Lester Williams retires early next month after 21 years as the First United Methodist Church’s music minister.

VALDOSTA — When Lester Williams retires next month as First United Methodist Church’s music minister, it will mark the first time in nearly 60 years he has not been involved in church music.

Williams has served as the downtown Methodist church’s music minister for 21 years. His last day will be the Aug. 2 Sunday service. The church honors him with a retirement reception from 4-6 p.m. Sunday at the 220 N. Patterson St., church, following a 2:30 p.m. concert by gospel group Paid In Full.

Yet, his career in music ministry stretches back to his high school days in Jacksonville, Fla.

Williams had grown up in Miami. He went to school there throughout his junior year. Then, as a rising senior, his father had a job transfer.

It is a difficult thing to spend one’s senior year in high school as a stranger in town. Williams found solace in the church.

He played piano at Riverside Park Baptist Church. Williams said he soon knew he wanted to pursue church music as his career.

“I knew I would get involved in church music at a very young age,” Williams said.

After high school, he attended Jacksonville University. Ed Bryan, a Riverside minister, arranged for the church to award Williams with a two-year scholarship. Williams worked with the church choir and was a student director of the chorus.

Out of university, he served with the Army. After the military, he enrolled in the seminary at Louisville, Ky.

Most of his early career was in Baptist churches in Florida and South Georgia.

In the mid-1990s, with about a decade as music minister for the Central Baptist Church in Waycross, Williams learned of the opening for a music minister for the First United Methodist Church in Downtown Valdosta.

His son, Chris Williams, was a Valdosta State University student then. Lester Williams applied for the job.

In August 1994, Williams and wife Carolyn Williams made the transition from Baptist churches to a Methodist Church. Mike McAfee was First UMC pastor then.

Williams has served with five pastors since. The Rev. Bob Moon is the current First UMC pastor.

As music minister, Williams has led the chancel choir, the handbells group, handled numerous administrative duties, etc. Williams has a list of several pages detailing his job duties to share with church leaders for use in selecting the next music minister.

A music minister must have a good ear for music but a good ear for what the church’s congregation wants to hear.

A music minister’s decisions will never please everyone, Williams said. One congregant’s favorite hymn is another’s least liked hymn. So, the music minister must seek a balance of hymns and musical styles.

Williams’ favorite hymn is Bob Krogstad’s arrangement of Philip Bliss’ “It Is Well with My Soul.”

Williams has worked part-time as the music minister for the past three years.

At 75, he said he feels it is time to retire.

In retirement, he will spend more time with his family, which includes son Chris, who lives in Valdosta, and daughter Andrea Coleman, and four granddaughters. He said he will solve puzzles, work in his garden, and enjoy his and Carolyn’s home in Lake Park.

After his last service, they will stay away from First United Methodist Church for at least a few months. They will do this so whomever is hired as the new music minister can make his or her way without worry of interference.

Following the self-imposed hiatus, Williams said they would likely make First UMC their church home.

As for advice to any new music minister, Williams said, “Church music, do it only if you love it, and you have to love people.”