W.T. ("TIP") Grider

The first preacher of the restoration plea I ever remember hearing was W. T. ("Tip") Grider of Rose Hill, Alabama.  I was about eight or nine years old when I heard brother Grider.  He would have been past sixty years of age at the time. 

My sister and I had been going to Sunday School (and occasionally staying for "church") at the FirstBaptist Church in our hometown of DeFuniak Springs, Florida.  Our father was a member of theMethodist Church, but never attended.  Our mother had obeyed the gospel as a teenager at the Earlytown Church of Christ in Geneva County, Alabama, and though she had not remained faithful in her attendance after her family moved away from Earlytown, she had never forgotten the basic principles of the gospel she had been taught and never would have consented to join a denominational church of any kind.

My maternal grandparents lived in the LibertyCommunity of Walton County, Florida, and it was here that brother Grider would come  one or two Sunday afternoons a month to preach in the LibertySchoolhouse.  Brother Grider also conducted two or three tent meetings at Liberty.  My grandparents were members of the church and attended these services.  My mother, father, sister and I (my brother had not yet been born) also began to attend.  It was brother Grider who got my father's attention with the simplicity and purity of the Lord's undenominational way, and who eventually led him to obey the gospel, being baptized by the late Paul Simon in 1948.  Were it not, however, for the faithful and dedicated labors of "Tip" Grider, it is doubtful if my father would ever have known the Lord's way and entered it, along with his children as they each reached the age of accountability. 

I still recall our family attending a tent meeting (before writing off this venue as being unsophisticated, keep in mind the message preached, not the setting)  being conducted by brother Grider at Liberty in which he announced that the next night he would preach on "The Impossible Thing For God To Do."  As we were driving home that evening after the services, I remember my father saying, "Well, we are going back tomorrow night.  I want to know what it is that God can't do."  He was not yet familiar enough with the Scriptures to know that they teach that it is impossible for God to lie.  (Many folks today apparently do not realize that sobering truth about God!)   (Interestingly, the first gospel meeting I ever conducted was with the small church at Liberty—by then meeting in its own modest building—in December of 1955 during the Christmas break of my freshman year at Freed-Hardeman College, when I was still a few days shy of my eighteenth birthday.)

In the March 10, 1941 issue of Sound Doctrine (Vol. 1, No. 1), edited by Leonard Johnson and Rex A. Turner, co-founders of Montgomery Bible College(now Faulkner University), there appears the following thumb-nail sketch of brother Grider.  I am most pleased to share it with my readers because of what brother Grider meant to the cause of the Restoration Movement in South Alabama andNorthwest Florida and to my family personally.

"Brother W. T. Grider, whose likeness appears above (a picture of brother Grider accompanied the sketch), is not a stranger to the churches of South Alabama. He was born December 19, 1885 in Bullock County,Alabama, and was baptized into Christ at the age of 18 by Brother Amos Harris.  Previous to his conversion he was a steward in the MethodistChurch.  He preached his first sermon on April 6, 1906.

"Brother Grider attended Jackson Bible School,Valdosta, Georgia (Now Dasher Bible School) one year.  He also studied under Brother W. J. Haynes at the Grady Bible School for three years, and then attended Highland Home College.

"Brother Grider preaches one Sunday each month for both the Troy and Cedar Grove congregations, and on the other two Sundays he preaches for the Luverne congregation. In addition he preaches one Saturday night and Sunday afternoon for the Mt.Pleasant congregation, and one Sunday afternoon for the Snow Hill congregation. He devotes three months each year to meeting work."

The Bible exhorts us to "remember those…who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct" (Hebrews 13:7, NKJV).  I am most pleased to do what this passage enjoins and to remember the faithful work of W. T.  ("Tip") Grider.

Speaking Schedule:

July 11: Highland Heights Church of Christ,Lebanon, TN

July 29: Oak Grove Church of Christ, Red Boiling Springs, TN

Hugh Fulford

July 3, 2012