MILLIANS: She plays piano for the Lord

Published 1:29 pm Friday, October 11, 2024

For 70 years, Raynelle Bloodworth has been making music — playing either the organ or the piano — for Mosleyville Baptist Church.

That’s 3,640 Sundays.

She hasn’t missed many of them.

“I’ve always been very conscientious about being here to play,” Bloodworth told me from the church sanctuary the other day. “When you’re serving the Lord, you can’t be haphazard about it.”

Bloodworth was 16 years old when she started playing piano at the church. She later learned to play organ.

She started piano lessons when she was in grammar school. Her dad, who bought her first piano for $75, would work swing shifts so he could drive her to piano lessons in the summer.

Mosleyville’s first pastor, Brother Hollis Miller, learned of Bloodworth’s talents and asked her to play for his church.

Initially, she was reluctant to play for an audience. She made all sorts of excuses about why she couldn’t do it, including a lack of transportation to church every Sunday. But the preacher told her no problem, that he would have a member of his family or someone else in the church stop by and pick her up.

She loved it and her dedication to the church was set.

When she started dating, Raynelle told husband-to-be, Russell Bloodworth, that she played and had to be at church on Sundays and at other services the church had. 

Russell said he didn’t mind, that he’d come along to church every Sunday, too, but not necessarily “all that other stuff.”

Raynelle and Russell will have been married 69 years in November.

There were the couple of Sundays she missed when she had her son.

But most of their lives were planned around being at church on Sunday. They would leave for vacation on Monday and come home on Saturday.

“It’s like therapy for me,” she said. “To do this for the Lord, who has given me what little talent I have. I really enjoy serving him in that capacity.”

Bloodworth can handle almost any disturbance during a service and keep right on playing through falling hymnals or crying babies.

Except for that time a parishioner fainted during a song, and even Raynelle’s hands paused above the keyboard.

Bloodworth loves playing the classic Baptist hymns, such as “The Old Rugged Cross,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

Her “very favorite” is “When We All Get to Heaven.”

Music director Chester Dunn picks the songs each Sunday, and Bloodworth is happy to play whatever he selects.

She has been hearing Baptist hymns since growing up in a small, country church in Wilkinson County.

Jim Davis, the Mosleyville Baptist pastor since 2019, says Raynelle is a joy to work with.

“She’s very personable. She’s never met a person she didn’t know. She strikes up a conversation with everybody. She says she likes going to the doctor’s office just to talk to other people there. She’s filled with the spirit. Very much a person of God.”

The walls of Mosleyville are lined with photos of former pastors who have come and gone, from Brother Hollis Miller on.

But there’s been one accompanist — Raynelle Bloodworth.

Her first Sunday was Oct. 10, 1954.

So, almost 70 years to the day, Mosleyville Baptist will honor her on Sunday. 

Pastor Davis joked and said he might try to find a substitute just so Bloodworth could have a Sunday off.

There have not been many, and she wants to keep it that way.

“How long do I plan to continue playing?” she repeats the question. 

“I don’t know. ‘Til they tell me I can’t, I reckon,” Bloodworth says with a big laugh.

Until then, she’ll keep on serving the Lord the best way she knows how.

By praising him with her music.

Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High graduate, retired after a newspaper career in Georgia, Ohio, and South Carolina. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.