Roland Davis isn’t a man who believes in signs necessarily, but he feels like the one recognizable thing left in the ashes of his church is a word from the Lord.
“We found part of a hymnal that was still readable and lying open to the hymn ‘There’s a Great Day Coming,’” said Davis, pastor of Maple Springs Baptist Church, Clanton, in Chilton Baptist Association. “We thought that was a good word.”
The church caught fire around 3:15 a.m. Dec. 29 and was engulfed in flames by the time the fire department alerted Davis around 4. At press time, officials had not released the cause of the blaze.
“It’s completely gutted — it burned everything in there,” Davis said. “It’s been hard, especially for the older people who have a lot of memories there. We’re saddened but at the same time, we’re hopeful for the future.”
The day after the fire, the congregation — which averages 25–35 on Sundays — met for services at nearby Samaria Baptist Church, which offered Maple Springs Baptist its old sanctuary to meet in indefinitely.
“I preached on Isaiah 43:18–19 … ‘remember not the former things; behold, I’ll do a new thing,’” Davis said.
Church member Anita Yates said that from a worldly perspective, “it would appear it is time to shut the doors and let this wonderful old girl lay her head down and die … but I’m extremely pleased to [say] that we don’t seem interested in the worldly views at Maple Springs.”
The church — which dates back to 1891 — believes it will come back even stronger, said Larry Felkins, director of missions for Chilton Association.
“And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that happened,” he said. “It’s something for them to rally around. God can take this bad thing and do good things with it.”
Davis has already received so many calls that he can’t answer the phone fast enough and can’t return all the messages, Felkins said.
“A lot of support and help has come from a lot of directions, from the state to the association to other denominations and everybody in the community,” he said.
In addition to Samaria Baptist offering its facilities, a Church of God and a Nazarene church in the area offered Maple Springs a place to hold worship services.
A Tuscaloosa church offered to buy Davis a new pulpit Bible, and Carpenters for Christ asked if rebuilding Maple Springs could be one of its missions projects for the coming year.
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), visited the church and presented Davis with a check from state disaster relief funds.
“I believe that good will come from this bad situation, and I am pleased that Alabama Baptists have cooperated together to make such disaster relief funds possible for quick response,” Lance said.
A mobile chapel was also made available to the church by the SBOM, but for now, the congregation has elected to continue meeting in Samaria Baptist’s facility.
“We are thankful for all the help,” Davis said. “The grieving is sort of mitigated by the hopeful things.”
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