Rev John Edwin Burgess

Rev. J. E. Burgess Carthage, MS John Edwin Burgess, Sr. was born August 9, 1926, in the home of a sharecropper in Manghum, LA. His father died halfway through the Great Depression, and the family moved to Mississippi, where starvation was a literal and constant threat. These hard times marked him in ways that never left him. His birth placed him in that generation known as the Greatest Generation. The fires of the Great Depression were even more intense due to the death of his father, and they shaped a man of drive and work ethic that never changed. He left home after school and went to work in the paper mill in Bastrop, LA. As he was leaving home, his mother put a Bible in his suitcase. A few years later, he began reading this Bible, and God led him to a revival where he received the Holy Ghost and was baptized in Jesus Name. He soon met Gloria Donaldson while attending a service in Hodge, LA, and the two fell in love. They married on April 15, 1949. The newly married couple moved back to Mississippi, and he started a logging business with his relatives, but soon God began leading him to an old stump in the piney woods to pray. It was there that God called him to preach the gospel in the fall of 1949. For the next 76 years, Bro. Burgess preached the gospel all across America. He spent several years evangelizing, and he pastored 10 different churches. He was well known for his ability to assume the pastorate of struggling and debt-ridden churches and turn them around before moving on to another challenge. In 1975, Bro. and Sis. Burgess and their two sons, Johnny and Joe, moved to Carthage, MS, where he would remain for the next 50 years. In 1979, Bro. and Sis. Burgess founded Carthage Christian Academy, which soon became a vital part of their ministry in Central Mississippi. In addition to his ministry, Bro. Burgess has been a builder and a businessman. His ethic of hard work and diligence marked every part of his life. In the 1980s, he opened a business at the request of the FBI to combat corruption. In 1990, the FBI presented Bro. Burgess with the Louis E. Peters Award, their highest civilian honor. After retiring from pastoring at the age of 80, he continued to preach and work. He was an avid outdoorsman, with his primary hobbies being hunting, beekeeping, woodworking, and reading. Bro. Burgess passed peacefully on Sept. 24, 2025. He is survived by his wife, Gloria Burgess, his two sons, John Edwin Burgess, Jr (Wife Shanna) and Joseph Terryl Burgess (Wife Robin) Burgess, four grandchildren, Gloria Brooklyn Burgess, John Edwin Burgess, III (Wife Morgan), Jacob Samuel Burgess, and Jordan Nathaniel Burgess, and one great-granddaughter, Callyn Rain Burgess. He is preceded in death by his parents, Joseph and Eulala Burgess, and his grandson, Joseph Blakeney Burgess. Services for Bro. Burgess will be held on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, at First Apostolic Church of Carthage, MS (111 Dona Drive). Visitation will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and the funeral service will take place at 6:00 p.m. Burial will be on Tuesday, September 29, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. at Carthage Memorial Garden, 1218 North Pearl Street.