South Carolina Pastor Has Died Today Show Host Brother

Lawrence Meadows, the brother of Craig Melvin, died of colon cancer last week, the “Today’ show host and Columbia native said.

Meadows died Wednesday, according to an obituary from Serenity-Murray Mortuary. No memorials or funeral arrangements have been planned or made public.

The 43-year-old pastor died four years after he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, Melvin said Saturday on Instagram.

“Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much,” Melvin said in the post. “Lawrence Meadows was a husband (to Angela, his childhood sweetheart), father (to Addie, 11 and Lawson, 7) Baptist minister, entrepreneur, and one of the best human beings you would’ve ever known.”

Born in Spartanburg in 1977, Meadows graduated from Dorman High School and Wofford College before getting a Masters in Divinity and and a Doctorate in Ministry from Gardner-Webb University, according to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance.

It was in 2017 when Melvin, 41, told his brother’s story on the “Today” show. Melvin said doctors removed a baseball-sized tumor from Meadows’s abdomen in October 2016 and discovered that the cancer had spread, according to “Today.”

In 2018, Melvin gave an update on his brother’s cancer battle, calling him “a fighter” and saying Meadows had undergone 28 chemotherapy treatments, according to “Today.”

Melvin said Meadows spent time in recent years raising awareness about colon cancer, which is the third most common cancer diagnosed, and second deadliest, in both men and women in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

Meadows spent time speaking about colon cancer and the importance of getting screened and tested, according to “Today.”

“Dead at 43. Missed but never forgotten. Get checked. Talked about your family history,” Melvin said. “We’ll be keeping up that fight. We love you, bro.”