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| Bethel United Methodist Church Snow Camp, NC |
Church, in those days, was the center of the community. It was the glue that held the people
together. It was the place where
meetings were held, where the Fall Festival was held, where Vacation Bible
School occurred... and so many more things that drew us all together each Sunday, and many days throughout the week. It was our youth center, and provided a central place for both women and men to hold their gatherings.
Our church building started out as just a small wooden structure, but our church itself started out as a group of people who met in a home that once stood where the cemetery is today, or in a grove of trees. In those days, the church was lead by a parson on horseback, called a Circuit Rider. He took care of many such "churches", riding from one to the other, preaching, staying the night with one of the people in that area, then riding on to the next one. Our church met every other Thursday, if I remember correctly, and the pastor stood on a rock in the grove of trees that was the primary meeting place. In bad weather, the meeting was held in the house I mentioned. The rock is still there, but the grove of trees has long since disappeared.
Around the time my Mom and Dad got married, the church building was raised up and a basement dug and built underneath. Mom and Dad were one of the first couples married in the church after that was finished. Years after that, an Education Wing was added (to the left of the church in the photos), to supply more classrooms for Sunday School. The Fellowship Hall was built since I became an adult, and serves as meeting room, classroom, and gathering hall with kitchen, basically becoming everything that the old basement had been used for. The basement became a storage place after the Fellowship Hall was built.
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| The rock where the Circuit Rider stood to preach the first sermon for our church. |
Around the time my Mom and Dad got married, the church building was raised up and a basement dug and built underneath. Mom and Dad were one of the first couples married in the church after that was finished. Years after that, an Education Wing was added (to the left of the church in the photos), to supply more classrooms for Sunday School. The Fellowship Hall was built since I became an adult, and serves as meeting room, classroom, and gathering hall with kitchen, basically becoming everything that the old basement had been used for. The basement became a storage place after the Fellowship Hall was built.
When I was growing up, we always had Sunday School first, then a short
break, and Worship Service would follow.
After Sunday School, the men folk would gather out front of the church
under the two big maple trees and talk about their week, while wives were left to
herd the children into the sanctuary for the service. This happened so much that I can remember how
the grass had worn down under those trees to the point that there were spots of
dirt where the men folk stood most of the time.
I remember slipping up beside Granddaddy to give him a hug (he always
smelled so good... like All Spice Aftershave), and he'd give me a piece of gum
that he always seemed to have hidden in his suit coat pocket.
The church bell would ring to let everyone know when to move from one place
to another, once for starting, once for ending.
The church bell rang loud enough to be heard for miles, and was one of
those reassuring sounds of Sunday life in our community.
The church, being the hub of the community, followed the seasons as sure as any calendar. In the Spring there were Easter Egg Hunts, Easter Services, and always always a new dress and shoes to wear to church that day. Summer brought Vacation Bible School and all the fun things we'd do during that week of daily meetings at the church for the children of the community. Fall brought the Fall Festival... a money maker for the church where all the families contributed something they'd made to be sold to raise money for the church.... jellies, jams, cakes, pies, crocheted and knitted things, things made on the sewing machine, wooden thingamajigs and whachamacallits, and all sorts of things. Ours was a creative community and everyone knew how to build, make, or sew something. Usually the women tended the booths where things were sold (these were long tables with metal folding chairs behind them)... and were often just as busy trading secrets about how they made a certain craft or recipe.
Fall also brought the annual anniversary of the church, called Memorial Day
or Homecoming Day. Our church was
founded in the 1800's, starting out as a Circuit Rider (a preacher on a horse
that went from place to place all week long preaching at wherever people would
gather... sometimes it was someone's home, sometimes just a grove of
trees). Our "stop" was on a weekday
evening in a grove of trees that used to stand across from where the front door
of the church is now. Tradition tells
that the preacher would stand on a big rock (that is still there today) in a
grove of trees and preach his message.
Back in those days, there was no church building. It was later that a building was built near
the old rock and is Bethel United Methodist Church today. (I'm told that if you look up in the attic at
the rafters, you can still see the old post and beam construction of the original
church.) Memorial (Homecoming) Day serves
several purposes: It's a time when
people that have moved away from the community will often visit the
church. It's a time of remembering and
honoring those who passed on during the past year and were buried in the church
cemetary. It's a time when there's a
feast fit for a king spread out at the church... a cover dish lunch....
everyone stays, eats, talks, visits, and generally catch up with each other. The
cemetery always looks nice, with its fresh mown grass, and flowers adorning the
graves, and flags on the graves of the veterans.
When I was a kid, we didn't have the Fellowship Hall beside the church that
is there today, and where the luncheon is now held. On Memorial Day, a large roll of wire fencing
would be brought out, and stretched between two huge trees that stood in the
church yard, held between them by two "come alongs" (wenches). Sometime in the past, the men folk had added
some "legs" (2x4's) to brace it up every 6 feet or so. White table cloths were spread out on the
long long table and the women would unpack their goodies they had brought. Desserts at one end, and food the rest of the
way down... it was a wonder to behold.
Picnic baskets and boxes of all sorts and sizes littered the ground underneath
the tables, but us kids still loved to sneak under there while the adults
weren't looking. The pastor would call
for quiet, and as parents shushed their kids, he'd say the blessing. Memorial Day was a standing room only kind of
day during the service, so getting that many people through the line was no
small feat. Parents helped kids, who
couldn't see what was on the table, to fill their plates. Folding chairs had been brought out of the
basement of the church, but us kids usually sat on the steps of the church to
eat. It was a grand day, and one we
always looked forward to, not least of all because we were getting to see
cousins, aunts, and uncles that we seldom got to see.
Winter brought Christmas, of course, and there was always a real tree in
the basement of the church that the men folk of the church had gotten from
someone's woods somewhere nearby. Paper
chains, popcorn strings, and ornaments adorned it. The church would always have a Christmas Pageant
that the children of the church performed in the sanctuary, and then we'd go to
the basement to open presents and have a snack.
This was the event that, to me as a child, signaled the “true start” of
the Christmas Season.
There was always something going on at the church during the week. We had youth meetings there. The choirs practiced there, both youth and
adult. Women had their woman's meetings
there. And of course, the men had their
meetings too. There were
the various meetings that had to take place around the maintenance and
administration of the church itself. So
it was always a hub of activity of one kind or another, with one group of
people or another.
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| Bethel United Methodist Church, Snow Camp, NC Photo Credit: Rev. Joseph Park |
I’m not sure why the church isn’t thriving today like it was when I was
growing up. Some of it can certainly be
attributed to the way that families don’t stay clustered in the same geographic
area anymore. Some of it may even be
attributed to technology in the sense that we get some of our sense of “community”
from things like watching the news on TV, and hanging out on social media of all
sorts. However, I think the largest
reason is the same as for so many churches everywhere... people just don’t go
to church like they used to. Whether it is
the lack of need for a heart of the community sort of place, or whether it’s
just a sign of the times, it’s sad nonetheless.
Not just sad from the standpoint of religion itself, but sad because
there’s something that folks are missing by not being a part of a community
like the church provided us in the past.
If something doesn't change, the inevitable will eventually happen. Someday I'll stand on the steep steps at the
front of the church where generations have climbed before me... where babies were held by their parents on
their Christening Day... where new believers shook the preacher's hand after a
service because it meant so very much to them... where newlyweds bounced down
those steps on their way to start their lives together..... where caskets were
gingerly carried down to the cemetery to lay a loved one to rest... Someday
I'll stand on those steps and hear the ghosts of all those past Sunday's
whisper in my ears, and know that the bell will never ring again.
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| The first pastor of our church, a Circuit Rider, stood on this rock to deliver his sermons. |
And I'll sit there and remember........
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Church in the Wildwood
There's a church in the valley by the wildwood
No lovelier place in the dale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale
How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning
To listen to the clear ringing bells
Its tones so sweetly are calling
Oh come to the church in the vale
Chorus:
(Oh, come, come, come, come)
Come to the church by the wildwood
Oh, come to the church in the dale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the dale
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