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Lee Deeds, Minister of Music
Mayfield Road
Baptist Church is blessed to have Lee Deeds as
Minister of Music. Lee leads the church in song and music with a
modern dash of worshipful chorus grounded in the foundational bedrock of
church music: the hymns. He conducts several musical bodies: the
voluntary orchestra on Sunday mornings, the Sunday evening band, the
various hand bell groups, the church choir, and of course the congregation
in praise and worship. Lee's passion for his calling to lead the
church in music and song in glorifying our Lord proves consistently the
talent the Lord has given.
Lee Deeds came to Mayfield Road Baptist
Church in September
2003 to serve as Interim Music Minister and was retained in February 2004
as the full-time Minister of Music. His career began in 1974 at Emmanuel Baptist
Church in Lubbock where he served until 1980.
From 1982 to 1989, Lee served at Bolton Street Baptist Church of Amarillo,
Texas; and he went on to serve at First
Baptist Church,
Gainesville, Texas, until 2003. One of Lee's
ministry hallmarks is longevity of service. At Mayfield Road
Baptist Church,
he seeks to help the body of believers use their talents for God in all
areas of the music ministry.
Lubbock High School  of Lubbock,
Texas
(home of the Westerners) graduated Lee Deeds in 1974. He went on to
obtain a Bachelor of Music Education from Texas Tech University in Lubbock (go Red Raiders!) in 1980.
His Master of Church Music was earned from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort
Worth, Texas in
1983.
Lee continues to
exercise his talents and serve the Lord outside of church. He plays
and teaches piano, and he is an avid singer and voice instructor. He
enjoys performing for weddings, parties, and special ceremonies. Lee
is also a member of the Singing
Men of North Central Texas with whom he has
enjoyed serving as an officer and traveling on several mission trips to Washington, D.C., Spain, and China. The group provides
fellowship with other music ministers and helps sharpen musical tools for
the ministry.
Asked about his
salvation experience and call to ministry, Lee says:
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I
came to know Christ as my Savior at the age of eighteen. At that
time, I was baptized and joined Emmanuel Baptist
Church.
God called me to serve
Him as a minister of music during the summer after my freshman year at
Texas Tech University, at which time I was planning on a degree in
Petroleum Engineering. Since that time, I have sought to take
advantage of any opportunity to serve Him.
I know that I am
called, by God, to the ministry of music. I believe that a minister
of music should lead the church in worship and praise of our God.
He should serve as an encourager, teacher, and leader so that each
Christian can, in the fullest sense, worship God through music. To
be a music minister of a congregation and to lead others to know the Lord
is the highest calling to which I could aspire.
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After a long and very
fruitful ministry of fourteen years at First
Baptist Church,
Gainesville, Lee and his family were led
through a series of events and much prayer to come to Mayfield Road
Baptist Church
to serve as interim music minister. Lee knew the previous Minister of
Music, who in turn knew that Lee would be well suited to continue the
growing music ministry God had established at Mayfield Road. As interim music
minister, Lee was specifically brought to the church to take it through the
Christmas season, for which the musical had been selected but no work had
begun. After a very good Christmas season, the Music Minister Search
Committee asked Lee if they might include him in their
considerations. "Not very many times do you get to work in a
place of ministry for four months and then decide if that is where
God is calling you," says Lee. "I said yes, and within a
month, I was full-time. My family and I continued to live in Gainesville, and I
drove back and forth, staying with the Bridges during the week and going
home on the weekends." In November 2004, the Deeds family moved
into their home, here in Arlington,
Texas.
Lee's favorite
scripture is Jeremiah 29:11, which speaks of God's unfailing devotion to
his people and their wellbeing. However, Lee's favorite Biblical
passage is Isaiah 6:1-8:
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In
the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled
the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with
two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he
flew. And one cried to another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”
And the posts of
the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was
filled with smoke. So I said:
“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.”
Then one of the
seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken
with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and
said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”
Also I heard the
voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here
am I! Send me.”
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Mayfield Road
Baptist Church is blessed to have been given
Lee Deeds. Lee's passion for his calling proves consistently the
talent the Lord has given.
Lee counts himself
blessed by God in having been given "a beautiful wife and two
wonderful children." He and his wife, Gloria, were married on
March 22, 1985, at First Baptist Church,
Amarillo, Texas. Their first child, Sarah,
was born on March 13, 1988. Their second child, David, was born on
July 17, 1990. As of 2007, Sarah attends Texas Tech
University, where she
remains very involved in Christian service and Bible study, including
ministry to low-income children with Carpenter's Kids, and where she enjoys
coaching gymnastics at a local gym. David, as of 2007, excels midway
through his high school career at Arlington
High School where he plays
football and joins in pole vaulting, looking forward to enrolling at Texas Tech University.
He finds work with Sutton's Lawn Service mowing lawns and landscaping and
with the South Arlington Chili's as a restaurant greeter.
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