Grove Hill Baptist Church in Clarke Baptist Association celebrated its 150- year anniversary June 4–5, packing several special events into the two-day celebration.
Among the June 4 events were a PowerPoint presentation of the church history, as well as a video including interviews of 51 church members who described highlights from their involvement in the church’s past and their hopes for the future of the church.
They concluded the day with an old-fashioned ice cream supper, which was a staple in raising funds for a new building after the church burned down in 1996.
During the June 5 worship service, Lonette Berg, executive director of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission (ABHC), and Jack Wright, district 7 commissioner with the ABHC, presented a framed certificate commemorating the anniversary.
The bulletin that morning mapped out several areas of the church where displays of historical information or artifacts were located. This included a curio cabinet filled with historical items, collages with pictures of church members and framed pictures of past pastors and music ministers in the newly remodeled conference room.
Wright, who was a member of the church for 40 years, was also on their historical committee. The committee worked for five months to gather information, prepare for and plan the event.
“Everything went off like clockwork. I have never in my entire life done anything where the pieces fell together like that,” Wright said.
When the church burned down, Wright and several others collected pieces of the stained glass windows. Attendants received bags containing a piece of the stained glass, a snow globe with a picture of the current church building and the first church building in it and a 43-page booklet of church history compiled by the committee.
“It was a good day. It was a very good day,” Wright said. “Everybody was excited.”
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