When we’re driving along backroads, which happens quite frequently here in Tennessee, I always enjoy snapping photos of old country churches, and whenever I see an old building, it blows my mind to think about the stories that it holds.
The photo to the left is of Station Camp Baptist Church, located in Cottontown, Tennessee (northeast of Nashville). One of the earliest frontier churches in America, Station Camp was established in 1796–the year Tennessee was admitted into the Union and the year John Adams, the second president of the United States, was elected into office.
I love this quote on the church’s website: “Just as the station camp (from which the church got its name) provided settlers and weary travelers a refuge from frontier dangers, Station Camp Baptist Church has provided a refuge for weary souls for over 200 years. May it continue to do so.”
While I have been to a couple churches that can trace their roots back to the 1800s, they have always been in more modern buildings. I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience 
attending service at an old country church. It happened one year ago, while Mr. Handsome and I were on vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii.
It was Sunday, so we decided to go to church. We did a quick online search for Bible-believing, Christian churches and settled on Pu’uanahulu Baptist Church. The bright red church is nestled in the beautiful countryside of Hawaii. For those who are not familiar with the Big Island, the middle part of the island is very much a countryside and is not what most people picture when they think of the tropical beaches of Hawaii. Tourists tend to stick to the resorts along the coast, while the locals live up in the lush hills at the foot of the Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea volcanoes.
The church building is one room and has no electricity or running water. (The bathrooms are located in a outbuilding.) We were nervous about walking into a small room of people we had never met, but the minute we stepped through the door, we felt at home. It was incredibly neat to worship with fellow believers more than 4,000 miles from home.
After the service, we were blessed to meet some of the members and shocked to find out that the pastor is a missionary sent from a church that we have attended. He works with a local organization during the week and pastors the church on Sundays. What a small world! We also met some folks at the church who have connections to two places that are near to our hearts. It was an incredible reminder that there are brothers and sisters in Christ scattered throughout the world with whom we share a common bond.
The church was established in 1859, exactly 100 years before Hawaii became a state and 35 years before it became an independent republic. When Pu’uanahulu was founded, Hawaii was still a monarchy under King Kamehameha IV and would remain so until 1893.
The members told us a crazy story: About 100 years ago, the church was located closer to the ocean and was being threatened by an impending lava flow. The parishioners prayed that God would spare the church, but they became frightened and decided to move the small building to higher ground. The lava came as expected, but the property where the church had previously sat remained miraculously untouched. What a neat example of God’s faithfulness!
Have you ever attended an old country church? Do you have any stories to share?
I thought all old Baptist churches had two front doors, one for men and one for women.
Good question. We learned about this when we toured Cade’s Cove in East TN. That was the case for churches of many different denominations, although not all churches would have followed it, out of practicality. If this one did, it was likely remodeled in the early 1900s.
Ellie
I attended a good friend’s wedding in Maine back in the early 90s, and it was in one of those beautiful old white-painted wooden churches that I associate with New England. I don’t remember what it was called, but it had been built in the 1700s.
The bride’s parents, grandparents, and great grandparents had all been married there.
During the ceremony, the brides grandparents, both in their nineties and married over seventy years, made their way to the couple. Their progress was slow, she used a walker-he, a wheelchair, and they looked so ancient and frail we all held our breath. When they got to the front of the church, they took off their rings, and said- these rings have served us well for seventy three years, and it would give us great joy and honor for them to serve you as well as they did us.- then they handed the rings to the couple, and they were married with them.
It took a while for the ceremony to continue after the gift from the grandparents. Everyone, from the officiant to the family, and every last guest, was crying too hard to keep going immediately. I’m crying now, just remembering it.
I think it was the most beautiful moment I’ve ever experienced at a wedding.
What a beautiful gift! Thank you for sharing that story, Amanda.
Ellie
Oh that’s so beautiful and now I’m crying!
Feeling weepy as well. So heartwarming. The love and commitment those rings represent… beyond meaningful. Eileen
I share your enthusiasm for old country churches. Something about the small, quaint, homey look to them that makes me smile!
I love old country churches also. Our youth group goes to the ones in Cades Cove and does acapella gospel singing in them every spring. I have heard it and it’s very beautiful. Makes a lot of reflection sift through your mind when you’re sitting in those benches and wonder how life was really like way back then and the generations that sat in those benches…the spring breezes wafting through the open window…listening to gospel singing…yes I could get quite lost in the moment! Another youth group I know of down in Alabama goes to a old old church like that during Christmas time and sets it up with lots candles and lanterns and poinsettias and does Christmas caroling in the evening and also serves hot chocolate, goodies, etc. It’s for whoever wants to come listen…Sounds like it’s quite something to see! I would love to plan an event like that where we live. We have a couple old old churches like that around here.
Very neat! I really enjoyed touring the old churches in Cades Cove.
Compare to Jesus time when He was in His earthly life span, He would have gone to local synagues I think. It is lovely that a local Church is small and familiar to the community. But what about the residential school crisis, when the Church participated with the government to take away the children from local communities. Then to be brought up in far away in institutional church schools. That had to be awful for most of the families. Some may have found it solved problems. Too bad the Churches like these were not brought into the little communities to make a good presence in the places the native children were actually kidnapped from by political “authorities”.