David Landrith
By Baptist and Reflector
HENDERSONVILLE – David Landrith, 51, pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church, Hendersonville, died Nov. 18 at his home following an extended bout with cancer.
Landrith was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called colorectal melanoma in March of 2013, according to a statement released by Long Hollow Baptist Church. Despite several surgeries and clinical trial medicines, the cancer spread throughout his body, including his lungs and brain.
Landrith was known for his ability to lead churches. After graduating from Belmont University in Nashville and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, he was called to Candies Creek Baptist Church in Charleston, near Cleveland where he spent most of his teenage years. Though he accepted Christ while living in Lilburn, Ga., he always considered First Baptist Church, Cleveland, as his home church, according to the Long Hollow news release.
While at Candies Creek the church grew from a membership of 60 to nearly 500.
When he arrived at Long Hollow in 1997, the church had about 300 members. It has since grown to five campuses with weekly attendance reaching as high as 7,500 people.
In 2013, Landrith’s last full year of ministry, Long Hollow became the first Tennessee Baptist Convention church to baptize more than 1,000 people in one year.
“I’ve never known a pastor so loved by the people he serves,” said Lance Taylor, executive pastor at Long Hollow and a former college roommate. “He has a God-given ability to keep people together. In all the growth and changes through the years, God used him to keep our church moving together in the same direction,” Taylor continued.
Jeff Lovingood, a childhood friend and pastor of spiritual development at Long Hollow, agreed. “He was a pastor everyone could relate to. He was also a friend that challenged you to be all that God made you to be.”
Church member and friend Allen Lindsey observed that Landrith was “the best natural leader I’ve ever known.”
Randy C. Davis, TBC executive director/treasurer expressed on behalf of Tennessee Baptists “our prayers for a hurting sister church and a staff that is in such great grief.”
Davis noted that Landrith “was a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ that God used in an extraordinary way. He was the epitome of a godly gentleman and also was a loving, visionary pastor and an uncompromising preacher of the Word of God.”
The TBC leader recalled that shortly after he accepted the position, Landrith was the first pastor to visit him at his Brentwood office.
Landrith was “used of the Lord to disciple new believers who have become some of the most effective Great Commission leaders in our state. Heaven’s great gain is Tennessee’s great loss. We will miss this dear brother, but we will see him again. That’s the hope the Gospel gives us.”
In a Nov. 18 Tweet, fellow Hendersonville pastor Bruce Chesser of First Baptist Church said that FBC was praying for Long Hollow and the Landrith family. “He was a champion for Christ,” according to Chesser.
Landrith was active in both Southern Baptist and Tennessee Baptist life. He spoke at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference in 2010 and was chosen to serve on the Calvinism advisory team appointed in 2012 by Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee.
Landrith spoke at the Tennessee Baptist Pastors Conference in 2009 and was on the program of the Tennessee Baptist Pastors Conference at Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood last week but had to withdraw due to illness.
He is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and three children: Rachel, 25; Sam, 20; and Josh, 18.
