Mexico, and Chilé. God gave Billy such freedom and boldness in preaching and counseling that many were converted, healed, and delivered. [The church in Cordoba still talks about him and prayed for him even 20+ years later.]  Theata, Jack, Kenny, Josh, Caleb and Daniel Wayne accompanied him at different times on some of those trips.

Cousin Brenda related to Jeanie that a sermon Billy preached on “Choose you this day whom you will serve” changed her life and was a profound moment in her life following Christ.

In addition to his preaching and mission work, Billy was passionate about godly marriage and family. He and Theata spent hours encouraging couples and praying for marriages. He faithfully and lovingly cared for his wife through many years of illness and was a powerful testimony to us all!

Billy and Theata knew the meaning of family and extended themselves to welcome people into their home, and into their hearts. To Billy, “the more the merrier”. There was always room for one more at the table.

Billy was a man of faith and prayer. He prayed for each of his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren— spouses included, by name daily. He spent hours reading his Bible, praying, and singing to the glory of God. He loved the movie “War Room” and made his walk-in closet into a prayer room, posting handwritten requests on the walls. Billy saw many of those prayers answered. He prayed faithfully for his friends who were pastors, and their families. He prayed for churches and for our country. Billy prayed many times for God to give him “Divine Appointments” in his daily routine of life. God answered and provided many opportunities for him to pray for others in need, give to practical needs, and give witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In summary, Billy was a man given to fervent prayer, believing in a God who is able and willing to do great things.

Billy radiated the joy of the Lord and loved to sing about His goodness. Scripture songs were his favorite. His personality and expressions of joy can only be described as “exuberant.”

“Born to Serve the Lord” was his family’s song, sung at home, and when traveling to different churches. The message and call of Billy’s life was, “Born to serve the Lord “.

Billy was preceded in death by his wife, Theata Lawrence, his daughter, Martha Barrington and his son, Mark Lawrence.

Elder Billy Lawrence is survived by his children: Jeanie, Sandy, and Daniel, 25 grandchildren, and 39 great-grandchildren as well as his precious sister, Alene Patterson, and many nieces and nephews.

Born to Serve the Lord

From the dust of the earth

My God created man-

His breath made man a living soul;

And God so loved the world

He gave His only Son,

And that is why I love Him so!

My hands were made

To help my neighbor,

My eyes were made

To read God’s word.

My feet were made

To walk in His footsteps,

My body is the temple of the Lord.

I was made in His likeness,

Created in his image,

For I was born to serve the Lord.

And I can’t deny Him,

I will always walk beside Him,

For I was born to serve the Lord.