Lena UPC

In his book, “The Jesus Name Pentecostals of Leake County, Mississippi,” the Reverend Clif Crosby II writes, “The work at Lena started in a Bible Study at Piggtown. Brother Victor Taylor taught a Bible Study to a lady of the Baptist persuasion in the home of the Mosses every Thursday night, except for Thanksgiving, for six months from late 1985 until the Spring of 1986.

Brother Taylor moved to Grenada in the Spring of 1986 and then to Lena in the Fall of 1986.

Brother Taylor started having services in the town of Lena in an old yellow building across the road from the fire station in 1986. Later, Brother Taylor and the congregation bid $2,000.00 on the Old Indian School in Carthage, Mississippi and after winning the bid, had it moved to Lena and placed where the current sanctuary is today. Brother Taylor held midweek service on Thursday night. During this time, about 20 people from the Baptist church in Lena were attending the Pentecostal Church. The Baptist church changed their midweek service to Thursday night to keep their people from attending the Pentecostal services.

Brother Taylor and the saints were remodeling the building that they had bought and moved to Lena, and by 1988, had remodeled the sanctuary and the foyer and were working on the fellowship hall and restrooms. Brother Taylor resigned from the church in 1988. The church was running 35-40 people at the time.

Brother Arlie G. Lilley followed Brother Taylor as pastor of Lena. Brother Tommy Moss pastored at Lena until 2001. Brother Jeremy Mills succeeded him and Pastored until 2003.

Brother Randy Jones succeeded Brother Mills as pastor at Lena and pastored from October 2003, until May 2018. Under Brother Jones’s pastorate, 70 feet of the sanctuary was moved and connected to the center of the fellowship hall. Then the old sanctuary became the fellowship hall.

Brother Jones’s son, William, started his ministry at Lena. Brother Randy Jones was also the Mayor of Lena, Mississippi. After Brother Randy Jones resigned in 2018, Brother Joel Martin became the pastor and is presently serving as the pastor of Lena United Pentecostal Church. Lena United Pentecostal Church still serves as a beacon of truth in the Lena community!