"I tell them every Sunday, 'God is great, and we still need him as much as we ever did,'" said Jimmy Tollison, pastor of Spring Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Springdale.
The church celebrated its 160th anniversary Sunday.
The congregation first met in 1857 at the home of H.M. Sharp, according to a church history written for the 150th anniversary of the church. The exact date is unknown because church records were destroyed during the Civil War and again in an 1874 accident.
The current church sanctuary "was built on a rise above the creek in 1889," the church history reads. The cost of the construction and materials was $652.50. By comparison, a remodel of the building in 2006 cost $40,000.
Church members recalled community meals on the lawn, with food spread on benches and sawhorse tables; circling the wood stove, that sat in the middle of the sanctuary, to stay warm in the winter months; and the annual singing on the third Sunday in June.
During the 1940s, the church hosted meetings featuring the Stamps-Baxter Quartet, said Roy Grimsley, a longtime member. "The crowd couldn't get into the church house because it was such a celebration. Many people who had fled to California because of the drought used it as a homecoming to see friends."
Members were baptized during the summer months in the creek below the church. Roy Grimsley was one of those faithful in 1943.
"I've been going to the church all my life," said the longtime member. "I was born in 1929, and I've always lived in the area. I went [to the church] before I can remember."
"We're a family church," Tollison said. "We want families to come and worship together."
"It's small, and it's friendly," Grimsley said.
Tollison summed up the 100-member congregation with the word "graceful."
"Not one of them comes to this church thinking they are accomplished on their own," he said. "They know that they needed God then and that they still need God every day. They are full of praise."
"I just enjoy going there and serving God and worshiping with my fellow members," Grimsley said.
NAN Religion on 06/24/2017