Albert Earl Carney

Albert E. Carney was born in Lawrence County, Mississippi, on July 31, 1908, to Homer Carney and Corinne Creel Carney. He was better known as Earl Carney. His early life was spent around Jayess, Mississippi, and he joined the Army as a teenager. When he returned home, he met his wife, Grace Alexander. His parents were not church-going people, so they raised their ten children without any church affiliation. When he married Grace, who was a little Southern Baptist girl, the church was still not a part of his life. He followed the occupation of his father and became a sharecropper. This was when you rented acres from a landowner and split the harvest for rental payment. In 1938, he moved his family, which now consisted of two sons, Charles and Donald, to the Darbun Community. While living there, he attended a revival meeting held under an old barn, Pastored by Roxie Sartin. Evangelist A.T. Morgan, who later became the General Superintendent of the UPCI, preached the Acts 2:38 message, and Earl received the Holy Ghost. Evangelist Morgan baptized Carney and his wife in the name of Jesus. After moving back to the Jayess community in 1939, he had a burning desire to share his glorious conversion with other. Brother Carney began having revival services in his home with the Evangelist Johnny Magee. The crowd began to grow, so the services had to be moved to the front porch and the front yard to accommodate the crowd. Later, they moved to a brush arbor. The revival lasted six months, and Brother Earl Carney built the first apostolic church in that community, which is now known as Powell’s Grove United Pentecostal Church, Jayess Mississippi.

Brother Carney received his call to the ministry in 1940. During the 1940s, he pastored Pine Grove Pentecostal Church, Foxworth Mississippi, Springhill United Pentecostal Church, Wesson Mississippi, and New Hope United Pentecostal Church, New Hebron, Mississippi. In July 1950, he became Pastor of Stateline United Pentecostal Church, Tylertown, Mississippi. He moved his family: wife, Grace, three boys, Charles Ray, Donald Earl, James, and three girls, Annie Rose, Maxine, and Judith, where he pastored for 27 years, until his retirement. He was known as a man who brought men and women to Jesus. He was instrumental in leading his father, mother, and eight of his siblings and their companions to this wonderful Pentecostal experience and many of his wife’s family also. He was a builder of men and churches. He built a new church building and church parsonage during his ministry at State Line.

He was known as a pastor and mentor to many preachers who came out of the Stateline Church. To name a few, Bishop G.R. Travis, Albert Travis, Jerry Jones, Larry Webb, Larry Hoyt, Jerry Dillon, and James Carney (his youngest son), and many more that called him their Pastor. Even though he only had an eighth-grade education, he had a love for young preachers, and he spent his life investing in their ministries. If a young preacher needed a place to preach, he was always welcome at Stateline Church. Even after his retirement from pastoral ministry, he remained very active in the ministry in sharing the gospel message throughout many churches until his passing. Brother Carney’s ministry continues to live on in four of his grandsons who pastor great Apostolic churches today, namely: Jay Carney, Life at Tupelo, Tupelo, Mississippi; Jerron Carney, Woodlawn Church, Columbia, Mississippi,; Darrick Hoyt, Lighthouse Church, Lucedale, Mississippi, and Kendall Graves, Grace Church of Iowa Park, Texas.

Even though State Line was just a country church, it carried the reputation of a church that believed in the supernatural. If you had someone who needed a miracle or the Holy Ghost, just take them to State Line and let Brother Carney and the church pray over them, and they would get their miracle. Many times, Bro. Carney and a group of believers would go to their homes to pray and they would stay until the miraculous happened. They called him the Jolly Irishman, but he brought men to Jesus. Something he knew kept driving him. Though scarred by the battles, he remained a mighty warrior, and he kept bringing souls to Jesus, until His King called him home on November 25, 1989.